In the frontier village of Trehgam, faith does not stand divided by walls. Instead, it stands side-by-side. At the heart of Trehgam lies a rare and quietly powerful sight, a mosque and a temple sharing the same compound, facing a natural spring whose waters have flowed uninterrupted for generations.
The arrangement is not the result of modern planning or symbolic architecture, it is the organic outcome of a village that has long practiced coexistence rather than simply preaching it.
This mosque, believed to be around 600 years old, stands as a living witness to time. The structure that exists today is the fourth built on this very spot, with the previous three also raised at the same site, each rebuilding preserving the sanctity, continuity, and shared heritage of the place.
“According to Walter Lawrence, who documents Kashmir’s past in The Valley of Kashmir, the spring traces its origins to Madan Chak of the Chak dynasty, transforming it from a mere natural source into a living remnant of Kashmir’s layered history.”
The Imam of the mosque, Pir Abdul Rasheed, said that the community has lived together in harmony for centuries and has never faced any conflict. “We have been living like this for generations, and there have been no problems,” he said.
The spring, locals say, is the true witness. It has seen decades of political upheaval, migration, and change, yet it continues to flow past both places of worship, indifferent to labels. “As long as this water runs,” an elderly villager remarks,“this togetherness will remain.”
“The stone flooring of the spring is believed to have been built by the Ishanas of the Ishana dynasty,” said Mohammed Akbar Sheikh, a local resident.
The mosque’s call to prayer rises into the same air that carries temple bells, neither overpowering the other. On ordinary days, the compound is calm, children play near the spring, women fill pitchers with water, and elders pause to exchange greetings.
On religious occasions, the space transforms into a shared zone of respect, where silence during prayers is observed not out of obligation, but habit.
The temple is not abandoned and continues to function under security arrangements provided by the Indian Army, which has set up a post at the site. A soldier stationed there, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security reasons, said that all
rituals are performed regularly and that tourists visiting the area are allowed to pray at the temple, highlighting its continued religious and cultural relevance.
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In a region too often described through the lens of conflict, Trehgam tells a different story, one rooted in Kashmiriyat, the cultural ethos that values mutual respect, shared spaces, and human connection above religious difference. Unlike carefully
curated “unity symbols” elsewhere, Trehgam’s harmony is unbranded and unadvertised. It simply exists.
Today, as Kashmir navigates questions of identity and social fabric, Trehgam offers a gentle reminder: coexistence does not always announce itself. Sometimes, it lives quietly in villages, in shared courtyards, and in the sound of prayer meeting prayer,
without fear.