The Jamia Masjid is as it always has been, ornate and imposing, on a sunlit June Friday in Srinagar’s Old City. Its 14th-century wooden pillars have been witnesses to centuries of sermons and struggle.
Around 4,000 worshipers squabble in silence inside.
The spiritual leader of Kashmir’s Muslims, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, speaks when he is greeted with grace but caution. Draped in his customary golden-bordered white thobe and crowned with a brown Karakuli hat, he delivers a sermon laced with quiet prayers.
I wish the entire Muslim Ummah a happy new year, he said. In these trying times, may Allah grant us peace, strength, and protection for the oppressed. ”
His tone is unlikeable from what it was only a few years ago, when the now 52-year-old Mirwaiz, or the country’s top Muslim leader, delivered fiery speeches that lacked the power of political messaging and rhetoric.
In a time when the valley was a roiling pot of violence, Kashmir’s supreme Muslim leader was also one of the region’s most influential voices for peaceful dialogue and its independence from India. An armed secessionist struggle that kicked off in the 1980s led to a massive Indian security presence in Kashmir, and since then, more than 40,000 people have been killed according to Indian government estimates.
Invoking Kashmir’s right to independence is frequently a frequent theme in Farooq’s speeches. For instance, the mosque was brimming with more than 30,000 worshipers on June 2, 2018, which was seven years ago. Farooq, visibly impassioned, ascended the pulpit.
He vowed that “this pulpit will never be silent.” The Jamia Mimbar promises to speak out for justice and continue to support justice because Kashmir is our country’s sovereign state. ”
The audience erupted. Azaadi [freedom] chants! ” thundered within the mosque.
However, Kashmir has since changed: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government unilaterally revoked Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, which was provided at the time by the Indian Constitution. This was followed by a security crackdown and administrative restraints. Farooq was placed under house arrest, along with thousands of others. It would be four years before he was released in 2023.
It appears that Farooq has also changed on Friday. The defiant rhetoric that once defined him is no longer in use. There are no overt political cues in his sermon, only verses from scripture, calls for patience, and appeals for community calm.
The audience is attentive. Respectful, but unmoved, as in previous years.
Outside, across Kashmir, a question is beginning to take hold. The head-priest is adjusting to a changed Kashmir, as some people have said aloud, but the conversations are real. Is he fading into irrelevance, or is he just getting older?
The Mirwaiz is who?
Few people in Kashmir’s complex political and spiritual landscape more embody reverence and perseverance than Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Thrust into public life at the age of 17 after the assassination of his father – the previous mirwaiz – in 1990, allegedly by rebels from a Pakistan-backed armed group, Farooq inherited not just the pulpit, but a legacy.
His official role as Kashmir’s mirwaiz was rooted in religious scholarship. The mimbar in Kashmir is rarely just theological, though.
Farooq quickly emerged as a distinctive voice – soft-spoken, scholarly and deliberate. Farooq chose to pursue nonviolence and negotiation in contrast to many of his contemporaries who were drawn to the growing armed uprising in the 1990s. He rose to prominence in the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), a group that pushed for a peaceful, negotiated resolution of the Kashmir dispute as the valley grew militarized.
Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, though both control parts of it. Since 1947, when the region acceded to India as a result of division, pro-independence sentiments have persisted in the Indian-administered Kashmir.
Farooq treaded the line between diplomatic possibility and street sentiment. “Mirwaiz Umar has always positioned himself as a moderate politician, a believer in the institution of dialogue and someone who has been flexible in his political stance,” said Gowhar Geelani, author-journalist and political analyst. The head priest has shown a willingness to engage with all parties involved, including Pakistan and India’s nation states and various civil society organizations in and outside of Kashmir. ”
At a time when most separatist leaders rejected talks with the Indian state as betrayal, Farooq broke ranks. He described it as a “step forward that could open doors to understanding” as he led a Hurriyat delegation to meet Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Delhi in 2004. Later, he discussed Kashmir’s autonomy, the demilitarization of civilian areas, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Vajpayee’s successor, in several rounds of discussions.
“We are not against India,” he said after one such meeting. We support Kashmiris, they say. The only way out of this decades-long tragedy is through dialogue. ”
Geelani explained that while being distinctive, this approach had its own political risks: Farooq was viewed by various members of the Kashmiri ideological spectrum with “admiration, caution, and suspicion,” he said.
Farooq’s bold retorts to the Indian government both cost him support among rebellious separatists and established him as a eminently rare figure willing to negotiate without giving in to the demand for self-determination. His political gamble was seen by many as an attempt to humanise Kashmir’s struggle and push for a peaceful resolution, while retaining the moral authority of the pulpit.
His influence, which no other pro-independence leaders in Kashmir could boast of, was at the heart of the Mirwaiz’s ability to play that role. And Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid had the biggest influence there.
Before 2019, when Kashmir still held its special status, Fridays at the mosque were charged events. Overflowing congregations were moved by Farooq’s sermons, which were filled with Islamic wisdom and political longing.
The 600-year-old mosque has also occasionally been closed under security orders since August 2019, when India removed Kashmir’s special status and the Mirwaiz was detained along with thousands of others. Sermons were replaced by silence.
The return in 2023
As Mirwaiz Umar Farooq returned to the pulpit on a cloudy September morning in Srinagar in 2023, the air hung heavy with a mix of subdued fear and apprehension. His shoulders once appeared a little stooped after being firm with certainty. His gaze, formerly sharp and searching, now lingered, softer, more introspective. There was no longer a fire.
Every alley had tight security in place. worshippers queued in long lines, many weeping silently as they glimpsed the mirwaiz step forward.
He paused frequently, his tone deliberate, and remarked, “This is the time for patience.” The calls for a plebiscite to decide Kashmiris’ future and to join an Indian army were gone, as was the phrase “Indian occupation.”
Instead, there was a softened plea – for dialogue, not between nations, but with Kashmiris.
He once yelled, “Nobody can silence us. He said, “Perhaps no one is ready to listen to us, as he did on his return to the mosque in September 2023. ”
He spoke to mourn Zain and Urwa, two of the war’s youngest victims, as tensions reached a peak after India and Pakistan responded with retaliation in retaliation last month. The twin children had been killed by Pakistani shelling. The mirwaiz said that their “smiling image will haunt us”.
He claimed that Kashmir is a “bleed wound.” A point that is “anytime exploding.” ” His audience, which would once erupt into chants, listened silently.
Farooq traveled to New Delhi in January to meet with members of a panel of lawmakers looking into changes to the law governing Muslim endowments in India and Kashmir. His first official meeting with the Indian state since 2019 has sparked rumors about a new bout of communication between Delhi and the Mirwaiz, which is still unconfirmed.
A separate meeting with a member of parliament from the National Conference, a mainstream Kashmiri party that swears by the Indian Constitution and won last year’s state legislature election, further fuelled chatter that the mirwaiz might be exploring a political compromise with New Delhi.
Al Jazeera reached out to the Wikipedia for an interview, but they were unsuccessful.
According to analysts, Farooq’s recent public appearances, including those at interfaith and national events in Delhi, reflect a cautious adjustment rather than a pronounced ideological shift. The mirwaiz now appears to be navigating a drastically altered political terrain, where symbolism and strategic networking – particularly with Indian Muslims facing their own constraints under the rule of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party – may be the only forms of relevance still available.
Anuradha Bhasin, senior journalist and political analyst, said, “This is more of a shift in ideology than it is a response to shrinking space.” He has always been a symbolic figure, straddling the political and the religious. In this charged political climate, not just separatists but even mainstream political actors have been left with very little room for articulation.
We are now seeing that the only thing we can do is survive in that small space. He has been largely under house arrest for the past six years, and he is now completely unmarried. ”
Young Kashmiris are still divided by questions about the Mirwaiz and his wise sermons.
Silence or strategy?
Conversations with young Kashmiris, from college campuses to downtown Srinagar cafes, reveal a subdued sense of disillusionment with the mirwaiz among some. A journalist student questioned a man who was once seen as one of Kashmir’s most prominent political voices, saying, “He’s more a preacher now than a leader.”
His moderation, once seen as a strength, is increasingly interpreted as powerlessness by this set of Kashmiris – as quiet capitulation.
The Mirwaiz still has symbolic significance for some, though. They see his less obedient sermons as a mature and pragmatist reflection on the mosque’s role as a crucial hub for spiritual growth and gathering.
In a context where public life is closely monitored and expressions of dissent are often scrutinised, some believe this approach helps maintain a space for religious life without drawing undue attention or risking further restrictions.
Asif, a resident of Srinagar who has listened to the Mirwaiz for more than ten years, called him the “last moral voice we have.”
Source: Aljazeera
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