Srinagar Through the Ages: Culture at the Heart of Kashmir’s Capital
By Syed Amjad Hussain, New Age Islam
1 December 2025
Srinagar’s 2,000-year journey unfolds through culture, poetry, architecture and lived memory, revealing a resilient city shaped by faith, craft, geography and community traditions rather than only political events.
Main Points:
1. The book presents Srinagar as a vibrant, living city shaped by culture, faith and everyday life.
2. Hamdani’s heritage expertise adds depth and authenticity.
3. Poetry, bazaars and architecture reveal long cultural continuities.
4. Intangible traditions receive special focus.
5. Political detail is lighter but the cultural lens is rich and insightful.
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City of Kashmir: Srinagar: A Popular History by Sameer Hamdani (Hurst Publishers, January 2025) offers a rich, approachable journey through 2,000 years of Srinagar’s life. Instead of treating the city as a museum of rulers and battles, Hamdani brings together archival records, poetry in Sanskrit, Persian and Kashmiri, and vivid oral histories to show Srinagar as a place shaped equally by faith, craft, colour and everyday rhythms. You sense the markets, the rituals, the old neighbourhoods and the city’s shifting moods as clearly as its political turns.
Author Background
Sameer Hamdani writes with the kind of authority that only someone rooted in both history and heritage conservation can offer. His years of on-ground work in Srinagar’s architectural and cultural landscape give him a close-up understanding of how the city’s traditions, buildings and crafts have survived and adapted. That practical experience sits comfortably beside his academic approach, creating a narrative that feels both scholarly and deeply familiar.
Content Summary
The book follows Srinagar’s journey from its ancient Hindu-Buddhist beginnings to its medieval Muslim transformations and onwards to the early modern period. Though arranged chronologically, its real strength lies in tracing cultural continuities. Hamdani explores spiritual traditions through translated poetry, examines the city’s bustling bazaars as economic lifelines, and studies its architectural wonders with the help of sketches and photographs. He also shows how religion, community life, geography and repeated invasions shaped a city that has always learnt to rebuild itself.
Strengths and Innovations
By weaving together poetry, folklore, oral memory and visual material, Hamdani creates a textured, multidimensional portrait of Srinagar rarely seen in writing on South Asian cities. His careful attention to intangible heritage, from artisanal work to local festivals, brings human depth to the broader historical story. The illustrations make dense subjects easier to absorb without sacrificing academic depth, keeping the narrative engaging for a wide range of readers.
Critical Evaluation
The book’s strong cultural focus sometimes leaves political or military developments in the background, which may disappoint those wanting more on conflict history. Some sections feel dense, and the terminology can be a bit specialised for casual readers, though the lyrical writing softens the load. Methodologically, it is well-grounded and impressive, but the narrative could gain more comparisons with other historic cities in the region.
Significance and Audience
This work fills an important gap in Kashmiri historiography by moving beyond present-day headlines and restoring Srinagar’s image as a centre of culture, thought and resilience. It is ideal for historians, urban studies scholars, and readers fascinated by South Asian heritage. Even general readers will find themselves drawn in by its graceful storytelling. A strong addition to libraries, classrooms and anyone building a deeper understanding of Kashmir’s past.
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Syed Amjad Hussain is an author and Independent research scholar on Sufism and Islam. He is the author of 'Bihar Aur Sufivad', a bestselling research book based on the history of Sufism in Bihar.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/books-documents/srinagar-culture-heart-kashmir/d/137834
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