Above the southern entrance of the 600-year-old Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, there's an inscription that praises Allah, but most visitors overlook it. It's not their fault; it's positioned high above eye level and written in Persian.

This inscription is a fascinating piece of history.

Like many inscriptions, it details the mosque's construction dates, but it also notes the repairs and renovations that took place from the 1400s up to the reign of Mughal emperor Jahangir in the early 17th century.

One particularly striking detail is that the main calligrapher was Muhammad Murad, while the master craftsman was a Hindu named Hari Ram.

“This is something that hasn’t been documented before—that a Hindu craftsman contributed to the Jamia Masjid,” explains Hakim Sameer Hamdani, a 48-year-old art historian based in Srinagar.

For over a year, he and his team of architects, historians, and conservationists have been uncovering bits of history that have been overlooked, meticulously surveying and recording details that are not found in public records but are carved into stone.

Currently, they are focusing on inscriptions at 44 monuments in the area, built between the 15th and 19th centuries. They initially had a list of over 100 sites, but many structures are in such disrepair that the inscriptions are either missing or too damaged to read. In some cases, the inscriptions have simply been painted over.

Bit by bit

Hamdani first thought about documenting the notes from these plaques eight years ago during a visit to a 15th-century shrine dedicated to the Sufi mystic Malik Ahmad Itoo, located at Safa Kadal near the Jhelum River. At that time, he was working on his PhD in Islamic architecture in New Delhi.

He realized that his great-grandfather, Mirza Munshi Hussain Ali, a well-known calligrapher and Persian teacher, would have been intrigued by the stories these plaques tell. He began to wonder what messages might be hidden in the inscriptions found at shrines, mosques, or temples in his home state.

Since then, as he has explored the area, he has discovered messages of faith, gratitude, and devotion, along with some that serve as introductions to the religion.

Hamdani likens these inscriptions to modern-day billboards, saying, “They’re promoting something and trying to engage the reader.”

The diversity they showcase is a testament to the unity that Kashmir was once celebrated for. There are Hindu and Sikh temples adorned with Persian writings, and Muslim monuments honoring Hindu artisans, highlighting the pride in the collaborative spirit that created stunning religious and community spaces.

While most of the inscriptions he has examined are in Persian, the researchers have also come across texts in Arabic and the Kashmiri Sharda script.

History networks

Hamdani describes the experience as a rollercoaster of emotions. At times, it feels like history is just out of grasp. For example, records from the British era and data from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) reference plaques that are no longer found at their original locations.

One such plaque was missing from the early-20th-century Aqil Mir mosque, but the team eventually located it 2 kilometers away at a Sufi shrine.

Who knows how many others have been moved and are still waiting to be found, Hamdani reflects.

On another note, the Shankaracharya temple in Srinagar is thought to be over 2,000 years old and is believed to have undergone repairs during the Shahmiri Sultans' reign. However, it too is lacking its inscription.

In the 1870s, ASI superintendent Henry Cole noted that an inscription in Persian identified a person named Bishishti Zargaras as the one who handled repairs. “It’s fascinating to consider that one of Srinagar's oldest temples was restored during the time of Muslim rulers, and it was a Muslim who did the work,” Hamdani points out.

Some of the tales he has discovered will be included in his upcoming book, Srinagar: A Popular History, set to be released by Hurst later this year, with a monograph to follow.

But Hamdani isn’t stopping there. As the design director for the Jammu and Kashmir branch of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), he expects to uncover more inscriptions as he travels throughout the area.

“These small slabs tell us a lot about how society changed over the past three or four centuries,” he explains. He hopes that more stories will emerge, still etched in stone.

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