According to legend Yuz Asaph was a medieval Muslim preacher. His Rozabal tomb is located in the Kashmiri town of Srinagar. The shrine is maintained by a Board of Directors consisting of Sunni Muslims.
In the intervening years the shrine has undergone a startling makeover. There are claims that the one buried there is none other than Jesus of Nazareth who somehow survived the crucifixion and set off on a daunting trip to Kashmir, presumably hitching rides en route.
There is also a similar legend that Jesus spent 17 years in India and Tibet during the so-called lost years. He allegedly made the trek from Jerusalem to Benares to pick up tips from Buddhist and Hindu holy men.
The Srinagar tale comes with the predictable 'signs'. There has been a tradition for visitors to the shrine to light candles. When centuries of wax residue on the floor was removed footprints were discovered carved into the stone. And wonder or wonders, the footprints showed the scars of crucifixion wounds.
The Rozabal legend was almost certainly promoted by local tradespeople keen to attract the tourist dollar. The story made it into the Lonely Planet travel guide and throngs of the credulous have since been showing up on the back streets of Srinagar to check out Jesus' alleged shrine.
The tomb story comes with related claims that are equally far-fetched. A former custodian named Sahibzada Basharat Saleem claimed that he held genealogical tables that connected him in a line of descent to the buried sage. Another man interred on the site was reportedly a Sufi saint, but evidence has since surfaced that suggests he was in fact a long-serving caretaker at the shrine.
If you are to believe all the legends, Jesus was a busy guy who before air travel managed to get around the globe with relative ease. In one of his poems the English poet William Blake reflected: "And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green..." It's amazing that JC actually found the time to carry out his mission in Palestine.
A BBC report on the Rozabel story mentions a resident who lives close to the shrine. He seemed totally unimpressed with the Jesus-in-Srinagar story: "It's a story spread by local shopkeepers, just because some crazy professor said it was Jesus's tomb. They thought it would be good for business. Tourists would come, after all these years of violence. And then it got into the Lonely Planet, and too many people started coming."
Link to the story on the BBC site.
