Srinagar, Sept. 25 -- By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander

A fortress, a handful of travellers and a long argument about faith.

That is where Rashid Shaz begins Kodra: A Shia-Sunni Odyssey: Travels Through a Fractured Faith, and it is an arresting choice.

Kodra, associated with soothsaying and insight, becomes less a destination than a vantage point from which centuries of Muslim history can be examined. Its walls hold debates about Karbala, Siffin, leadership, technology, capitalism, hadith and the future of the ummah.

The people gathered there seem to bring whole traditions with them.

There is the zealot, the sceptic, the nostalgic traditionalist, the technophile and the disillusioned activist. They argue, remember, challenge and defen...