Srinagar

Srinagar lies on the Jhelum River in the Vale of Kashmir, below the hill of Hari Parbat and beside Dal Lake. According to Kalhana's Rajatarangini, King Pravarasena built a new capital here in the sixth century, with markets, wooden houses, temples and canals, and it remained the principal seat of Kashmir's rulers.

In the early fourteenth century Rinchana, a Buddhist convert to Islam, built Kashmir's first mosque in a quarter of Srinagar, and the sultans who followed made the city their capital. In 1402 Sultan Sikandar finished the great Jamia Mosque at Nowhatta, built of deodar wood. His successor Zain-ul-Abidin built the Zainakadal bridge across the Jhelum and founded the shawl, carpet and papier-mache crafts for which the valley became known. The Mughals annexed Kashmir in 1586. Akbar fortified Hari Parbat, and Jahangir and Shah Jahan laid out the Shalimar and Nishat gardens, and in 1638 Shah Jahan made Kashmir a province seated at Srinagar. Durrani rule began in 1753, and after the Sikhs came in 1819 the Jamia Mosque was shut for years. By the early nineteenth century European merchants were buying Kashmir shawls directly through agents in the city.