Islam is the majority religion practised in Kashmir, with 97.16% of the region's population identifying as Muslims as of 2014.[1] The religion came to the region with the arrival of Mir sayed Ali shah Hamdani, a Muslim Sufi preacher from Central Asia and Persia, beginning in the early 14th century.[2][3] The majority of Kashmiri Muslims are Sunni Muslims, and Shias account for between 20% and 25% of the Muslim population, who mostly reside in north and central Kashmir.[4] They refer to themselves as "Koshur" in their mother language.[5][6][7][8][9][10] Non-Kashmiri Muslims in Kashmir include semi-nomadic cowherds and shepherds, belonging to the 𝙂𝙪𝙟𝙟𝙖𝙧𝙨 and Bakarwal communities.[10]
As in Pakistan, Sunni Muslims comprise the majority population of Kashmir, whereas they are a minority in Jammu, while almost all Muslims in Ladakh are Shias.
The Muslims living in the southern part of the Kashmir Province are of the same stock as the Kashmiri Pandit community and are usually designated Kashmiri Muslims; those of the Muzaffarabad District are partly Kashmiri Muslims, partly Gujjar and the rest are of the same stock as the tribes of the neighboring Punjab and North \Vest Frontier Province districts.
The Kashmiri Pandits are the precursors of Kashmiri Muslims who now form a majority in the valley of Kashmir...Whereas Kashmiri Pandits are of the same ethnic stock as the Kashmiri Muslims, both sharing their habitat, language, dress, food and other habits, Kashmiri Pandits form a constituent part of the Hindu society of India on the religious plane.
Thus the two population groups, Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims though at the time constituted ethnically homogenous population, came to differ from each other in faith and customs.
The Sheikhs,but,dar,lone are descendants of Hindus and the pure Kashmiri Muslims, professing Sunni faith, the major part of the population of Srinagar district and the Kashmir state.