#MirSayyidAliHamdani: Probabaly the foremost transnational Sufi figure who visited Kashmir in the medieval times, Sayyid Ali (1314-84) was a prominent Shaykh of the Kubrawi order. While historically, it is certain that the Sayyid only visited Kashmir once, leaving Kashmir after..

spending a single chilla (solitary penance of 40 days) in the city of Srinagar, later day Muslim tazkira nigars would revisit the Sayyid & his influence on Kashmir by referring to him as the baniye-Islam( founder of Islam) in the valley, who made three separate visits. Over the..

years every major craft that flourished under the Sultan's would be ascribed to Mir Sayyid Ali and his entourage of '700'. Unlike Mir Sayyid Ali, it was his son Mir Muhammad Ali Hamdani who was responsible for making large scale changes to physical as well as cultural landscape..

of Kashmir in close collaboration with Sultan Sikander. This also resulted in the introduction of a more 'orthodox- sharia' ordained polity in the region- as well as iconoclastic events.

Mir Muhamamd Hamdani also helped in engraving the memory of his father as well as entrenching the Kubrawi order in the spiritual landscape of Muslim Kashmir through the construction of Khanqah-i Maulla, the principal Kubrawi seat in Kashmir.

Known as Khanqah-i Amirriyah, Khanqah-i Hamdani during the Sultanate period, the site after its last major reconstruction in the 18th century, would be truly transformed into the 'Great Khanqah' - both as an architectural monument and as one of the leading spiritual & political

centers of Kashmiri Muslims. In the home of their origin at the court of Ilkhanids, the Kubrawis emerged as active center of orthodoxy pushing against the ideas of ibn al Arabi. The numerous short treatises authored by Mir Sayyid Ali Hamdani reflect this viewpoint.

The continuing popularity of the Sufi Sufi Shaykh in Kashmir- is indicative of the reverence he exerts on a land which he had visited but briefly.

We can get a sense of this popularity by examining how both Shia & Sunni Muslims claim the Sayyid as their own.

Ahh....forgot to add that as the name indicates the Sayyid was of Iranian origin.