Dargah Hazratbal

Hazratbal Shrine on the western shore of Dal Lake in Srinagar is the most important Muslim shrine in the Kashmir Valley and the principal religious centre of the Kashmiri Muslim community. The shrine is venerated as the resting place of the Moi-e-Muqaddas — a relic believed to be a hair from the beard of the Prophet Muhammad — which was brought to Kashmir in the seventeenth century via the Mughal court of Aurangzeb and is displayed to the assembled congregation only on certain Islamic religious occasions through the year, drawing crowds of tens of thousands of devotees. The current shrine building, in white marble in a hybrid Mughal-Kashmiri architectural style with a single large dome and a slender minaret, was constructed between 1968 and 1979 to replace earlier wooden structures on the site, with funding from the Jammu and Kashmir government during the chief ministership of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. The location on the shore of Dal Lake — with the snowcapped Pir Panjal range visible across the water on a clear day — makes the shrine one of the most photographed religious buildings in northern India. The shrine has been the focus of significant political and religious events in modern Kashmiri history, most notably the 1963 disappearance and recovery of the Moi-e-Muqaddas relic, which precipitated a major political crisis. Friday prayers and the major Islamic festivals draw substantial congregations.