Shah Mir dynasty of Kashmir

The change of religion

Shah Mir, an incomer who had entered Kashmiri service, took power in 1339 amid the collapse that followed a Mongol raid. The conversion of the valley to Islam over the following two centuries was accomplished less by the sultans than by Sufi preachers — the Kubrawi mission of Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, and the indigenous Rishi order founded by Nund Rishi, whose verses in Kashmiri are still recited.

Kashmir's Islam took a distinctive shape from this: the Rishi tradition drew on the valley's existing ascetic and Śaiva currents, and Lal Ded, the fourteenth-century Śaiva mystic whose vākhs are the foundation of Kashmiri literature, is claimed by both communities.

Sikandar and Zain al-Abidin

Sikandar, who ruled from 1389, is remembered as Butshikan, the idol-breaker. The Kashmiri chronicles record the systematic destruction of temples, the imposition of jizya, and the emigration of much of the brahmin population. The scale is disputed and the sources are later than the events, but the episode is among the best documented instances of state-directed iconoclasm in Indian history and is not seriously denied.

His son Zain al-Abidin, who ruled for fifty years from 1420 and is remembered simply as Bud Shah, the great king, reversed it: he recalled the exiles, restored temples, abolished the jizya, and forbade cow slaughter. He also brought craftsmen from Central Asia and established in Kashmir the industries it is still known for — papier-mâché, carpet weaving, shawl making, wood carving — and had the Rājataraṅgiṇī continued and Sanskrit works translated into Persian.

Two sultans of one dynasty, a generation apart, are among the strongest arguments against reading the period as a single confessional narrative in either direction.

The dynasty gave way to the Chaks in 1561.