From The Wall Street Journal
NEW DELHI—More than 1,000 Indian Muslim scholars and religious leaders have jointly condemned Islamic State in an effort to counter the militant group’s drive to recruit young men and women in a country that is home to the world’s second-largest Muslim population.
India’s Home Ministry says it knows of 17 Indians who have joined Islamic State, a strikingly low figure compared with the hundreds of Muslims from Europe and Australia who have joined the organization to fight in Iraq and Syria.
Indian Muslim leaders said in interviews this week that emphatic and collective criticism of Islamic State is important at a time when the country’s young Muslims are facing an onslaught of extremist propaganda online, from slick recruitment videos to social-media appeals. There are more than 170 million Muslims in India, forming over 14% of the country’s 1.2 billion people.
In a religious pronouncement, or fatwa, Mumbai-based Islamic jurist Manzar Hasan Khan Ashrafi Misbahi denounced Islamic State’s views as “un-Islamic and inhuman” and said its practices showed it had “no relation with Islam.” Influential Muslim bodies and leaders across sects signed his declaration.
“It is a strong message that we, as a large and influential community of Muslims, reject this kind of torture, killings, violence,” said Abdur Rahman Anjaria, a Muslim community leader in Mumbai.
Mr. Anjaria said a madrassa he helps manage, which is attended by 1,200 students, has in recent months invited scholars to talk about how terrorism and Islamic State’s violent ideology go against Islamic thinking. Mr. Misbahi said he speaks against the militant group’s religious assertions in his sermons.
“Repeated statements of this kind help to keep Muslims out of the sphere of radicalization,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management. “They create an atmosphere and culture and interpretation of Islam that opposes violent jihad.”
Indian Islam has long been considered moderate and, despite friction between the country’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims, the country hasn’t seen the kind of radicalization that has happened elsewhere. The highest levels of discontent and resentment are seen in the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, where anger against security forces has at times brought stone-pelting protesters into the streets.
Islamic State’s videotaped beheadings, destruction of centuries-old monuments and brutal treatment of women has shocked the world. Their ability to entice foreign fighters has raised concerns these recruits might threaten the security of their home countries if they return.
Community leaders and officials in India say they grew worried when four young men from a Mumbai suburb traveled to Iraq to fight in 2014. Also last year, online recruitment videos began to appear with subtitles in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and other languages spoken in India.
