An evening at Shah-e-Hamdan mosque

Located on the banks of river Jhelum in Srinagar, Shah-e-Hamdan Mosque is also known as Khanqah masjid and was built in the year 1395. The mosque is one of the oldest in Srinagar and also one of the most visited, both by Kashmiris as well as travelers for centuries. The entry inside is, however, restricted only to Muslims.

Not just the architecture but the story of the person behind the mosque is most interesting. Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani has been one of the most influential travellers who came to Kashmir during the 14th Century. His mosque is now one of the most iconic landmark of the city, the other being Hazrat Bal. The wooden mosque is located on the banks of river Jhelum and that adds even more beauty to the mosque.

The mosque from the front

History

Shah-E-Hamden came to Kashmir three times between 1365 and 1383 and preached Islam to the Buddhist and Hindu population of the region. He is credited to converting about 35,000 people in Kashmir, and all of it was due the message of love that he brought with him. In other parts of the world, the spread of religion was mainly by force and wars.

Sultan Sikander built this mosque in his memory. It has suffered through three devastating fires, the most recent one in 1731. The design of the mosque changed with each rebuilding exercise, but the ethos of love lived on. The current structure has a square plan is made almost completely of wood, and many murals both inside and outside.

Khatamband

The ceiling of the mosque is especially famous for the Kashmir-only craft of Khatamband. 

Khatamband is the art of constructing a ceiling by fitting small pieces of wood, preferably Walnut and Deodar woods together in a geometrical pattern. All this is done with hands and without the use of nails. Read more about his on this article at Kashmirwallah.

The work on the ceiling is Khatamband

The mosque from across river Jhelum

The detailed front gate of the mosque

An interesting Tradition

During our visit, we saw an interesting tradition associated with the mosque on our visit. Basically if you get a bad dream, you make this pulao with meat peaces and distribute it to the visitors to the mosque. This wards off the evil spirit. I am a vegetarian, but this time I decided to try some rice but no meat pieces :)

Meat pulao getting distributed

The entrance of the mosque

The visit was before the devastating Kashmir floods, but thankfully the mosque remains functional. It's winters there and life is tough for those who lost their homes. I pray for return of normalcy in the valley...