Chapter: History of Salafism in India

Abstract
Salafism has a deep and multi-faceted history in India,, going back all the way to the colonial
presence in India. This chapter explores the history of the two major Salafist organizations,
Markaz Jamiat Ahle Hadeeth and the Kerala Nadwatul Mujahideen, situating it within the
colonial landscape of British India and the various reform movements that were
mushrooming in the aftermath of the 1857 revolution. In doing so, it defines the terms
Salafist and Wahhabi for the thesis and provides a framework for understanding the
evolution of Salafist thought in South and North India.
The chapter relies on primary and secondary material and argues that Salafism is diverse,
multi – faceted and deeply rooted in the Indian context. It also asserts that Salafism in India
has been shaped by the political context since its expansion in India. Consequently, not only
did the British Colonial presence shape the organizations, but various developments in the
Arab world, such as in Egypt and other Gulf nations, also influenced the organizations
historically. Most recently, the rise of Saudi- sponsored Salafism and Anglophone Salafist
speakers in India and the West have also had a strong impact in shaping Salafist thought, an
aspect that this chapter highlights. This chapter, thus, sets the base for the remainder of the
thesis.
Keywords: British colonialism, Wahhabism, Reform movements, Arab influence,
Anglophone Salafists.
Introduction
This chapter introduces the readers to the concept of Salafism and its presence in India. Given
the global nature and its deep historical presence in India, the chapter tries to narrow it down
as much as possible. The chapter thus explains the unique characteristics of Salafists and how
they oppose other Muslims in terms of theological beliefs, religious innovations and
jurisprudential rulings based on their literalist understanding of the Quran and sayings of the
prophet. TIn the section after that , it introduces the reader to Salafists in India based both in
the North (Ahl-e Hadith) and in parts of the South (Kerala Nadwathul Mujahideen). For both
the organizations and the movements they spawned, it tries to map out the history and how
they spread and what is the current presence across India.
Moving further, it explains how different nations influenced Salafism in Indiahow Salafism
in India was influenced by different nations and how it also contributed organically and
locally. The external influences here are Egypt, the Gulf nations (mainly Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait) and most recently, scholars from the English-speaking world including in the United
States and the United Kingdom among others.
Finally, the chapter ends by providing analytical thoughts on Salafism in India and its relation
to various aspects of local and global issues. In essence, the chapter sets the context for the
remainder of the dissertation by clarifying terms and definitions in the Indian context; further,
it argues that 1) the Salafist movement is not new but rather old and rooted in the Indian
colonial era. 2) The ingress of Salafism in India is multifaceted and not uniform in South and
North India, and that its spread differed based on the region and political context of the
respective region and 3) That Salafism in India has had international influences as well with

1
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Salafists from the Western world influencing either the scholarship
or the followers significantly.
While this chapter will primarilargely focus on the intellectual history of the movement in
India, it will only touch on the political developments as well, an aspect that it will cover
more in detail in further chapters.

Early Salafism Later Salafism Wahhabism

Date 1900’s 1960’s 1880’s
Ideologues Rashid Rida, Nasir ud Din Albani, Ibn Ibn Abdul Wahhab
Mohammed Abduh Uthaimeen, Ibn Baz
Jamal ud Din
Afghani
Position on Accepted Mutawatir Accepted Saheeh Hadith mainly Not entirely particular
Hadith Hadith mainly
Position on Did not claim Did not claim takfeer liberally Quick to brand opponents
Takfeer Takfeer liberally as Kafir

Modernity Embraced Weren’t enthusiastic about Rejected Modern

Modernity modernity influences of science, etc.

Table 1: Differences between different phases of Salafism and Wahabbism

General History of Salafists in India

According to one Salafist organization, more than 25-30 million Salafists exist in India
(MJAH 2018). This presence is spread over both North and South India, although the points
of entry are different in each part. Such a different trajectory mirrors the divergent points of
entry for Islam as a religion itself in both parts of the nation.

North India
The Salafist presence in Northern India can be traced back to the founder of reformist Islam
in India, i.e., Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (d. 1762), the 18 th- century theologian who
reinvigorated the study of Hadeeth studies in the subcontinent. He was a contemporary of
Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab and was based in the Hijaz region of Saudi Arabia during the
same time as the latter. According to Charles Allan (2005), they shared at least one teacher in
Mohammed Hayat al Sindi, and they might have met, it was quite possible that they met
although records have not indicated this explicitly.
Dehlawi’s works influenced the Deoband and the Ahl-e-Hadith movement, both of whom
adopted different aspects of his teachings. His teachings were further propagated by his son
Shah Abdul Aziz who was the teacher of the famous Syed Ahmed of Rae Bareli (Nadwi
n.d.). Ahmed was recognisedfamous for instigating a rebellion in the Northwest Frontier

2
region of British India, whereby he commanded a force of almost 1100 people to fight with
both the British and the local Sikhs and Hindus with initial victories and eventual deaths (M.
Khan 1967). Ahmed’s organization was also known as the Tariqa Mohammediya. While this
organization adopted violence, other scholars who followed methodologies propagated by
Ahmed and Dehlavi and were involved in the formation of the Ahl e-Hadith movement later
on, did not adopt violence. As further sections illustrate, this event helps shed light on many
of the positions of the Ahl e-Hadith and the Wahhabis against the British Eempire and,
subsequently against external forces.
Syed Ahmed, who witnessed the rise of Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s movement in Saudi Arabia
when he went to Hajj during the same period, was inspired at least by the military exploits
and came back to India to preach Jihad (Burki 2011). He began taking allegiances from
different people, winning support from the prominent Sadiqpur family in Patna, Bihar, from
where he spread his tenets all across India via various emissaries he appointed (Pearson
2008). This included figures like Wilayat Ali and Inayat Ali, who were responsible for
bringing a lot of people into the fold of their understanding of Islam, such as the Nawab of
Hyderabad (B. A. Khan, Ahl I Hadith movement in northern India 1857 to 1947 A D 2015)
(A. Majothi 2017).

Later, two scholars Two scholars later on were responsible for spreading the Salafist creed
across large parts of North India. The first was Syed Nazeer Hussain Muhaddith and Dehlawi
(d. 1903), whose reputation as a teacher helped attract hundreds of students over his five-
decade career as a teacher (B. A. Khan 1999). Nazeer Hussain, who was born in Bihar, was
deeply influenced by Syed Ahmed and his forays into Bihar during the same period,
subsequently setting up Madrassa e-Nazirriya where he taught several prominent Ahl e-
Hadith scholars and teachers (B. A. Khan, Ahl I Hadith movement in northern India 1857 to
1947 A D 2015).
The second was Syed Siddiq Hassan Khan of Bhopal (d. 1890), who was more prolific as a
writer, as manifest in the more than 200 books (written in Urdu, Persian and Arabic) that
wereas attributed to him (Preckel 2002). He was based mainlylargely in Bhopal, where he
met the above two figures, Wilayat and Inayat Ali who, influenced his religious thought
process. Siddiq Hassan Khan was also influenced by the Yemeni scholar Al-Shawkani
(d.1836). Shawkani is revered as one of the most influential scholars of Salafist Islam by
most Salafists across the world. His writings influenced Salafists in Yemen as well as the
Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, according to various scholars. Siddiq Hassan khan was so
influenced by al-Shawkani that he gave him the title Huffaz ul Islam (protectors of Islam)
alongside other scholars like Ibn Taymiyah and ibn al Qayyim (Beránek 2018).
Unlike Syed Nazeer, he was unable to draw crowds since he came from the aristocratic
classes and could not connect with the common man, explaining his efforts expended towards
writing. However, his influence on the Ahl e-Hadith movement also included scholarships to
various prominent clerics who further spread the doctrines of the movement. This
hadincluded Syed Nazeer and Maulvi Husain Batalvi, the editor of the first Ahl-i-Hadith
periodical, Ishatu Sunna in 1878, which was also a mouthpiece of Syed Siddiq Hassan Khan
(B. A. Khan, Ahl I Hadith movement in northern India 1857 to 1947 A D 2015). Given that
Siddiq Hassan Khan engaged heavily with Shawkani’s literature and was a prolific writer, the

3
Ahl e- Hadith literature was influenced by Shawkani’s thoughts on issues such as visiting
graves and other issues that are is now central to the Ahl e-Hadith and other Salafists across
the world.
Moreover, according to Zafar ul Hasan Madani (a contemporary Salafist scholar), Syed
Ahmed was also responsible for sending at least 12 different figures in the 19 th century across
India to set up different Islamic institutions that were following the Salafist methodology (i.e.
a literalist reading of the Quran and Hadeeth). These scholars went to different parts of India,
including West Bengal, Bihar, Lucknow and other parts of India, thus slowly increasing the
influence of the Ahl – e- Hadeeth (KSJAH 2016).
In 1906, the All-India Ahl e-Hadeeth conference was held, which formally announcinged the
creation of the Ahl e-Hadeeth as an organization. One prominent figure, Maulana Sanaullah
Amritsari, also started a weekly journal for Ahl e-Hadeeth scholars across India to contribute
their views and ideas. From here, many madrassas were also established across India
(Yasmin 2016). During the 1940’s, there were debates over the creation of India, with some
factions arguing against the idea of Pakistan while others supported it leading to a split in the
organization in 1947 (Robb 2017). Over time, the influence of the movement increased
significantly with the Jamiya Vanarasi Salafiya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh being
established in 1969. Eminent figures from Saudi Arabia inaugurated this madrasaThis
madrassa was inaugurated by eminent figures from Saudi Arabia and soon became one of the
most coveted madrassas for Ahl e-Hadeeth individuals across India. The Ahl e-Hadeeth
organization eventually gained steam with the help of massive influxes of money coming in
from Saudi Arabia and other gulf nations, reaching a point where itself reportedly has over 21
state- level, 200 district level and 40 000 local level branches across India (MJAH 2018).

The Mujahid Movement in South India

The Ahl e-Hadeeth movement did not take root in all parts of India fordue to many reasons.
Chief among these wereas language barriers and the cultural differences that emerged out of
such barriers. For example, in South India, Malayalam and Tamil were the dominant lingua
franca among the populations residing there, including the Muslims, creating theirits own
societal cultures.
These cultures were also further shaped by geography, as was seen in Kerala, where its
coastal geography allowed for an influx of businessmen from the Arab world. This led to a
different point of entry for Islam into India whereby Arab businessmen spread the religion, a
phenomenon distinctfferent from the North, which saw Muslims come in many other forms
as well, including as marauding rulers. Moreover, many of the Muslim empires like the
Lodhis, the Khiljis and the Mughals did not stretch all the way to the south, whereby these
parts of India enjoyed an autonomy of cultures untouched by the cultural and political shifts
of the Northern parts of India.
As such, it was natural that the Salafist movement also originated had its own origin in the
South and especially in Kerala, which was grappling with different societal issues. While the
Salafist movement is currently manifest in the form of the Mujahid movement in Kerala
(founded in 1950), it actually began a few decades back as a reform movement similar to that

4
started by Mohammed Abduh and Rashid Rida in Egypt, both of whom also influenced its
ideologues in Kerala as noted below.
A notable figure infor this movement is the luminary Syed Makti Tangal, who died in the
1910s and was among the first to callhat called for a reform of the Muslim population in
Kerala - termed then as the Islahi movement. His reforms focused on education and women’s
rights among others (Miller 2015). His teaching was among those that influenced Vakkom
Maulavi, another Keralite reformer who was integral to the development of the community.
Maulavi helped set up the Aikya Sankham in Kerala in the 1920’s, which worked for reforms
within the Muslim community, as mentioned above. Maulavi was also influenced by
Muhammed Abduh and Rashid Rida’s work via the monthly publication Al Manar
(Abrahams 2014). He started the Aikya Sankhum in the 1920s. Over time, the organization
began to accrue more members and grew more assertive. Its agenda for reform was not just
limited to the spheres of education and women’s rights. Still, but the group also became
more vocal in opposing traditional and local customs such as visiting shrines, awarding
almost saint- like statuses to different community leaders and other issues that they termed as
problematic beliefs (Abrahams 2014).
In the 1940’s, the increased mobilization of those following the Aikya Sankham led to the
organization of the Kerala Nadwathul Mujahideen (KNM) post-independence (Abrahams
2014). This movement is the primary Salafist movement for non-Urdu speaking audiences
whose influence stretches all the way to the parts of South Karnataka ands well as parts of
Tamil Nadu. According to one of its leaders, Hussain Madavoor, ‘the movement is about
religion and the purification of religious practices’. In interviews with KNM leaders, it was
noted that about 10% of all the Muslims of Kerala (close to a million) adhere to the KNM’s
practices. However, , although the interviewee noted that this is not officially recorded
anywhere.1
The KNM, like the Aikya Sankhum before them, undertook a more literalist approach,
arguing against blind beliefs and , superstitions and visiting the graves of pious men. They
advocated for the importance of ijtihad (independent reasoning) and, thus, opposed the
hegemony of traditional Sunni Imams over religious knowledge. To this end, they were
responsible for several changes in the educational and religious sphere. Perhaps their most
famous (and controversial) reform was the introduction of Malayalam as a language of
instruction in the weekly Friday sermon. Traditionally, those belonging to the ‘Sunni Jamaat’
in Kerala argued that the sermon was only to be conducted in Arabic and no local language
was to precede. In contrast, the KNM believed that Malayalam was more conducive to
spreading messages to the general masses, leading to the change (T 2014).
Similarly, the KNM also began to organize reforms in the Madrassa education system, using
the Malayalam script as instead ofopposed to the pre-existing Arabic Malayalam script –
Malayalam written in the Arabic script. This was because they believed the Arabic
Malayalam script, which was limited only to Muslims, was not able to help Kerala Muslims
who were deprived of their mother tongue and therefore not integrated into the broader
society (T 2014). This argument sheds some light on the generally integrationist mindset that

1
Interview with Abdus Sattar via call on June 2023. Abdus Sattar is a member of the KNM based in Calicut.

5
the KNM in Kerala had towards the social and political of the state and their desire to not
separate from nNon-Muslims in Kerala.
Further, they also encouraged women to engage with the educational system by providing
spaces for women to study in modern institutions and also allowing them to pray in masjids.
This, a freedom that wasn’t so prevalent among the traditionalists. According to a 2015
report, it was estimated that the KNM ran over 1100 madrassas across the state with 35 ,000
000 students, more than half of whom were women demonstrating their conduciveness for
female education. as well (TNM 2015).
As a side point, Osella and Osella (date of their work) have stressed that the Kerala Reform
movement which underwent different phases in the 1920’s, 1950’s and 1970’s, was also
following broad trends of reformism that wereas taking place in Kerala among other
communities such as the Christians and Hindus of the state.
Another criticalimportant point to consider is that at least part of the reform movement and
the rise of the Mujahid movement was also rooted in caste and social class dynamics. An
example of this was the Koya’s business community within Keralites that wasere initially
essential to funding Nerchas (religious festivals in Kerala) that were frequented by non-
Salafists. Belonging to the Thekepuram neighbourhood of Kozhikode, this community was
won over by the KNM in the 80’s, leading them to boycott their previously endorsed festivals
and proving an essential force for the Salafists in Kerala. As Osella and Osella (again,
provide date) mention, the community also use their status as Mujahids/Salafists as a way to
maintain their status in the face of their declining wealth due to the rise of Gulf- bound
businesses and the fall of their traditional businesses.
At the same time, it is also important to note that the KNM was not homogenous in nature
either. Various leaders at different times had disagreements with one another, often leading to
splits within the organization. The most famous of these splits was in the year 2002, when a
scholar within the KNM split from the main group on ideological grounds, noting that the
group was too focused on social activities rather than proselytization. This faction was led by
Hussain Madavoor, a stalwart within the movement. He also noted personal reasons for the
split. This faction was called the Markazudawa faction. This break in the organization was
reversed in the year 2016 when, after a year of negotiations, the two groups decided to merge
again – reportedly due to concerns aboutof Hindu right-wing activities across India and
growing concern over Keralites joining the Islamic State (The Hindu 2016). However,
although Madavoor returnedcame back to the main organization, many of the members of the
Markazudawa did not, and continued to function under the Markazudawa KNM tag. Later on,
in 2015, another faction broke out from the main KNM body called the Wisdom group
faction (stating that Islamic issues such as the evil eye and black magic are not Islamic but
rather superstitions) (Ameerudeen 2018).

South Karnataka Salafi Movement

The KNM slowly spread its wings across other parts of India. One of its most notable
influences was seen in the coastal regions of the neighboring state of Karnataka, which had
many Keralite immigrants. Accordingly, much of Keralite Muslim culture, including in the
realms of food, dressing, language and religious diversity, spilled over into Mangalore,

6
mixing with local customs ands well thereby producing both Kerala- inspired and uniquely
Mangalorean religious trends (Hafeez 2018).
The KNM’s influence, thus, was seen in the formation of the South Karnataka Salafi
Movement (SKSM) in 1981. The group claims to have been set up to spread the teachings of
the Quran and the Sunnah according to the understanding of the Salaf us-Saliheen. It also
aims to educate Muslims about the dangers of Shirk and Bida’a. It has four different wings ,
including the Salafi Students Movement (SSM), the Salafi Girls and Women’s Wing (SGM),
the SKSM Media network and the social service wing. The group’s website list about 25
Madrassas and Masjids in and around the town of Mangalore, which has a population of 800,
000 or so (SKSM 2018).
The group frequently organizes events and talks, especially on issues like Shirk and Bida’. Its
YouTube channel has more than 17 000 subscribers and 600 videos, some of which have
views crossing 20, 000, demonstrating its strength and significance (South Karnataka Salafi
Movement -SKSM 2021). It has often ideologically clashed with the pre-existing groups in
Mangalore, including those following Keralite scholars such as EK and Abu Bakr Musliyar.
In the 2011 – 2013 era, it also managed to employ a South African origin, Medina University
trained scholar Tariq Appleby, who became famous among Salafi circles in the region for his
command of English and fluency of Hadith and other Islamic sciences (Appleby 2021).
All the trends mentioned in the beliefs sections that are practiced on a global level are also
largely seen in the Indian context too. For instance, both, the Ahl e-Hadeeth and the KNM
actively work to call out superstitious beliefs as well as religious innovations across India.
Moreover, both the Ahle Hadeeth and KNM have often criticized the practice of visiting
Dargahs and Shrines across India, such as that of Muin ud Din Chisti, a revered Ssufi figure
whose grave is situated in the state of Rajasthan.

External Influences
Like most ideologies, Salafism in India, and its development over the last century and beyond
has been fluid. It was open to various influences from different actors and schools of thought
across the world. This applied equally to India. In this section, I look at three different
regions from where Salafist clerics had a strong influence on Salafist thoughts.

Egyptian Influence
The first region/country is Egypt. Egypt has been home to the early Salafist movement (as
discussed above). Two names feature prominently as reformers from the nation including
Mohammed Abduh and Rashid Rida in the early 1920’s onwards. Rashid Rida was the
disciple of Abduh in many ways although he also disagreed with Abduh on some issues.
Nevertheless, both their ideas were widely disseminated around the Muslim world through
their weekly and then monthly magazine Al Manar around the same time (Ameer 2020).
Rida was among the first Muslims who engaged heavily with the term Salafism as noted
above in the introductory sections. He also popularized the idea of not blindly following any
of the four established schools of jurisprudence and adherence to monotheism and the

7
rejection of extreme Sufi practices without bases in Islamic laws and doctrines. As such,
Rida’s works haved influenced Muslims across the world including in India.
This impact was felt on Indian strands of Salafism directly in the state of Kerala. Rida’s work
was closely read by the reformer Vakkom Maulavi (mentioned) above. Maualavi in a letter
written to Rida in the 1910’s noted that his love for the magazine was very high and its
impact on his life was immense (Abrahams 2014). He professed that he often tried to
disseminate the teachings of Al Manar in his own Arabic magazines (Al Islam) and
Malayalam magazines as well. Mainly, Rida’s ideas of monotheism and rejecting blind
following of the four pre-existing schools wereas also mirrored by Maulavi in his writings
(Abrahams 2014). Although Rida’s works were not the reason for Maulavi starting his reform
movement in Kerala, it definitely helped shape his ideas as evidenced in his letters to Rashid
Rida and his own Malayalam language journal al-Islam (Abrahams 2014).

Saudi/Gulf influence
Rida’s works were further picked up by Nassir ud-Din al-Albani, a Syrian Albanian scholar
with much influence in Saudi Arabia due to his vast knowledge of the Hadith. Albani, as
noted in the sections above, further took on the term Salafiya and popularized it in Saudi
Arabia from the 1960’s onwards. Although he became temporarily unwelcome for writing
about the permissibility of women uncovering their faces, he was re-invited back to Saudi
Arabia in the late 70’s (Lacroix 2012).
This coincided with two significantmajor events in the 70’s that are essential for
understanding the transfer of knowledge between India and the Gulf. The first was the oil
boom post- 1973 when the Gulf nations producing oil imposed an embargo on the United
States leading oil prices to quadruple in a very short time. The resultant expenditure of wealth
within the Gulf nations led to large waves of migration from countries like Bangladesh, India,
Pakistan and the Philippines among others (Saif 2009) leading to migrants settling in these
nations over time. By 2016, the total percentage of foreigners in the GCC wasere close to
50%, with countries like UAE and Qatar housing foreigners up to 88% of their total
population (Gulf Migration 2017).
UAE2 KSA Qatar3 Bahrain4 Kuwait5 Oman
Total 9.8 mn 33.4 mn 3.4 mn 1.25mn 3.4 mn (2012) 4.4 mn
Population (2015) (2016) (2018) (2013) (2016)
Local 11.6% 68 % 11.6% 51% 32% 55%
Indian 38.2%, 6.06% 21.8% 19.7% 20.9% 10.5%
Bangladeshi 9.5% 3.93% 12.5% 7.5% 5.58% 2.4%
Pakistani 9.4% 6.05% 4.7% 3.6% 3.5% 1.95%
Egyptian 10.2%, 2.72% 9.35% 1.45% 14.5% Unavailable
Philippine 6.1% 4.84 7.35% 2.2% 4.84
Other 12.8% 8.5% 32% 14.25% 18.66%

2
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/country-resource/united-arab-emirates
3
http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in-2017/
4
https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/35882/GLMM_ExpNote_06_2015.pdf?sequence=1
5
http://diana-n.iue.it:8080/bitstream/handle/1814/32155/GLMM%20ExpNote_01-2013.pdf?sequence=1

8
Table: Distribution of foreign workers in different Gulf countries. As can be seen, Indians generally
form more than 5% at the least and up to 40% of the total population of some of the Gulf nations,

The second was the Iranian revolution of 1979 and calls by the Ayatollah Khomeini to export
the revolution across to other parts of the world, starting with the Gulf nations, which he
termed as corrupt dynasties (Milani 2004). To this end, Iran also sponsored many militant
groups, including Sunni ones such as Hamas and non-Sunni ones such as Hezbollah (De-
Vore 2012). This led the richer Arab nations to form a council i.e. being the Gulf Co-
operation Council (GCC) comprising of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and
Kuwait in 1981 with the main aim of preserving their monarchy and status quo (Caffiero
2019). As part of (specifically) Saudi Arabia’s efforts to counter Iranian revolutionary
propaganda, they created a narrative of Shia and Sunni Islam being at war historically, which
they spread by funding Madrassas and Mosques all around the world, including in South
Asia (Choksy 2015) (Alvi 2014) (Shankar 2016). According to many sources, this amounted
to two billion US dollars a year (Wion 2020).
Both these above trends brought about two important aspects of knowledge transfer
pertaining to India. Firstly, the large number of Indian (and indeed all South Asian) migrants
in the Gulf countries brought home with them immense amounts of remittances that were
used to build mosques and start Islamic schools throughout the 90’s and 2000’s (Illias 2008).
Most of these institutions were also backed by Arab officials and private donors from Ggulf
nations on the condition that they would cater to the Salafist thought and not any other form
of Islam. An example of this was the various schools and colleges run by the KNM in Kerala
many of which were funded by Saudi Arabia (Sheikh 2015). This allowed Saudi strands of
Salafism to be disseminated across India as seen in the books sold by various international
publishing houses such as Darus Salam, Islam Hhouse etc. which were translated various
Saudi Salafist literature into English among other languages (Saudi Gazette 2014).
Another substantial important effect of the Saudi/Gulf influence (via funding) was the fact
that with Saudi and Gulf money coming in for different Madrassas, the Deoband and the Ahl
e-Hadith began jostling for Saudi money to finance their institutions. Yoginder Sikhand
covered this in his comprehensivescrutinous study, noting that especially after the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan and the Saudi’s pumping in money to different religious institutions
to cultivate fighters, the Ahl e-Hadith rivalry with the Deoband which was long present,
intensified (Sikhand 2016).
This was because while initially, it was the Ahl e-Hadith who were favoured by the Saudis
(since the 1930’s onwards), the Deobandis were far more numerous in Afghanistan and
Pakistan in the 1980’s making them a better set of institutions for the Saudis to put in money
and gain both, influence and fighters to fight the Soviet Union. Such policies benefitted the
Deobandi madrassa in India as well which threatened the Ahle Hadith’s position with the
Saudis and created alternate avenues for funding madrassas in India (Sikhand 2016).
According to an intelligence report from India, for example, between 2011 and 2013, more
than 25, 000 Saudi clerics had visited India earning marking up to 1 billion dollars for setting
up mosques, madrassas and miscellaneous other costs (Beigh 2017). This money was likely
constant for many years and before the period covered in the intelligence report.
Accordingly, many Deobandi figures such as Nu’mani wrote treatiseses on how past
Deobandi ideologues such as Madani, were misinformed about Abdul Wahhab and, therefore,

9
opposed to him and his doctrines. This was followed up by rebuttals by angry Ahl e-Hadith
scholars who pointed out that the scholar in question, Husain Ahmad Madani (d.1957), had
enough resources to be informed accurately of Abdul Wahhab and was knowledgeable about
his opposition to the Saudi policies and Salafist thought system (Sikhand 2016)
These debates witnessed a major twist in the early 90’s when a Pakistani Ahl e-Hadith
scholar wrote a strong diatribe against the Deobandi’s (in Arabic), branding them as apostates
who were out of the fold of Islam for practicing various aspects of Shirk. The Arabic
language book was distributed widely across Saudi bookstores which wereas followed by
many other books about the disbelief of the Deobandis written by both Saudi scholars and
Indian scholars such as one by Iqbal Salafi provocatively titled Mazhab-i Hanafi Ka Mazhab-
i Islam Se Ikhtliaf (‘The Opposition of the Hanafi Religion to the Religion of Islam’) (give
date of this book) (Sikhand 2016).
Vociferous opposition to the Deobandis also displayed another effect of Saudi funding into
India, being the increasing virulence of Ahl e-Hadith literature. In the late 19 th and early 20th
century, when the Ahl e-Hadith were a small group in India (and Pakistan and Bangladesh),
the Ahl e-Hadith were more subtlesubtler in brandishing other groups/madrassas/sects as
disbelievers/wrongdoers. This was presumably to prevent major opposition to their growth
and the funding increased from the 70’s and the 80’s, the Ahl e-Hadith grew more bolder
denouncing their opponents in more harsher critiques and tracts.
Secondly, apart from just the money, many individuals residing in the Ggulf nations picked
up Salafist customs in prayers (such as placing their hands high on their chest during prayers,
not raising their hands after prayers for supplications, etc.). It also became customary forby
many individuals returning from the Gulf to start wearing Arab Kandooras/Thobes (Long
Traditional robes normally in white, although present in other colours too) as part of the Arab
influence. While this trend was initially not supported by non-Salafists who were mainly
from Indian backgrounds, the white robes began to slowly be adopted by the very same
people. Such clothes are sometimes worn as a fashion symbol more than a declaration of
Islamic jurisprudence.
Many individuals working in the Gulf nations such as Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia,
etc., also began to effect changes within their own families, discouraging visits to dargahs
and shrines of Muslims who were awarded the status of saints. Moreover, these networks
formalized further when such individuals also began to look for marriage alliances of only
those who “followed the Quran and Sunnah” (referring to the Salafi manhaj very specifically)
and those who did not practice Bida’a and Shirk. Such differences even affected families
enough to pit Salafists against non-Salafists within families due to the Salafists’ dogmatic
approach to casting off such practices.
Economic migrants changing their and close family members’ behaviors is one part of the
story. The other is the massive influence wielded by Islamic institutions such as the
International University of Medina, also referred to colloquially as Medina Uuniversity. It
was up in 1961 with an initial budget of Saudi Riyal 3 million to counter Egyptian Nasserite
propaganda. Over the years, the status and funding of the university grew significantly,
reaching up to 380 million Saudi Riyals a year by the 1980’s post the oil boom.
Consequently, the number of students also increased significantly, as well going up from
about 600 students a year to close to 4000 students a year by the 1980 ’s, a figure that jumped

10
up from 5000 – 7000 students according to media reports in the 2000’s (Ummid 2009). An
estimate provided by the QS rankings systems notes that the university has about 13, 000
students with about 7500 international students in 2022 (QS 2021).
Out of the total mentioned above, almost 80% were international students receiving generous
scholarships covering tuition fees, annual return tickets, monthly stipends (approx. 250$, a
figure that many university graduates attested was quite adequate for basic food and
amenities given the exchange rates and subsidized rates) for anywhere between 2 – 6 years
(Farquahar 2016). Accordingly, different countries were provided with quotas depending on
the Muslim population of those nations. Given India’s large population, Indian Muslims were
higher in the university.
Due to the generous scholarship schemes, it was not easy for everyone to get admission into
the university. Most Indians who gained admissions were often already graduates of other
Madrassas, including Deoband (which is not Salafist in nature but still has links with Salafist
institutions as was detailed above further), Nadwat ul Ulema (Lucknow), Jamiya Salafiya
Banarasi (Varanasi), Kulliyatul Hadeeth (Bangalore) and other madrassas across India. For
those unaffiliated with madrassas, the route was much more difficult, as mentioned by
various people I have interacted with over the years. Most of the graduates often came back
to India. They and taught at different masjids/madrassas/Islamic Institutions, with some even
setting up translation offices for those interested in goingto go to the Gulf countries.
According to Mujeeb Rahman Kinaloor, a previous state president of the ISM, a subsidiary of
the KNM, many of these returnees were also paid by the Muslim World League, an
organization empowered by the Saudi Arabian Government between the 1980’s and 2010’s.
As this sub – section showed, Salafism grew by leaps and bounds after the 70’s due to
influence coming in from the Gulf region and especially Saudi Arabia. This was facilitated
via funding, returning migrants and returning graduates of universities, including but not
limited to the International University of Medina. The Saudi/Gulf factor is so vitalstrong that
it even veered the theology of the Deobandi movement in India to procure more funding for
itself, as discussed in Yoginder Sikhand’s works (Sikhand 2016). In Kerala, the influence
shifted the trajectory of the KNM and brought about a reformist vs revivalist debate within
the organization. Indeed, as many interviewees had noted, the term Salafi became common in
the 1980’s after the influx of Ggulf money into Kerala.
An important influence of the Gulf influence in this period was the democratization of the
Salafist movement’s debates among the common laymen of the organization as well. While
the doctrines of the movement (disseminated via the various different organizations in the
North and South) were once debated within scholarly literature and public sermons between
the 19th andth and 20th Ccentury, the post 70’s rise of Salafism witnessed even more vigorous
debates taking place among common members of these organizations against non-Salafists as
witnessed in some of my personal interactions. This was a trend further accelerated as seen in
the next section.

Anglophone Influence
As the above sub-section demonstrated, the Gulf was instrumental in changing the trajectory
of the Salafists across India in many ways. One major second- order effect was the rise of

11
Indian, Gulf- based and Western Salafists, who, in turn influenced Salafists in India. All this
was made possible due to the efforts of one Indian preacher, Zakir Naik, who entered the
realm of celebrity Muslim clerics. A medical doctor by training, Naik was influenced by the
Indian origin South African preacher Ahmed Deedat who engaged in polemics with Christian
missionaries in South Africa (Ahuja 2019).
Naik, like Deedat, adopted an aggressive style filled with references to scriptural texts (to the
chapter and verse numbers) of Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. He became famous in India
infrom the mid 90’s and in the post 9/11 due to his style, his media management skills and
the fact that he was the only English-speaking preacher who was ready to challenge
institutional Islamophobia emanating from both the West (specifically the US) and from
Hindu right-wing groups in India (Kuiper 2017).
Theologically speaking, Naik declared that he did not adhere to any form of Islam, even
specifically criticizing the need to call oneself Salafi given that there are so many types of
Salafis (Naik 2011). However, due to his literalist approach toof interpreting the Quran and
his close association with other Salafist scholars in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world,
I classify him as being within the Salafi spectrum along the lines of Albani. In fact, he did
note that the Ahle Hadeeth and Salafis were the closest (?) to the Qur’an and Sunnah (Naik
2011). Moreover, he often faced criticism from different non-Salafi groups, such as the
Deobandis (Darul Iftah 2006) and s well as the Barelvis (Reyaz 2016).
Zakir Naik also pioneered big- stage da’wah programmes and Islamic TV channels. He is
said to have given up to 4000 lectures over the course of 30 years or so and commands a
massivehuge following of about 22 million followers on Facebook (Mithra 2018). One of his
most anticipated events was the yearly peace conference, a 10-day event that began in 2007
and continued till the mid 2010’smid-2010s (Wahijuddin 2011). While it was initially held in
Mumbai, due to issues with Indian authorities, it was later shifted to the UAE. The 2014
session had more than 25, 000 registrations and reportedly, a million viewers globally
(Shabandari 2014).
It was here that Zakir Naik introduced the English-speaking Indians to Salafi preachers from
both the Gulf and the Western world. Among the most famous of these were Yasir Qadhi,
Bilal Philips and Yusuf Estes, all American citizens (Philips and Estes were converts to
Islam) (Yusuf Estes 2012). Of these two, Qadhi and Philips were trained in the above-
mentioned Medina University (Bilal Philips 2010) (ISNA 2020). Philips had also formed the
Islamic Online University (IOU) (2007), whereas Qadhi was a prominent instructor and dean
of the Al Maghrib Iinstitute in the USA (2002).
Both institutes became famous among Indians, with the IOU attracting so many Indians that
it announced a physical Indian branch in 2010 in the South Indian city of Chennai. Chennai is
one of the metro cities with higher levels of education and literacy rates compared to other
parts of the Tamil Nadu state. Chennai was also the place where Bilal Philips used to
frequent, eventually leading to the founding of Preston College and Al Fajr International
School (Humanity Crescent Div 2015). The eventual rise of both these institutes also co-
incided with the proliferation of Islamic literature, videos, and audios on the internet
(Faroukji 2018).

12
This was when s the time that speakers associated with Yasir Qadhi and Bilal Philips became
quite famous. For instance, Nouman Ali Khan, known for his emphasis on Quran studies
(also dubbed as a one-man Quran movement), who formed Al Bayyinah institute (S. T. Khan
2013), often teamed up with figures like Yasir Qadhi. Similarly, his then colleague Omar
Sulaiman too was a famous American preacher and scholar who had a strong online presence
with about 2.5 million followers on Facebook, 461 000 followers on Twitter and about 890
000 followers on Iinstagram (Crain 2017).
The influence of these speakers also coincided with speakers from other institutes, such as Al
Kauthar, formed by a British citizen, Dr. Tawfique Chaudhury (also trained in Medina
University). Al Kauthar Iinstitute organized two-day courses (for a fee) which were run in
different countries across the world, such as the US, UK, Australia, Malaysia, and India and
has claimed to have taught more than 100, 000 students in its different courses (Al Kauthar
2018).
Two of the courses in Mangalore and Mumbai (2010 and 2011) were taught by English-
speaking Medina graduates (Tariq Appleby and Bilal Ismail respectively). Despite a fee of
close to 200 USD (hefty fees for a country with an annual GDP of less than 2000 USD), there
were up to 100 people in both courses. Moreover, in the year 2012, when Mufti Menk,
another well-known English-speaking scholar revered by many Salafists across the world,
visited Bangalore, more than 1000 people attended his talk (there wereas no fees involved for
this event) (Menk 2012).
While these instructors and speakers from the West were not openly Salafist, they again
adhered to the Athari creed and were often opposed to religious innovations, grave
visitations, and celebration of religious events such as the prophet’s birthday etc. By way of
their language, their influence was naturally focused on younger and middle-aged Indians (15
– 40 years old mainly) who were educated in English medium schools, thereby limiting their
influence to that age group.
The impact of Anglophone Salafists following in the path of Albani was significant in India.
It was these scholars from the West (as well as Indians like Zakir Naik) who expounded on
Da’awa (proselytization) of Islam to nNon-Muslims. Figures like Hamza Tzortzis, a Greek
Pakistani Da’ee (proselytizer) based in the UK who frequently set up stalls in the streets of
England and called people to Islam by debating them, inspired many ‘Street Dawah’ stalls in
places like Bangalore and Mumbai, among others (Hussain 2014). Other events like World
Hijab Day wereas also replicated in many parts of India, whereby non-Muslim women wore
the Hijab in solidarity with Hijab wearing Muslims (World Hijab Day 2018).
This also overlapped with Ggulf influence as well leading to the growth of English- language
Salafist websites such as Islam Q & A (founded by Saudi Scholar Mohammed Salih al
Munajjid). For instance, the app version of the website has been installed more than 100, 000
times according to the Ggoogle app store details (Google 2020). Such accelerated trends of
knowledge projected by the Salafists clashed with the traditionalists/non-Salafists who
continued to advocate for the control of knowledge to be focused around the scholarly class
alone, giving the ordinarycommon laymen interested in Salafism to pick up knowledge
quicker than their non-Salafist counter parts (Brown 2014). This also further led to debates
between younger Salafists and older generations of non-Salafists in India as well as other
parts of the world (M.S. Visakh 2021).

13
Interestingly, since the mid- 2010’s onwards, many of these initiatives largely petered out,
with the level of talks organized cut down significantly over time. Moreover, Al Kauthar,
which used to hold events regularly in India, also stopped many of its programmesprograms
due to difficulties in obtaining visas for international speakers – as mentioned by one of their
instructors, Tariq Appleby. This also affected many other international speakers intending to
come down to India to speak to Muslim crowds. It is telling that most Indians, while happy to
listen to such speakers were not able to produce their own crop of scholars who were able to
study in different Madrassas and come back to India to continue the momentum in the
English language world. As such, most Salafist scholars still propagate in the
Urdu/Malayalam speaking class as opposed to English classes even though many of them are
quite fluent in English.
Two organizations have continued, however, to remain in India. One of them is Al Huda, a
female- centric organization started by Farhat Hashmi (Pakistani origin Canadian)
headquartered in Canada, which has various branches in India and Pakistan. Al Huda
conducts 4–5-year courses on the Qur’an and aspects of Akhlaaq (good manners), Salah
(prayers) and Ramadan special courses as well. While the course is largely built for women,
they opened up their class to the general public after they began to hold it online due to
COVID 19 in 2020 and 2021 (AlHuda Institute Bangalore 2017).
During these sittings, it was clear that the inspiration and methodology wereas largely Salafist
(although it wasn’t openly declared) in that they opposed taqleed, professed to follow the
Salaf us Saalih and spoke out against issues like celebrating the prophet’s birthday, visiting
shrines etc – characteristic of Salafist thought across India and the world. This institution has
branches across India with Bangalore and Hyderabad having their physical branches. The
course is typicanormally attended by middle to upper- class women, although the fees are
nominal – about 400 Rupees (3.5 USD) a month.
Another institution inspired by the West in the way the mosque was set up (including spaces
for women, a library and, an audio-visual room) which has also continued in Bangalore, India
is the Hikmah Iinstitute (Hikmah 2013). Founded in 2012 by a Bangalorean man named Zaid
Hussain, the institute began as a mosque and then expanded to become a school as well. With
evidentclear Salafist dispositions, proven by the various discourses on Shirk (Hikmah
Institute 2013) and Bid’a (Hikmah Institute 2014) (as well as opposition by non-Salafists),
the institute has become famous for having English sermons and talks given by the founder
Zaid Hussain. Hussain is himself a man trained by local Salafist scholars and inspired by
international Salafists as well as noted in various personal interactions. This institute is
limited to Bangalore alone and not to other parts of India.

NotablImportantly, the Anglophone speakers differed from the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian
influence in that, the Anglophone Salafists did not influence Salafist clerics or Salafist
thought as significantly as the latter two regions did. The Anglophone Salafists were more
popular among a small class of upper- middle-class English-speaking Muslims in urban cities
due to the fact that English is not spoken by most Muslims in India. These Salafists did not
write significantly in Arabic in a way that it could influence debates within the Indian Salafist
clerical establishments.

14
As such, this sub – section demonstrated that the while a large part of Salafism was
developed by influence from the Arab and Muslim world, Muslims in the Western world,
educated in the Gulf were also strong factors in developing the Salafist thought and
organizations across India.

Conclusion
This chapter covered the origins of the term Salafi, globally and its usage in this thesis for
Indian Salafists belonging to various movements, including the Ahl e-Hadith and the Kerala
Nadwatul Mujahideen (KNM). It also provided a history of the terminology ‘Wahhabi’ and
its usage in India dating back to colonial times, after which it expounded on the beliefs of the
movement, thereby explaining the difference between it and other Muslims along theological,
and jurisprudential lines. Further, it narrated the history of the two major Salafist movements
in India and its influence from the Middle East and the Western World.
Several inferences can be made from the chapter. First, while many other countries such as
the United States, parts of Europe and parts of Africa have seen seeing the growth of Salafist
thought only since the late 20 th century, India has had a Salafist presence since the early 19 th
century. While they would not have been termed as Salafists back then since the term was
made famous only towards the mid-20th century, they were termed as Wahhabis by their
detractors including the British and other Muslims. More importantly, they had the same
reformist tendencies that Salafists of today have.
Second, we see that theology and politics intertwined in making the term Wahhabi a negative
one since it related to the famed sepoy mutiny of 1857. This term, while not immediately
used in Southern contexts too did crop up towards the first part of the 20 th century, as seen in
Vakkom Maulavi’s correspondence.
Third, as this chapter has demonstrated, political and economic developments across the
Middle East were crucial in shaping the trajectory of Salafism in India. This was due to Saudi
and the rest of the Gulf countries’ funding of Madrassas, Masjids and other educational
institutions across India as well as the flow of economic migrants to the Gulf bringing back
newer religious customs in India. This trend is what differentiated the previous era of
Salafism whereby debates sparked by Salafism became a lot more democratized due to the
lay person now bringing back its teachings to his families/villages and towns as opposed to it
being relegated to the Madrassa- trained classes only.
Fourth, the democratization process that was slowly taking shape among the Salafist
movement sped up rapidly in the last few decades with the proliferation of the internet aided
by the towering figure of Zakir Naik in the Indian Salafist spectrum. This speeding rate also
further gave impetus to the generation succeeding the Ggulf migrants to become a big part of
the movement due to English lectures and the easy availability of resources over the internet.
Fifth, this chapter has demonstrated significantly that Salafism in India is not a monolith but a
complicated and diverse movement split into many organizations. While we covered a few
major organizations in some parts of India only, many other organizations exist and continue
to come up every year to spread the Salafist methodology across the masses. Even among the
organizations that we covered explicitspecifically in this chapter, there have been factions

15
and splinter groups that have broken away, rejoined and again left the leadermain
organizations such as in the case of the KNM.
Sixth – while in the pre-colonial era, opposition to the Salafists did come about from the
British, a more significantlarger part of the critiques came from the Muslim clerical
establishment itself who saw the movement as a threat to their own influence. However, these
differences were not highlighted as much, likely due to the Salafists’ own proclivity to keep a
quieter profile and avoid being castigated by the much more significantlarger proportion of
non-Salafist Muslims. This trend changed completely since the 1980’s when gulf money
became a more significantbigger part of the equation and Salafist institutes were able to
expand quickly thereby not fearing any economic consequences of preaching what they did
(at least). This led to hundreds of debates that took place both at clerical levels, as seen in
various YouTube videos (in several languages) and among the average lay persons as well, a
major change from the written challenges and responses of the early to mid-20th century.
In effect, readers can thus see that the Salafists and the reformists in India have long been a
part of the religious movements dating back to the 18th century in some parts of India. The
Salafists are multi-lingual and diverse in their thought processes and have been significant in
influencing local trends of Islam across India. Their presence gained a very strong boost after
the rise of the Gulf kingdoms, a growth rooted in the Gulf’s ambitions for power and
ideological hegemony. It is with this understanding that we move on to the next chapter.

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