In fact, a decade and a half on, Deobandi Islam has come to dominate the religioscape of the Valley.

Mufti Abdur Raheem, the Grand Mufti of North Kashmir, proudly admits so. “Most Muslims in Kashmir belong to the Deobandi thought,” he says. Mufti Raheem, however, disputes the fact that Deobandi philosophy owes its rise to the extraordinary circumstances of the past two decades. “Deoband influence in Kashmir has been there since the beginning of the last century. Besides, many of our major Darul Ulooms were set up before militancy started in Kashmir”.

He traces the Deobandi influence to the prominent pre-partition Muslim Conference leader of the Valley, Moulana Yousuf Shah, the granduncle of Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

HOWEVER, this resurgence in religious orthodoxy has been in conflict with the existing Kashmiri Islam, traditionally influenced by Sufism. In fact, Kashmiri Islam cannot even be equated with Sufism, which has more of a subcontinental dimension. The Kashmiri Islam, says the Valley’s prominent historian Fida Hasnain, is called Rishut—named after the indigenous saints of Kashmir who are called Rishis.

Flagbearers of Valley’s Rishut are Sheiklul Alam Sheikh Nooruddin Wali, Shiekh Hamza Makhdoomi, Hazarat Bulbul Sahib and Hazrat Naqshbandi Sahib. The Rishis preached an overwhelming devotion to God and Prophet Muhammad and insisted on the values of tolerance and harmony.So, Kashmiris, particularly women, have always been frequent visitors to the shrines where they seek the saints’ blessings and their intercession in the fulfillment of their wishes.

But Deobandi Islam generally discourages this as being violative of the basic tenets of religion. And they are not alone in doing so. Over the past two decades, the Valley has also been witness to the imperceptible rise of the Jamiat Ahle Hadith, an apolitical religious group, which believes in the supremacy of the Quran and Sunnah, unmediated by any religious scholar. Jamiat, according to its chairman Moulana Showkat, now owns about 600 mosques and five major Darul Ulooms. One of them located at Batamaloo in Srinagar is affiliated to Madina University in Saudi Arabia. “We also have a membership of one million Muslims in the state, most of whom are well read,” says Moulana Showkat, who was shot at by an unidentified gunmen recently.

... contd.