PART I

Chapter 13

MIR ALI HAMDANI'S ADVICE TO SULTAN SIKANDAR -

AN  ATROCIOUS  FALSEHOOD

As a bare fact of history, it is not unknown that Mir Mohammad Hamadani as a formidable proselytiser was squarely responsible for the blatant use of force and sword against the Hindu masses of Kashmir. The pages of history are teeming with the brutalities and savageries inflicted on them only to coerce them to accept Islam. Sultan Sikandar proved their great tormentor and the Hindus ran helter and skelter to safer zones and as per the living memory of Kashmiri Pandits only eleven families stayed back and rest of them were either brutally massacred or converted to Islam. Mir Mohammad not only instigated Sultan Sikandar for the war waged against the Hindus, but is also said to have quoted scriptures that the Hindu Kafirs were enemies of Islam and could not be granted protection as Zhimmis and yet, to Bamzai, he is a sufi saint, who looked upon the policy of his mentor with disfavour and disapproval.

In his zeal for being a Muslim apologist, he goes on to add that "Mir Ali Hamadani, the great sub Sayyid, would not look with equanimity on this show of brute force against the Brahmans (Hindus of Kashmir) and advised Sultan Sikandar to desist from this un-Islamic practice. The Brahmans were allowed to pursue their religion and occupation on payment of poll-tax or Jaziya."

Be it said that what Bamzai has recorded is a sheer distortion of and violence on facts of history. Mir Ali Hamadani as per authentic records had died in 1385 A.D. and was laid to rest at Khatlan and according to Bamzai, Sultan Sikandar came to the throne of Kashmir exactly in 1389 A.D., that is four years after Mir Ali's demise. As per hard facts, Mir Mohammad arrived in Kashmir in 796/ 1393 and soon after Sultan Sikandar was regimented into bigotry and embarked upon the extirpation of infidelity from the belts of Kashmir. How Sultan Sikandar was asked and advised to stop his genocidal war against the Hindus after Mir Ali's demise by Mir Ali himself is understandable to Bamzai alone.