20/06/2025
Remembering Ahad Zargar (RA): Kashmirâs Mystic Bard
If you wander through the winding alleys of Downtown Srinagarâs Narwara, youâll find a modest mausoleum surrounded by flickering candles and the hushed hum of devotional songs. This is the final resting place of Ahad Zargarâthe weaver-turned-poet who became one of Kashmirâs most cherished Sufi voices. Born in 1882 into a family of humble Pashmina weavers, Zargar transformed his early days at the loom into a life of mystical poetry, devotion, and a message of universal love that still resonates across the Valley.
Early Threads: From Loom to Lyrics
On a crisp autumn day in 1882, Abdul Ahad Zargar entered a world both stunning and fraught with hardships. His birthplace, Narwara, lay at the heart of Srinagar. By day, the haze of wool-dusted workshops filled the air as familiesâhis own includedâwove the famed Pashmina shawls that would one day cover the shoulders of Maharajas. Young Ahad learned quickly, his tiny fingers mastering the shuttle and loom. But even as a boy, there was always something more in his gaze: a stillness, a quiet yearning that went beyond the rhythmic clicking of shuttle and reed.
At the tender age of six or seven, Ahadâs parents enrolled him in the local maktab (traditional village school). There, beneath the shade of a large chinar tree, he memorized Quranic verses and began studying basic Persian. Still, it was at homeâamid spindles and wool skeinsâthat his real education unfolded. Surrounded by elder weavers who traded local gossip and verses alike, Ahad absorbed tales of Kashmirâs rich Sufi lineage: Lalla Dedâs piercing couplets, Nund Rishiâs gentle admonitions, and the countless folk songs that wove spirituality and daily life into a single melody.
By fifteen, Ahad was not only weaving some of the finest patterns, but he was also quietly penning lines of his own. His earliest poemsâscribbled on scraps of paper and hidden inside drawersâreflected a restless soul: he questioned why, if lifeâs meaning lay in the warp and weft of wool, did his heart thirst for something deeper?
Mentors and Mystics: Finding the Sufi Path
When he turned eighteen, Ahadâs parents arranged for him to study at one of Srinagarâs esteemed madrassas, run by Mirwaiz Ahmadullah and Mirwaiz Atiqullah. These two scholars were custodians of Kashmiri Islamic learningâmen versed in Persian classics, Quranic tafsir (exegesis), and the whispered secrets of Sufi masters. For Ahad, this was a transformative moment: the heavy tomes of Rumi and Saadi opened like doors to a new reality. He memorized couplets in Persian and began reciting them under the moonlit veranda of the madrassa.
One afternoon in 1901, miraculously, Mirwaiz Ahmadullah paused mid-lesson, turned to the class, and recited one of Ahadâs own Kashmiri versesâsomething about a candle snuffed by a passing breezeâreading it as if it were a revelation. The teachers saw immediately that Ahadâs pen carried a spark of divine inspiration. From that moment, they encouraged him to deepen both his formal studies and his spiritual practice.
Despite this encouragement, Ahad never sought titles or honors. When a local dignitary offered to underwrite his education in Lucknow, he politely declined. He returned to his weaverâs quarters, blending blind faith in Sufi poetry with the tactile reality of wool against skin.
âI am the hidden secret of the exterior as well as the interiorâ
âTo whom shall I bow, and for whom shall I perform âNemaz?ââ
These lines, translated from a couplet he composed in his early twenties, capture Zargarâs conviction that the Divine cannot be confined to ritual or place. His poetry repeatedly argues: if God is both the world outside and the Kingdom within, what need have we for formalities of worship that remind us of separation? Instead, he urged his listeners to cultivate a direct, loving conversation with the Beloved, wherever their feet might stand.
A Weaverâs Austerity: Embracing Fakirii
As Ahad Zargar approached his mid-twenties, something remarkable happened: he gradually withdrew from the trappings of home life. His mother and siblings expected him to assume a larger role in the family business. Instead, he began sleeping sparingly, wandering the narrow lanes at dawn with nothing but a worn shawl and a water gourd. He embraced the life of a fakirâa spiritual mendicant who viewed poverty not as a curse but as the highest path to Ishq, divine love.
Villagers would often spot him seated beneath a billboard-sized chinar, reciting verse after verse to himself, tears streaming down cheeks streaked with dust. His gait was humble; he refused shoes even in the bone-chilling Kashmir winters. For Ahad, every hardshipâevery sleepless night, every frigid dawnâwas a path toward the Belovedâs presence.
In letters later collected by his disciples, he wrote:
âIn fakirii lies the Kaaba of my heart, the very threshold to God. Stripped of all else, I stand naked before the Throne, not in arrogance but in total surrender.â
By thirty, he had become a familiar sight at shrines across the Valleyâat Khankah-e-Richi, at Hari Parbatâs modest mosque, or hidden away in quaint village mosques where only a handful of elders would remember his name.
Weaving Words: Poetic Style and Themes
Ahad Zargarâs verses sparkle with simplicity. He wrote almost exclusively in Kashmiri, though Persian and Arabic phrases occasionally filter throughâcalling his audience to recall older traditions even as he spoke in their mother tongue. His meter is spare, each line sounding like a droplet of clear mountain spring.
Divine Love (Ishq): One of his most beloved refrains is:
âYour face, O Beloved, has kindled a flame in my heart; This fire of love consumes my soul.â
He addressed âthe Belovedâ with dual meaningâsometimes the Prophet Muhammad , other times the formless Divine. But always, the effect was visceral: listeners felt the heat of yearning, the ache of separation, and the possibility of union.
Unity (Wahdat): His third decade produced lines that challenged orthodoxy:
âI am the hidden secret of the exterior as well as the interior; To whom shall I bow, and for whom shall I perform âNemaz?ââ
Kashmiri believers recitedâand occasionally whispered this couplet in hushed aweâbecause it dared to claim Godâs essence both inside and outside. This assertion of Wahdat al-Wujud (the unity of being) placed him in the lineage of great mystics like Ibn âArabi and Mansur Al-Hallaj, yet Zargar delivered it in the plainspoken cadences of Kashmiri folk song.
Accessibility to the Common Folk: Unlike some courtly poets who cloaked their verses in hyperbolic panegyrics, Zargar drew on everyday images. He would ask: if spring trees sprout new leaves, is it not Godâs hand renewing creation? If a shepherdâs flute tugs at a calfâs heart, does that not mirror the Divineâs gentle coaxing? In one couplet, he wrote:
âSometimes He is Shirin, sometimes Farhad; Sometimes mountain, sometimes river; Sometimes teacher, sometimes studentâ In every form He comes to the loverâs heart.â
By referencing the legendary Persian lovers Shirin and Farhad, then pivoting to mountains and rivers, Zargar conveyed that the Divine might dwell both in epic romance and the most mundane corner of a village glade.
Historical Backdrop: Kashmir in Flux
To understand Zargar fully, one must consider the turbulence of his times. He was born just 36 years after the Treaty of Amritsar (1846), when the British âtransferredâ Kashmir to Maharaja Gulab Singh. Under Dogra rule, many Kashmiris suffered heavy taxes and restrictions. By the 1890sâZargarâs adolescenceâformal institutions of learning had dwindled. Madrasas struggled to teach even basic Quranic literacy. But amid this social malaise, a renaissance of Sufi arts quietly kindled.
By drawing on Persiaâs grand traditions yet singing in Kashmiri, poets like Zargar reaffirmed local identity. He and his contemporariesâGani Kashmiriâs descendants, Lalla Dedâs inheritorsâreclaimed moral authority precisely because the Dogra regime had alienated common folk. In protests that roiled Srinagar in 1931, when Kashmiris rose against Maharaja Hari Singhâs oppressive rule, Zargarâs pen did not whip up rancor. Instead, he pleaded for unity:
âRaise not the sword of hatred, O brother; Let your tongue utter no violence. For even if the tyrantâs boot presses hard, Your soul must bow only before the Beloved.â
These lines, circulated in handbills and sung at clandestine gatherings, strengthened a nonviolent ethos even as repression grew.
By the mid-20th century, Kashmir was a cauldron of competing forces: communal tensions, political agitation, and the call for independence. As communities fractured, Zargar held up his verses as lamps of compassion, reminding people that spiritual unity mattered more than worldly divisions.
A Lifetime of ReverenceâSham-e-Zargar
In 1962, the State Cultural Academy organized a ceremony to honor Ahad Zargar. Surrounded by rising politicians and academics, they proffered him awards. In true Zargar fashion, he quietly walked away. âFakirii needs no crown,â he told a teenage disciple who dared ask why. âMy crown is in scribes who write my lines on their hearts.â
Decades later, his tomb in Narwara became the site of an annual festival known as Sham-e-Zargar (âThe Night of Zargarâ). On these evenings, grief mingles with celebration: musicians play the soulful strains of the sunken rabab and sarangi, while qawwals recite his couplets under strings of earthen lamps. People from all walksâshopkeepers, cricketers, medics, and taxi driversâgather to sit cross-legged on straw mats. They pass around steaming cups of kahwa (green tea with saffron and almonds) and let his verses wash over them like a cleansing rain.
In February 2024, the 40th urs of Ahad Zargar drew an even larger crowd. A local NGO sponsored workshops where poets and scholars discussed Zargarâs enduring relevance. They reminded attendees: in a region still scarred by conflict, his words are balm for broken spirits.
Translating the Soul: Zargar in English
For much of his life, Ahad Zargarâs poetry remained tethered to Kashmiri, accessible mainly to those who understood the Valleyâs dialects and idioms. But in recent years, translation projects have sought to share his mystic flame with the wider world.
Publisher Mushtaq B. Barq released Golden Semee of Ahad Zargar in 2020, offering a carefully annotated English rendition of dozens of Zargarâs verses. Literature critic Dr. Farooq Lone writes in the foreword:
âTo read Zargar in translation is to glimpse Kashmirâs hidden heartâits unwavering faith amid adversity, its spiritual ecstasy even as tumult swirls. His metaphorsâsometimes simple as a shepherdâs song, sometimes daring as claiming unity with the Divineâring true for seekers of every land.â
Barqâs collection begins with Zargarâs famous assertion of unity:
âEven if I fall in tears, my tears are a testamentâ For I weep not merely for anguish, but for joy. For in every drop of sorrow lies the ocean of His love.â
Here, the poetâs ability to hold pain and joy in the same breath exemplifies Kashmirâs broader ethos: to survive hardship by remembering beauty.
Legacy and Living Tradition
Today, Ahad Zargar is no longer just a figure of the past. His words continue to inspire reformers, artists, and devotees in unpredictable ways. An experimental theater troupe in Pulwama staged a play in 2023 called âThe Weaverâs Song,â weaving Zargarâs couplets into modern dialogue about identity and resilience. A womenâs music collective in Sopore released a CD album featuring Zargarâs verses set to contemporary melodiesâa fusion of santoor, oud, and electronic beats. In summer literature festivals across Srinagar, panels debate how his simple declarations of Godâs presence in every stone, every human breath, remain radical today.
But perhaps the most telling sign of his living presence is ordinary people borrowing his lines in everyday conversation. A bricklayer wiping sweat from his brow might murmur, âIn every drop of rain, I taste His blessing,â echoing Zargarâs verse. A teacher in Ganderbal might tell students: âOur poet said that if you see a careless sparrow, realize that God cares for it beyond measure.â In this way, Zargar has become less a distant saint and more a fellow traveler on Kashmirâs roadsâsomeone whose voice feels as at home in a childâs heart as in a scholarâs study.
The Weaverâs Final Pattern
Ahad Zargar passed away in 1984, just two years before the worst of the political violence that would cover the Valley in blood and grief. In his final days, bedridden and nearly mute from age, he asked for nothing more than a recitation of the Qurâan and the company of a few close disciples. One of them recalls how the poetâs last coherent linesâwhispered with a trembling voiceâwere:
âMy love flows on like a silent riverâ Buried now in this clay, yet yearning for the ocean.â
He died believing that the essence he called âthe hidden secretâ would continue streaming through Kashmirâs veins, carried by every breeze that rustles apricot blossoms and every flute that echoes across Wular Lake.
Today, as you stand outside his mausoleum at sunset, you might hear the faint murmur of someone quoting him from memory:
âIf my heart is like bare ground, let your mercy be the seed; Someday, perhaps, an orchard of peace will bloom there.â
That single imageâa heart transformed into an orchardâcaptures why generations still find solace in Zargarâs words. For amid the Valleyâs uncertainties, his poems offer a simple promise: the same Divine presence that sowed the first mustard seed in Kashmirâs fields is alive in every human heart. And if we allow that spark to glow, no winter of conflict or sorrow can extinguish the spring of love.
An Unfinished Loom
Ahad Zargarâs life may have begun and ended in Narwara, but his influence stretches far beyond those narrow lanes. From humble beginnings as a Pashmina weaverâs son, he wove threads of mysticism into the very fabric of Kashmiri identity. His refusal to accept worldly accolades, his passionate couplets about divine unity, and his summons to love in the face of division remain an open invitation to all who yearn for truth.
As Kashmir continues its journeyâthrough upheaval, dreams of peace, and the rhythms of daily lifeâAhad Zargarâs voice endures. Every year, his Sham-e-Zargar draws thousands to Narwara, reminding us that a poetâs words can transcend tombs. His legacy is not confined to dusty pages; it lives in concert halls, in roadside tea stalls, and in whispered prayers.
In the end, perhaps he would have been content with this simple truth: that a man born to weave wool became a weaver of souls. And though the loom lies idle, his tapestry of verses still brightens Kashmirâs heart. As a child of the Valley once said after reading Zargarâs poems, âHis words are like a cup of kahwa for my weary soulâwarm, bitter, and always reminding me where home truly is.â
So next time you find a stray scrap of paper fluttering in Srinagarâs breeze, look closely. It may bear a line of Ahad Zargarâa fragment of that orchard of peace still waiting to bloom in every heart.
Article Researched By | Khanday Jeelani
Author can be reached at [email protected]
Article Link : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/remembering-ahad-zargar-ra-kashmirs-mystic-bard-khanday-dwyic
