Sikh Missionary College, "Brief History Of The Sikh Gurus" (undated, c2000) |
p45: [Life of the sixth Sikh Guru, Hargobind] "In 1616, he visited Kashmir where people were suffering due to famine. Satguru Ji spent the Dasvandh [voluntary tithe] amount on improving the conditions of the people there. Impressed by the gesture, many Muslims accepted Sikhism. Bhai Kattu is a famous person of this conversion." [I have been unable to find this story in English translations of authoritative sources] |
Shyam Lal Sadhu, "Rupa Bhavani" (2003) |
p51: "A few years before Rupa Bhavani took her birth the population was decimated in a severe epidemic of cholera in the regime of Ahmad Beg Khan, subedar (A.D. 1615-17). Dead bodies of the victims were thrown naked into the river and people abstained from taking fish for a long time. One Hassan Shawl had a large herd of cattle, but he was forced to drive them into the forest as he had no heir to look after them." |
Abdul Majid Mattoo, "Kashmir Under Jahangir (1605-1627 AD)" (M. Phil. Dissertation, Aligarh Muslim University, 1973) |
p87: [Events when Ahmad Beg Khan was governor in Kashmir] "During the brief spell of his governorship an epidemic broke out in 12 H.r [This appears to indicate the 12th regnal year of Jahangir, corresponding roughly to 1026 AH / 1617 CE] and swept the state entirely for one and half year. There did not remain a single house which was not effected. The plague was so acute that even the attendants did not survive. The magnitude of disaster was so great that the entire city was devastated and most of the people left for woods …" |
Pandit Anand Koul, "Geography Of The Jammu And Kashmir State" (2nd ed., 1925) |
[This famine and epidemic seem to match the events described by Koul on pages 105 and 110 as events of 1603-4.] |