Tuesday, December 27, 2022

A Stolen Holy Relic On This Day in History

 

On this day in 1963, an important Islamic holy relic for Muslims in India, a 600-year old strand of hair from the prophet Muhammad, was stolen from the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu & Kashmir state, leading to riots throughout the city and the deaths of two rioters. State Premier Khwaja Shams-ud-Din announced a $21,000 reward and a $105 annual stipend for the recovery of the relic, referred to as the "Mu-i-Mubarak, which had been brought to the Hazratbal in 1699. 

The relic— a brown hair, encased in a small glass tube, in a green bag in a silver box that had been locked inside the shrine— would reappear just as mysteriously on January 4.

Another strand of hair from Muhammad's beard was stolen in Turkey in 2016.

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