By Sahil Manzoor Bhatti

He was born into a valley of changing faiths and restless hearts.

Hazrat Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali [R.A.], whom people lovingly called Nund Reshi, arrived at a time when Kashmir was learning to speak a new spiritual language. The air carried echoes of old temples and the call of the azaan. Between them stood a man who belonged to both: rooted in soil, open to sky.

They say he spent twelve years in a cave, far from the noise of kingdoms and trade. The cave, still damp with legends, was his world. He ate herbs, drank from springs, and turned silence into scripture.

His solitude was a dialogue with the invisible. From that stillness rose words that would hold a nation's conscience.

Kashmir, then, was transforming. Islam was spreading across its mountains and meadows, but old beliefs stayed in stones and songs. Nund Reshi did not preach through swords or sermons. His voice grew through poetry, the Shruks, short verses shaped like knots, each hiding a question inside. To read them is to untie oneself.

He wrote of the divine that breathes in everything:

He who is here, is also there;

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