PART I

Chapter 10

SHIHAB-UD-DIN'S ANTI-HINDU MEASURES

A scion of Zain-ul-Abidin's court and noted historian, Jonraj, has sung paces and poems about Shihab-ud-Din as a ruler and conqueror, but in the process has missed his livid and lurid acts of bigotry against the Hindus, whom he subjected to the saga of persecution and torture. The Hindus were barred from going to temples as the bigots as a matter of deliberate design had set afloat a canard that the Hindus were hatching plots to dislodge the Muslims from power. Taking it as sedition, Shihab-ud-Din ordered the loot, plunder and demolition of temples and shrines

Hasan, a Muslim chronicler, records that at the behest of Shihab-ud-Din, "all the temples in Srinagar and the famous temple of Bijbehara were subjected to a spree of loot and plunder".