Srinagar shrine: Where the faithful flocked
In
a massive fire on Monday, the Dastgeer Sahib shrine located in Srinagar, Jammu
& Kashmir, was almost completely destroyed. A place of worship for the local
devout and revered by people of all faiths, the incident saw the locals weeping
openly as there was little they could do as the flames
spread.
Thankfully,
valuable relics of the sufi saint, Hazrat Sheikh Abdullah Qadir
Jeelani, populary known as Gaus Ul Azam, after whom the mosque is
named, as well as rare
Quranic manuscripts, were saved.
The photograph above is
how the shrine looked before the fire gutted it. A beautiful green and white
mosque, it was more than 300-years-old and an example of Kashmiri architecture,
with khatamband style of ceiling. Now, INTACH's J&K
Chapter is planning to
give a digital map of the shrine to the Government to enable it to restore the
shrine's original look.
Apparently, an Afghan
traveller who was visiting Kashmir, presented the then Governor a holy relic
belonging to a renowned sufi saint syed Abdul Qadir Jeelani. The relic was
deposited with Syed Buzargh Shah, a prominent Qadri order sufi of that time.
Later, a shrine was constructed at Khanyar in 1806 to house the relics, which
were displayed to the general public during various religious festivals
Source: Times of Inda
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