Peer Ghulam Hassan Shah Khoihami: Flaws with Historical Discourses

By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam 10 June 2023 Peer Ghulam Hassan Shah Khoihami: Hayat Aur Karnamey Authors: Dr Parvez Ahmad Pala & Javed Ahmad Malla Publisher: Kitab Mahal, Srinagar, Kashmir Pages: 136, Price: Rs 599 ------ History writing is a serious profession, venture and even an adventure for many. Every nation, community, kingdom and ruling elite has its battery and coterie of historians. The historical works documented and penned down by the historians are an important source, for anyone to know about the past as well as the contemporary times. The kings used to employ court historians and poets, who used to present them as flawless, extraordinary people, whose rule was a shadow of God on earth (Zill e Ilahi) and indispensable for their salvation. These employed court historians always presented the king or queen as being the best, while vilifying the opponents. Among Muslims, Ibn Khaldun can be credited for breaking the tradition of writing the praises of kings and presenting it as official history of people. He was the first one to document the real life of people and how they eked out a living. His contribution to history and sociology are now being academically studied and researched. But again, his method of writing history did not gain wide acceptance and official historians continued to shower baseless praises on their employer, the King. This trend continued. Historian writing witnessed a major shift with the Marxist documentation of history and then subaltern critique of the mainstream history writing. In Islam, too the revisionist scholars now are taking a different stance to history writing, because the sectarianism, misogyny, patriarchy and other such evils prevalent among Muslims today, have their roots in historical traditions. This history was later on divinized, given an Islamic garb and today have become a part of religion. Hence, there is a dire need of changing the historical discourse, bringing forth the facts and truth, while discarding the narratives of Banu Ummayah, Abbasids and Fatimids. History writing even today is a contested domain. The manner, narrative, ideology and discourse in which facts are presented before us, constitute history. Despite, the professional training and academics involved in history writing, it certainly cannot be claimed to be free from stereotypes, prejudice and bias. The post-modern critique of history writing has rendered the objectivity as a casualty. However, keeping all these critiques and discourses in mind, history writing still continues and will constitute an important domain of understanding the past and present. The kings and official historians, now have been replaced by ruling political parties and regimes that have the power to censor everything presented as history. There are well funded institutes, that have been institutionalized to rewrite the past, and the manner in which school text books are written with an agenda, has weaponised history. With this weaponised history, the past is reconstructed, a certain community is demonized and contemporary people are rendered to hate each other based on this newly reconstructed past. In Kashmir, as a part of whole South Asia, the discourse of history writing was not different. However, similar to the past there were variegated independent historians, who may today be grouped as subalterns, as they did pen down history of their times. One such soul was Peer Ghulam Hasan Shah Koihami. This work by two researchers, Dr Parvez Ahmad Pala and Javed Ahmad Malla, try to explore the life and legacy of this historian. Koihami, documented his history known as Tareek e Hassan, in couple of volumes. He was a scholar, historian, poet and writer. He was associated with Sir Walter Lawrence, whose famed work History of Kashmir, offers a glimpse of Kashmir’s past as well as Dogra regime. Being associated with Lawrence, who was appointed as Land Settlement Commissioner by the British, Koihami would help him with the translation of Persian texts. His travels in most parts of Kashmir, did offer him great insights about his people, their plight and access to the primary material that helped him document the history. Although, not much is written about Koihami by his contemporaries because he was critical of the Dogra atrocities. The reader is made aware, that his parents migrated from Bandipora to Srinagar, during the Sikh rule. Being a poet, he expressed himself in Kashmiri and Persian. So we find his Hamds (praises for God) and Naats (encomiums written about Prophet Muhammad). Koihami, appears to be a moralist who intends and espouses how a man can overcome his baser instincts like lust and materialism. He criticizes the false and wrong values prevalent among the people during his times. He also informs us about the animals and birds found in Kashmir. He is also critical about the fictionalized stories about Uncle of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Ameer Hamza, who has been elegized in stories about Ameer Hamza. Also Dastango’s (story tellers) have weaved ill-conceived stories about Prophet and his first wife Khadija (RA). He opposes such writers and story tellers. He has a complete volume dedicated to documenting the hagiographies about religious personalities, saints and Sufis, but excludes Shias and Hindus from this volume, thus depicting his bias. His skipping about mentioning their details, very well points about the fact, how personal faith interferes with his historical documentation. It is true for most of the historians. Even now when history is written, rarely a Hindu or Muslim historian is able to do justice with the subject, because they take a certain subjective view of the facts, thus flawed facts and narratives are presented as history. It makes the efforts of Hindu-Muslim reconciliation more cumbersome. However, in spite of all these flaws his history remains an important source to understand and know about the Kashmir’s past. These scholars need to be felicitated, so is the publisher to be congratulated for publishing this important work that offers a reader, basic information about the thoughts, views and historical works Peer Hassan Shah Koihami. But this work can further be improved upon, with the addition about critically engaging with his methodology, flaws, contemporary relevance of his Tareek e Hassan. Is his Tareek, dispensable? Can Walter Lawrence suffice to be used as the sole source, that most of the English knowing scholars have utilized, as his Tareek still has not been translated into Urdu. If that is the case, then what is the utility and contemporary relevance of Koihami? These and many such more issues need to be judiciously and academically engaged, only then we can have enriched historical discourse about Kashmir. ----- M.H.A. Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir URL: https://newageislam.com/books-documents/peer-khoihami-flaws-historical-discourses/d/129958 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism