Soch Kral (1782 29 November 1854), was a

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

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, ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

, and is a Sufi saint. Soch Kral was born in 1782 in the village of Inder, in the

Pulwama Pulwama (known as Panwangam in antiquity, and later as Pulgam) is a City and notified area council in the Pulwama district of the Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is located approximately south of the summer capital of ...

district of

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

. He was a potter by profession. He lived a simple life devoted to spirituality, monotheism and mysticism. His father was the Sufi poet Arif Kral, and he was a disciple of Kashmiri poet Momin Sahab R.A. Soch Kral may have migrated to the village of Devsar in the

Anantnag district Anantnag district is a district in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is one of ten districts which make up the Kashmir Valley. The district headquarters is Anantnag city. As of 2011, it was the third most populous distri ...

, where his descendants are still living. He married but divorced his wife, and died on 29 November 1854 in Inder.

Legacy

According to a blogger on

Blogspot.com Blogger is an American online content management system founded in 1999 which enables multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. Pyra Labs developed it before being acquired by Google in 2003. Google hosts the blogs, which can be accessed thro ...

, Soch Kral used poetry as a tool to enlighten the minds of people, and his work promoted Sufism in Kashmiri poetry. The Soch Kral Memorial College of Education in Pulwama was named after him. In about 2009 the state government set aside Rs 50 lakh for the development of a heritage site near the Soch Kral's shrine. By 2012 construction had not started. In 2016, at Pulwama Degree College, singer Dhananjay Kaul grouped Lal-Ded,

Mahjoor Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad (August 1885 − 9 April 1952), known by his pen name as Mahjoor, was a poet of the Kashmir Valley, along with contemporaries, Zinda Kaul, Abdul Ahad Azad, and Dinanath Nadim. He is especially noted for introducing a new s ...

Wahab Khar Abdul Wahab Khar ( ), also appears as Wahab Khar, was the 19th-century Kashmiri Sufi mystic poet and saint. He is sometimes referred to as "scholar" for his contribution to the literature of Kashmir. He was actively engaged in writing Sufi d ...

, and Soch Kral as among the "Sufi greats that Pulwama has produced", and sung their poetry which he set to music.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kraal, Soch 1782 births 1854 deaths Kashmiri poets Sufi poets People from Pulwama district kashmiri Sufi saints Sufi teachers