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Why Chanting In Kashmir Mosques Began In Departure From Tradition

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Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook O n one of his trips to Srinagar, the capital of the Indian side of Kashmir, veteran BBC journalist Sir Mark Tully heard an unusual, rhythmically rising and falling chanting from a white marble mosque. The chanting at sunrise from the revered mosque on the banks of the Dal Lake in Hazratbal, which houses a relic of the Prophet Muhammad, he wrote, sounded 'not unlike Hindu bhajans'. Tully was not entirely off the mark. The chanting was that of Aurad-ul-Fatiha, an anthology of Quranic verses and the Prophet’s sayings  14th-century saint Mir Syed Ali Hamdani complied for converts to Islam to chant in mosques similar to how it was done in temples. ALSO READ: Once Scorned, How Peshawaris From 'Central Asia's Piccadilly' Ruled Bollywood The faithful have been chanting the anthology in mosques since then in a major departure from the otherwise Muslim practice of silent worship. Hamdani, who popularised Islam among the masses in Ka