The Hazratbal Shrine

The Hazratbal Shrine (Kashmiri: हज़रतबल (Devanagari), حضرت بل (Nastaleeq), translation: Majestic Place), is a Muslim shrine in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir, India. It contains a relic, the Moi-e-Muqqadas, believed by many Muslims of Kashmir to be a hair of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The name of the shrine comes from the Arabic word Hazrat, meaning holy or majestic, and the Kashmiri word bal, (bal is a corrupted form of Sanskrit Vala which means an enclosure) meaning place.^[1]

The shrine is situated on the left bank of the Dal Lake, Srinagar and is considered to be Kashmir's holiest Muslim shrine.^[2] The shrine is known by many names including Hazratbal, Assar-e-Sharief, Madinat-us-Sani, or simply Dargah Sharif.^{[citation needed]}

History of the relic 

According to legend, the relic was first brought to India by Syed Abdullah, a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad who left Medina and settled in Bijapur, near Hyderabad in 1635.^{[citation needed]} When Syed Abdullah died, his son, Syed Hamid, inherited the relic.^{[citation needed]} Following the Mughal conquest of the region, Syed Hamid was stripped of his family estates. Finding himself unable to care for the relic, he sold it to a wealthy Kashmiri businessman, Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Eshai.^{[citation needed]}

However, when the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb came to know of what had transpired, he had the relic seized and sent to the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer, and had Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Eshai imprisoned in Lahore for possessing the relic.^{[citation needed]} Later, realizing his mistake, Aurangzeb decided to restore the relic to Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Eshai and allowed him to take it to Kashmir.^{[citation needed]} However, by that point, Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Eshai had already died in imprisonment.^{[citation needed]} In the year 1700, the relic finally reached Kashmir, along with the body of Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Eshai. There, Inayat Begum, daughter of Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Eshai, became a custodian of the relic and established the shrine.^{[citation needed]}