[1] It is situated on the northern bank of the Dal Lake in Srinagar, and is considered to be Kashmir's holiest Muslim shrine.

The first building of the shrine was constructed in 17th century by Mughal subedar Sadiq Khan during the emperor Shah Jahan's reign.

[5] The relic was first brought to Kashmir by Syed Abdullah Madani, a purported descendant of Muhammad who left Medina (in present-day Saudi Arabia) and settled in the South Indian city of Bijapur in 1635, at a time when the Islamic Mughal Empire was rapidly expanding across India.

Finding himself unable to care for the relic, he passed it to Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Eshai, a wealthy Kashmiri businessman.

[7][8] When the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was informed of its existence and transfer, he had it seized and sent to the shrine of Sufi mystic Mu'in al-Din Chishti in Ajmer, and imprisoned Eshai in Delhi.

[citation needed] On 31 December, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made a broadcast to the nation on the disappearance of the relic, and sent a team from the Central Bureau of Investigation into Jammu and Kashmir to probe the suspected theft.

[9][12][11][13][14] The incident led to communal tensions and riots in the Indian state of West Bengal and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), due to which India saw a refugee influx of around 200,000 people between December 1963 and February 1964.