Bilal Bashir Bhat
Among the many foreign saints and scholars who are believed to shape Kashmir’s literary and spiritual history, Sheikh-ul-Alam popularly known as Nund Rishi emerged an authentic and undisputed figure from the soil of Kashmir, teaching faith, morality and devotion in the language of its people.
Born in Kaimoh, Kulgam, in 779 AH, he was not a spiritual figure who arrived from a distant land. He was a son of Kashmir, shaped by its landscape, people, language and social realities. He articulated an Islamic spirituality that spoke directly to Kashmiris in their own language.
His journeys across the Valley and his verses reflect a life devoted to conveying faith and moral guidance. In doing so, he became one of the strongest expressions of Kashmir’s indigenous spiritual tradition.
What makes Sheikh Noor-ud-Din particularly significant is not simply that he was born in Kashmir, but that he made Kashmiri itself a vehicle for religious and ethical thought. His shruks addressed faith, devotion, morality, self-discipline, human conduct and the individual’s relationship with Allah. They transformed complex spiritual ideas into memorable expressions accessible to ordinary people.
A farmer could hear them, a labourer could remember them, a native Kashmiri could understand them, a mother could pass them on to her children, and members of local communities could transmit them to the next generation. In this way, religious and ethical thought entered the collective memory through the language of everyday life.
At the heart of his message was Tawhid, the absolute oneness of God. His teachings emphasis on compassion, human dignity, peace and social harmony was therefore rooted in an explicitly Islamic moral framework. Rather than placing barriers of cast, and family legacies between the believer and the Creator, his teachings called for a direct consciousness of Allah and a life ordered by faith.
This is also where his poetry demonstrates its particular power. One of his preserved verses compares the human heart to a fish whose life depends upon water, presenting the remembrance of Allah as the nourishment of the heart. Such imagery turned an abstract spiritual principle into something immediately understandable to ordinary Kashmiris.
His contribution, however, extends beyond religious thought. He occupies an important place in the history of the Kashmiri language. By expressing theological and ethical ideas through Kashmiri, he demonstrated the language’s capacity to carry serious reflection on God, morality, mortality, the human soul and society.
That legacy has particular relevance today. At a time when younger generations are becoming increasingly detached from their mother tongue, Sheikh Noor-ud-Din’s shruks can serve both as spiritual instruction and as a means of preserving Kashmiri linguistic heritage. This is why selected shruks should be introduced into the school curriculum from the primary level, with age-appropriate material at different stages of education.
There is also a danger in reducing great historical personalities to annual commemorations. Sheikh Noor-ud-Din should not exist only in the memory of pilgrims visiting Charar-e-Sharief. His words should have a place in classrooms, libraries, books and homes. His authentic shruks should be preserved, translated, explained and taught.
More than six centuries after his passing, his words continue to resonate because they joined three enduring elements: faith, language and place. He emerged from Kashmir, spoke to Kashmiris in their own tongue and gave religious thought a form that became part of the Valley’s cultural memory.
Sheikh Noor-ud-Din therefore deserves to be remembered not merely as a saint associated with Kashmir, but as one of Kashmir’s defining spiritual voices. That voice deserves not merely to be remembered. It deserves to be taught.
