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Introduction
The origin of Islam in Gilgit-Baltistan can be traced to the advent of Islam in the neighbouring regions. Muslim rule in Central Asia and India around the eighth century CE also marked the region for Islamic influence. Hence, until the late fourteenth century CE, various preachers and invaders came to Gilgit-Baltistan but failed to play any significant role in consolidating Islam in the region. According to historical sources and archaeological evidences, Sayyid ‘Ali Hamadani (d. 1384 CE) was the first who laid firm foundations of Islam in the region in 1379 CE.1 The total population of Gilgit-Baltistan is over 1.49 million having four prominent Muslim sects, with an approximate population of Twelver Shi‘is (39%), Sunnis (27%), Isma‘ilis (18%), and Nurbakhshis (16%).2
Gilgit-Baltistan3 is administratively divided into three divisions and ten districts. This region is very diversified in terms of socio-cultural and geophysical aspects. It has an area of 72,496 sq. km.4 It borders the Chinese Xinjiang to the north, Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir to the east, Pakistan administered Azad Jammu and Kashmir to the south and Afghanistan and Central Asia through the Wakhan corridor to the west.
Archaeological evidence is not sufficient for a complete account of the pre-Islamic religions. Some evidence of around the second century BCE refers to the existence of the Zoroastrians in the region. Buddhism remained the prominent religion of the region until Muslims came to Central Asia around the eighth century CE. The archaeological evidence primarily depends on rock arts but some monumental remains like gravestones, grave excavations, and cultural materials also provide some information. The stupas of Buddha and Kharoshthi inscriptions of Buddhism still exist.
Mir Muhammad Nurbakhsh (1393-1464 CE), the founder of the Nurbakhshi order, belonged to the Kubravi-Hamadani Sufi order, which started and flourished in Persia (modern-day iran) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries CE. As a Sufi reformer, Mir Nurbakhsh tried to eliminate the sectarian conflicts between the Muslims by giving them a new Sufi identity. His reformist efforts led to his confrontation with the Timurid Sultan, Mirza Shahrukh (d. 1447 CE), the ruler of Persia and Transoxiana, who executed Mir Nurbakhsh's spiritual preceptor, Khavajah Ishaq Khuttalani, the Kubravi Sufi master, in 1424 CE. Mir Nurbakhsh also spent most of his next twenty years...