Beyond The Frame | Khanqah of Shah Hamdan (Kashmir) | X-Pro1
Photo � Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved Amir Khusrow Dehlavi (1253 � 1325 ) was a Sufi musician, poet and scholar from the Indian subcontinent, who was quoted as saying of Kashmir: �If there is a heaven on earth, it's here, it's here. (� Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin asto. �) It is also said that it was Emperor Jehangir who said these words...whoever said it (and my money is on Khusrow), Kashmir is indeed beautiful. I'll set aside political views on the current (and recent) political events in Kashmir, and dwell on its beauty and spirituality....and its photographic magnetism. Historians are united that Hazrat Bulbul Shah was the first saint who sowed the seeds of Islam in Kashmir in 1301, and he might have come from Samarkand or from Bukhara. It was he who convinced Rinchan, the then ruler of Kashmir to convert to Islam, and Sadruddin Shah (as he became known) was the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir. He ruled Kashmir from 1320 to 13...