Mirwaiz: Pulpit sans Politics
In the aftermath of the massacre in Pahalgam, it was an appropriate decision of the unelected government to let Friday prayers be offered at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar and allow the Mirwaiz to lead the prayers. The Friday namaz, preceded by a waaz, has a distinct social purpose and obligation. By tradition it addresses any of the current or contemporary issues engaging the society thereby reaffirming the behavioural norms of the society in line with religious requirements.
The Mirwaiz could not have but chosen Pahalgam carnage as the issue last Friday. Twenty-six innocents had been killed. The greatest crime against humanity had been committed. It tormented and troubled every Kashmiri and has shaken their collective consciousness like nothing else in recent memory. Mirwaiz spoke about the unacceptability of what has happened, prayed for divine favour for the victims and protection of their families. By some poignant coincidence, it was his father, Moulvi Mohammed Farooq’s 35th death anniversary on the Hijri calendar.
Referring to the Pahalgam carnage, Mirwaiz said, “We faced a horrific incident with bullets making our hearts a sieve. If anything, that could have made the crime more heinous was ascertaining religious identity before killing in presence of their families. Unbelievable. No one can stoop lower”. More than setting the narrative, he endorsed and amplified the sentiment on the street and the outpouring of grief and guilt. The entire Valley reverberated with mosques all over praying, sharing grief, offering sympathy assuring support and standing in solidarity with the victims.
In the world of social media, the impact of the “premodern” ritualised form of mass communication, the Friday sermon, tends to get underestimated. Delivered from the “mimbar” on the right of the “mehrab”, waaz is essentially Islamic orthopraxy, that reaffirms moral, cultural and religious values in a current context.
Perhaps, political too. But that is the fly in the ointment.
The institution of the Mirwaiz is not a political institution, though it has been politicised. The oldest institution of the Kashmiri civil society, it is not divinely ordained but socially created and sanctified. Even though it is not representative in a democratic sense, it is influential in the social ecosystem. Over the last nearly 200 years, the institution of the Mirwaiz grew in prestige and respect not because of any political ideology but because of preaching of Islam, reformist social interventions and empowerment of Kashmiris.
The societal thinking in Kashmir was revolutionised by Mirwaiz Rasool Shah by setting up Anjuman Nusrat-e-Islam in 1889. Despite severe criticism of the conservatives, he founded the first educational institute of Muslims in Kashmir. Indeed, it was Mirwaiz’s Islamia High School’s first crop that demanded equal rights for Muslims in getting modern higher education. They represented to Sir M H Sharp in 1916. The famous Lord Reading memorandum of 1924 has its origins in a resolution passed in August 1922 by the Anjuman Nusrat Islam.
The forays into active politics, first by Moulvi Yousuf Shah in 1931 and then by Moulvi Mohammed Farooq in 1964, have not added but taken away from the institution of the Mirwaiz. Moulvi Yusuf Shah, a Deobandi alumnus influenced by the Khilafat Movement, set up his own political party, the Azad Conference in 1933.
Mirwaiz Mohammed Farooq’s political adventurism also took some sheen off the Mirwaiz stature. In March 1964, he transformed the Awami Action Committee, a body fighting for recovery of Moe-e-Muqaddas, into a movement for political self-determination. None of these political initiatives took root and altered the course of politics. Except perhaps that eminently forgettable episode of tying up in 1977 with the Janata Party, which fathered the BJP.
The current Mirwaiz inherited the religious legacy along with a political legacy at an extraordinarily difficult time, especially at the personal level. At the age of 17 he was thrown onto the centre stage because of the first “political” assassination in the Valley in 1990, that of his father. But the time may have now come. At 51, he is young enough to think differently and having been Mirwaiz for 34 years has enough experience to know the knots in the carpet.
Of late, he seems to be testing the political waters. Leading the Muttahida Majlis-E-Ulema, he represented to the parliamentary body that the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was not acceptable to the Muslims of the Kashmir, Jammu, and Ladakh. There he also spoke about the happenings around the country on mosques and temples having a bearing on the situation in Kashmir. It is rare for the Mirwaiz to talk about Muslims living in the rest of the country, especially in the context of Kashmir. For all its history and heritage, “Mirwaiz” has remained resolutely local (increasingly hyper-local, some would say, restricted to downtown). Rarely, if ever, has there been any inclination to engage with a larger constituency on a bigger platform.
Quite significantly, of late, he has been emphasising mainstream bread and butter issues of arbitrary dismissal of government employees, seizure of Islamic literature from bookstores and homes, release of political prisoners, and the liquor ban.
Today, the podium of politics is far too crowded. It might be better for the Mirwaiz to leverage the power of the pulpit for bringing about positive transformation changes in the society. Just as he did post Pahalgam. What is needed today is rebuilding the “social capital”; a compact which recreates the intrinsic and inherited value system among the community. These are linkages which provide the basis for an enlightened polity. There must be a mindset reset in the community. It is a social need first, and a political necessity later.
From the inherited pluralist perspective, it is important to promote the idea and ideal of social unity not limited to the theological unity but extended to a larger social contract. There is need to articulate the values of a socio-cultural order that will set the stage for a meaningful political narrative. But stop short of engaging in politics.
In the existing socio-political structure, one way to institutionalise his role is for the elected state government to appoint Mirwaiz as the Chairperson of the Waqf Board instead of the Chief Minister, ex officio, as was the case earlier or a party appointee as is the case now. Besides recognising and empowering the religious as well as the community institution, it would be effectively separating State from the Church.
On its part, the Waqf board will gain enormously by being led by a person with domain expertise and knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence. Mirwaiz as the head will impart the institution of Waqf greater social sanctity; the pulpit that he sits on is important for the civil society. It can become a powerful institution from which a positive reformist agenda of the civil society can be set.
The author is Contributing Editor Greater Kashmir
