Travel Photography | Friday Prayer at Hazratbal Mosque | Srinagar Kashmir

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | iPhoneography | Kashmiri Man and Women Perform Friday Prayer at Hazratbal Mosque | Srinagar Kashmir | 3rd February 2012

It is indeed a rare experience for me to perform Friday Prayer here in Hazratbal Mosque, Srinagar Kashmir. The Hazratbal mosque is situated in Srinagar only 8 Kms from Lal Chowk, on the western banks of the picturesque Dal Lake. Facing the beautiful Nishat Bagh, the mosque offers a spectacular view of the lake and the mountain afar.

The building which is known as shrine today was actually built as a pleasure house by Sadiq Khan, subedar of Shah Jahan in 1623. When Shah Jahan came to Kashmir in 1634, he asked that the Ishrat Mahal or the pleasure house should be converted to a house of prayer. This was the story of this building lying about 25 kilometers from the Badgam district, becoming a shrine.

The fame of the Hazratbal in Srinagar lies in its association with a strand of Prophet Mohammad’s hair known as Moi-e-Muqqadus. This story is also equally interesting. When the hair came to Kashmir during the rule of Aurangzeb in 1699, then at first it was preserved at shrine of Naqshband Sahib. But the shrine was small and therefore not capable of every day handling of the huge crowd that thronged to visit the Prophet’s hair. Therefore, Aurangzeb ordered the strand of hair to be preserved at the Hazratbal shrine at Srinagar.

Anyway, what strike me the most when we enter into the compound of the Hazratbal is that, we saw a large crowd of women, came here to perform Friday Payer, as a Malaysian, this is truly a rare experience because in Malaysia, we rarely seen any women perform Friday Prayer in the open area, but here it was like they came to perform Eid-alFitr prayer and unlike women in Malaysia which wore white clothing when perform a prayer, this Kashmiri women wore colorful clothing.

I did bring my DSLR with me but I was afraid to use it because this area are heavily guard by the Indian Armies and before we were allowed to enter this mosque, we have to get through a scanner just like at the airport and the army will check our bags and thank God that we were allowed to take our camera inside, but after performing the prayer I was a little bit  nervous to use my DSLR to take a photograph because I didn’t see anyone using DSLR to taking pictures there, but I did saw few people using their mobile phones to take a photographs, so I take out my iPhone and take few shots and videos as well. Actually the real reason that I did not use my DSLR is that I saw a lot of Indian Army all over the places, and I didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention, so to be safe, I just follow the crowds.

* Actually I did take few shots with my DSLR discreetly but the result are not that good to be shared here   🙂