The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c24.89

v3.c24.89

Mīrzā Haidar the Moghul, who conquered Kashmīr in 1541, found the sect strongly represented at Srīnagar, and, obtaining a copy of the *Ahwatah*, sent it to the leading Sunni doctors of the law in India, who authoritatively pronounced it to be heretical. Armed with this decision Mīrzā Haidar went about to extirpate the heresy. ‘Many of the people of Kashmīr,’ he writes, ‘who were strongly attached to this apostasy, I brought back, whether they would or no, to the true faith, and many I slew. A number took refuge in Sūfī-ism, but are no true Sūfīs, having nothing but the name. Such are a handful of dualists, in league with a handful of atheists to lead men astray, with no regard to what is lawful and what is unlawful, placing piety and purity in night watches and abstinence from food, but eating and taking without discrimination what they find; gluttonous and avaricious, pretending to interpret dreams, to work miracles, and to predict the future.’ Orthodoxy was safe in Mīrzā Haidar’s hands.