Kashmir: Sheikh Makhdoom’s 10-day Urs Kicks off

Hundreds of Hindus and Muslims from across the Kashmir valley are thronging the shrine of Kashmiri saint Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom on his 10-day Urs in Srinagar, braving sub-zero temperatures.

The sick seeking a cure to their ailments, students seeking better percentages in the exams, childless parents tying votive knots to be blessed with a child and others invoking the saint's blessings for their worldly problems spend the day in prayer inside the mosque adjacent to the shrine during the Urs that began on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012.

Despite minimum temperatures dipping to minus 3.5 degrees Celsius on Jan. 20, men, women and children, clad in traditional tweed over garments called 'pherans,' make their way to the shrine atop the 'Koh-e-Maran' (Hill of Serpents) in the middle of the old city of Srinagar. As an icon of Kashmir's syncretic culture, the shrine is central to the tolerant brand of Islam that Kashmir has been famous all over the world for.

Known popularly as 'Sultan-ul-Arifeen' (King of the blessed ones), Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom was born in 1494 to parents whose ancestors belonged to a Hindu Rajput family of Kangra in today's Himachal Pradesh. Despite being a hereditary landlord, Hamza Makhdoom gave up all worldly comforts to spend days and nights in prayer and meditation, a tradition still followed by the devotees at the shrine.