The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24.88

v3.c24.88

One solitary event during this period is worthy of record. This was the appearance in Kashmīr, during the first reign of Fath Shāh (1489–1497) of a preacher from Tālish, on the shores of the Caspian, named Shams-ud-dīn, who described himself as a disciple of Sayyid Muhammad Nūr Bakhsh of Khurāsān, and preached a strange medley of doctrines. He named his sect *Nūr Bakhsh* (‘Enlightening’), after his master, but its tenets resembled in no way any doctrines ever taught by Sayyid Muhammad. Shams-ud-dīn professed to be an orthodox Sunnī, like the majority of the inhabitants of the valley of Kashmīr, but the doctrines set forth in his theological work entitled *Ahwatah*, or ‘most comprehensive,’ are described as a mass of infidelity and heresy, conforming neither to the Sunnī nor to the Shiah creed. He insisted on the duty of cursing the first three orthodox Caliphs and the prophet’s wife, ‘Āyishah, a distinctively Shiah practice which strikes at the root of Sunnī orthodoxy and accentuates the chief difference between the sects. He differed from the Shiahs in regarding Sayyid Muhammad Nūr Bakhsh as the promised Mahdī, who was to appear in the last days and establish Islam throughout the world, and taught much else which was irreconcilable with the doctrines of any known sect of Islam.