The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24.51

v3.c24.51

ISLAM was introduced into Kashmīr at the beginning of the fourteenth century of the Christian era by Shāh Mīrzā, an adventurer from Swāt, who in 1315 entered the service of Sinha Deva, a chieftain who had established his authority in the valley of Kashmīr. Sinha Deva was overthrown and slain by Rainchan, a Tibetan who also was in his service and is said to have accepted Islam, probably at the suggestion of Shāh Mīrzā, whom he made his minister, entrusting him with the education of his children. On Rainchan’s death Udayana Deva, a scion of the old royal house, who had found an asylum in Kishtwār during the ursurpation, returned to the valley, married Kota Devī, Rainchan’s widow, and ascended the throne. He died after a reign of fifteen years, and his widow called upon Shāh Mīrzā to place upon the throne her son, but the minister, during his long tenure of office, had formed a faction of his own, and was no longer content with the second place in the state. The circumstances in which he obtained the first are variously related. According to one account he proposed marriage to the widowed queen, who committed suicide rather than submit to the alliance, but the more probable story is that on Shāh Mīrzā’s hesitating to obey her command she assembled her forces, attacked him, and was defeated. Shāh Mīrzā then forcibly married her, and before she had been his wife for twenty-four hours imprisoned her and ascended the throne in 1346, under the title of Shams-ud-dīn Shāh.