When a Muslim family took care of holy Hindu shrine

A Muslim family took care of the Amarnath cave after shepherd Butta Malik was said to have rediscovered the holiest Hindu shrine. 

In 2008, the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) ended the Malik family’s association with Lord Shiva. Three parties — the Pandits of Mattan Temple, the Mahant and the Malik family — were offered a one-time settlement to make the SASB the sole guardian of the shrine.

“We were offered Rs 1.5 crore to give away the custodianship. While other two parties took the money, we refused,” Mohammad Afzal Malik tells DNA, sitting in his modest house in his village of Batkot near Pahalgam. 

An employee in J&K’s roads and buildings department, he heads the Malik clan of 11 families. “I told the Governor, who heads the SASB, that mosques and temples cannot be weighed in money,” he says, adding that his family was never after the proceeds, but that helping pilgrims would give them a spiritual satisfaction. Many sadhus, after resting at Nunwan’s base camp, visit the Maliks before proceeding to the holy cave. “We continue visiting the shrine in turns to do our service to Lord Shiva, by putting up a stall to distribute free medicines,” he says.

Though the cave is mentioned in ancient scriptures, it was said to have been rediscovered by Buta Malik some 150 years ago. He encountered a sadhu who gave him a sack of coal that transformed into a precious metal once he returned home. The curious shepherd again visited the cave after a few days and saw a sadhu (believed to be Lord Shiva). Afzal says that his ancestor was told to arrange pilgrimage to the cave from next year and take care of pilgrims. When a group of pilgrims came, there was a lingam inside the magnificent cave.

Irrespective of whether the legend is true or not, since the shrine is located within a Muslim majority locality, it was prudent to involve them if not by faith or spiritually, but economically.

Afzal agrees that setting up of the SASB has regulated pilgrimage and provided  better facilities to pilgrims, but laments that some elements were increasingly trying to keep locals at bay. 

More than the SASB, it was Farooq Abdullah’s government who broke the Muslim connection of the shrine. “He always jeered at us, accusing us of taking proceeds from pilgrims. You see our condition, if that had been case, we should have had mansions here,” says Afzal’s father Subhan Malik.  

Mahant Deependra Giri, custodian of the saffron-robed silver mace of Lord Shiva, which in a procession reaches the cave shrine on the day of Rakhsha Bandhan marking the end of pilgrimage, also believes that age-old conventions and traditions should not have been broken. “There was a case for providing better facilities to pilgrims. But denying anybody his association with the Lord was never a correct decision,” he says, adding that the greatest characteristic of Hinduism has been its inclusivity.