Lailut-ul-Qadr/Shab-e-Qadr

They say that the night of the Lailut-ul-Qadr, or the Shab-e-Qadr is the night of Power. Lail means night and the word qadr means decree. Lailut-ul-Qadr is considered, the night of decree  because the Muslims believe that the Quran, their Holy Book was revealed to them on this night.

 In the Holy Quran, it states that for praying the night of power is better than a thousand months.

The Sahih Bukhari further states that anyone who prays during the night of Shab-e-Qadr will be forgiven all of their past sins. There are contradictory claims to the actual date on which this night falls. While Sayeed Bukhari states, that it’s one of the odd numbered nights in the last ten day of the month of Ramazan. Therefore, it could be on the 21^st, 23^rd, 25^th, 27^th or the 29^th day of the month. While, according to the Sayeed Muslim- it’s the 27^th night of the Holy Month of Ramazan. There are apparently, 40 different versions stating which is the Night of Power.

Tonight lakhs of people in Kashmir, will be observing the Shab-e-Qadr. The Jamia Masjid, itself will have people filtering in from all parts of Kashmir for this special night. According to a Greater Kashmir report, the Jamia Masjid expects a congregation of close to a lakh while the Hazratbal Shrine expects about close to thirty thousand people tonight.

Shab-e-Qadr in Kashmir

Kashmiri Folklore- Wai Wouf

Wai Wouf-  The Wai Wouf is supposedly a nocturnal creature. There are many versions of the tales about this creature. Some believe that it is an animal-a cat or dog that howls wouf wouf, while it moves around in desolated houses. While others believe the Wai Wouf is a little midget whose powers lie in his toup, his cap.

This is a story I heard from Ayaz who heard it from his grandparents.

"One day a donga walla who used to go for work in the Dal captured the Wai Wouf’s cap. So he started using the power of the cap to control the creature. The donga walla had reduced it into a common slave and would send him to run errands. Now the Wai Wouf was very clever. He waited for an opportunity to regain his power by repossessing his cap.  One day, the Wai Wouf tricked the man’s wife to return his cap and as soon as he repossessed it he killed the entire family by submerging the  donga into water."- Ayaz (lives  near the Dal in Srinagar) 

Folklore from Kashmir-Wai Wouf

Kashmiri Folklore- Vigne on Jinns and Peris

Vigne, an Englishman who visited Kashmir around 1835 described some mythical figures in his book- 'Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo, the Countries Adjoining the Mountain-Course of the Indus, and the Himalaya,'. i'm just mentioning the ones I haven't covered. 

The Jins

"The Gins (geni) are the most universally feared, and Samud Shah [ a local noble and Vigne's guide and host on many occasions] assured me that there were many places where a man could not venture after nightfall, for fear of them. There is an old musjid standing alone on a desolate spot, between Shupeyon and Safur Nagur, near, I think, the village of Arihel, where the gins, as he affirmed, were as thick as sheep in a fold. He once, when travelling, repaired thither for the purpose of saying his prayers ; he heard his own name pronounced, and a gin suddenly appeared in the shape of a jackal, and nearly knocked him down by running against him. He was terribly frightened, and having made his escape, narrated his tale to the first peasant he met, who expressed his astonishment at his having ventured into a place which every one knew to be so dangerous."

The Deyu

"The Deyu are cannibal giants."

The Peri

"The Peri is a being beautiful enough to compensate for all these horrors. Their bodies are made up of the four elements; but fire is the predominant ingredient without consuming the rest. But their amours with a mortal are followed by death from fire.

The attachment of the females is as fatal as that of the other sex ; but they are said to play all kinds of pranks. Their ladies, like Titania, will occasionally become fond of "a lovely boy stolen from an Indian king." And the young Kashmirian girls modestly accuse the fairies of both sexes of stealing the surma (antimony) from their eyelids whilst they sleep; the one from love, and the other from jealousy of their beauty. The old building of Kutlina, on the green slope that overhangs the city lake, is considered as one of their principal quarters, and is also on that account denominated the Peri Mahal, or the palace of the fairies."

"The Mushran appears in the shape of a dirty-looking and very old man, who seizes a person with a parental hug, and produces thenceforth a wasting and dangerous decline."