Fida Muhammad Hassnain (Urdu فدا حسنین;
Srinagar
Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its natu ...
, 1924 – 2016) was a Kashmiri writer, lecturer and
Sufi
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
mystic.
__NOTOC__
He was born in 1924 in Srinagar, Kashmir, as the child of schoolteachers. His father fought with the British Indian forces in the Boer War in South Africa in 1902. Fida Hassnain graduated from the
University of Punjab
The University of the Punjab (Urdu, pnb, ), also referred to as Punjab University, is a public, research, coeducational higher education institution located in Lahore, Pakistan. Punjab University is the oldest public university in Pakistan. ...
and the
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh Muslim University (abbreviated as AMU) is a Public University, public Central University (India), central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Orie ...
, and became a barrister, but the events surrounding the partition of colonial British India made him lose faith in the law, and after a short period of social work he became a lecturer in 1947 at the Sri Patrap (SP) College in Srinagar. In 1954, he became Director of the Kashmir State Archives, retiring in 1983. Fida Hassnain on died 9 July 2016 in Srinagar, Kashmir.
His study tours resulted in the salvaging of several hundred manuscripts in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
and
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, which were housed in the Archives and Oriental Research Libraries.
As an archaeologist, he conducted several excavations.
He has written several books on the subject of
Lost years of Jesus and Kashmir,
which have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Japanese. He has made frequent guest appearances in documentaries about the tomb of
Roza Bal
The Roza Bal, Rouza Bal, or Rozabal is a shrine located in the Khanyar quarter in downtown area of Srinagar in Kashmir, India. The word ''roza'' means tomb, the word ''bal'' mean place. Locals believe a sage is buried here, Yuz Asaf, alongsi ...
supporting the teaching of the founder of
Ahmadiyya Islam
Ahmadiyya (, ), officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ, ar, الجماعة الإسلامية الأحمدية, al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmīyah al-Aḥmadīyah; ur, , translit=Jamā'at Aḥmadiyyah Musl ...
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mirzā Ghulām Ahmad (13 February 1835 – 26 May 1908) was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and Mahdi—which is the metaphoric ...
(1899) that Jesus of Nazareth died in India. Christian theologians have been highly critical of Hassnain's works - Christian academics dismissing these claims include
Günter Grönbold
Günter Grönbold (Munich, 18 September 1943) is a German Indologist and Tibetologist. He was head of the Oriental Section at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich. He is an authority on the Pāli Canon and the Buddhist art of the Silk Road and ha ...
,
Wilhelm Schneemelcher
Wilhelm Schneemelcher (21 August 1914, Berlin – 6 August 2003, Bad Honnef) was a German Protestant theologian and expert on the New Testament Apocrypha.
Career
He obtained through Hans Lietzmann a post researching Latin and Greek manuscripts ...
,
Norbert Klatt Norbert Klatt (24 December 1949 – 1 October 2015) was a German scholar of Buddhism and Christianity and publisher; he was the founder of Norbert Klatt Verlag, Göttingen.
Klatt proposed Buddhist influence on some New Testament narratives (1982), ...
,
Per Beskow
Per Erik Beskow (23 December 1926 in Stockholm − 3 March 2016 in Visby) was a Swedish biblical scholar, theologian, church historian, patrologist and associate professor at Lund University.
Biography
Per Beskow was born on December 23, 1926 as ...
, and
Gerald O'Collins
Gerald Glynn O'Collins (born 1931) is an Australian Jesuit priest and academic. He was a research professor and writer-in-residence at the Jesuit Theological College (JTC) in Parkville, Victoria, and a research professor in theology at St Mary's ...
.
[Mark Bothe Die "Jesus-in-Indien-Legende" - Eine alternative Jesus-Erzählung? - 2011 - Page 30 "1.4.2 Fida Hassnain - Fida M. Hassnain wurde 1924 in Srinagar, Kaschmir, ..."]
In January 2009 The Jammu Kashmir Government recognized Hassnain for his lifetime contributions.
Works
; Books
* ''Buddhist Kashmir'' (Light & Life Publishers, 1973).
* ''Hindu Kashmir'' (Light & Life Publishers, 1977).
* ''British policy towards Kashmir, 1846-1921: Kashmir in Anglo-Russian politics'' (Sterling, 1974).
* ''Gilgit, the Northern Gate of India'' (Sterling, 1978).
* ''Freedom struggle in Kashmir'' (Rima Publishing House, 1988).
* ''The Islamic Revolution in Iran'' (Rima Publishing House, 1989).
* ''A Search for the Historical Jesus: From Apocryphal, Buddhist, Islamic and Sanskrit Sources'' (Down-to-Earth Books, 1994). .
; Edited works
* ''Kashmir Misgovernment'' (Gulshan Publishers, 1980).
* ''Heritage of Kashmir'' (Gulshan Publishers, 1980).
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hassnain, Fida
1924 births
2016 deaths
Kashmiri writers
Kashmiri people
20th-century Indian historians
Sufi mystics
University of the Punjab alumni
People from Srinagar
Scholars from Jammu and Kashmir
Swoon hypothesis
Writers about the Kashmir conflict
Aligarh Muslim University alumni
Lecturers