The Deobandi movement or Deobandism is a revivalist movement within Sunni Islam that adheres to the Hanafi school of law. It formed in the late 19th century around the Darul Uloom Madrassa in Deoband, India, from which the name derives, by Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, and several others, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857–58. They consider themselves the continuation of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaat. The main purpose of this movement was to reject the grave worshipping, shirk and protect the orthodoxy of Islam from Bidah, as well as the influence of non-Muslim cultures on the Muslim of South Asia. The movement pioneered education in religious sciences through the Dars-i-Nizami associated with the Lucknow-based ulema of Firangi Mahal with the goal of preserving traditional Islamic teachings from the influx of modernist, secular ideas during British colonial rule. The Deobandi movement's Indian clerical wing, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, was founded in 1919 and played a major role in the Indian independence movement through its participation in the Pan-Islamist Khalifat movement and propagation of the doctrine of composite nationalism. The movement shares several similarities with Wahhabism.
Islam is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the largest Muslim country in the world as of 2023, with over 240 Million adherents. As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions.
The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamaah is a Sunni revivalist movement following the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, and Maturidi and Ashʿari schools of theology with strong Sufi influences and with hundreds of millions of followers. It is a broad Sufi-oriented movement that encompasses a variety of Sufi orders, including the Chistis, Qadiris, Soharwardis and Naqshbandis as well as many other orders and sub-orders of Sufism. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy before the rise of Salafism and Deobandi Movement.
Takfiri is an Arabic and Islamic term denoting a Muslim who excommunicates one of his/her coreligionists, i.e. who accuses another Muslim of being an apostate.
The official religion of Pakistan is Islam, as enshrined by Article 2 of the Constitution, and is practised by approximately 96.47% of the country's population. The remaining 3.53% practice Hinduism, Christianity, Ahmadiyya Islam, Sikhism and other religions.
In 2022, Freedom House rated Pakistan’s human rights at 37 out 100.
Islamic extremism, Islamist extremism or radical Islam, signifies a set of extremist beliefs and behaviors associated with the far-right ideology within Islam. These terms remain contentious, encompassing a spectrum of definitions, ranging from academic interpretations to the notion that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior. Furthermore, these terms may extend to encompass other sects of Islam that do not share such extremist views.
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, renamed to Millat-e-Islamia and later Ahl-e Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), is a Sunni Deobandi Islamist organisation in Pakistan, which also functioned as a political party. It broke away from the main Deobandi Sunni organisation Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) in 1985. It was Established in Jhang by Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, it was banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2002 as a terrorist organization under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. In March 2012, the government of Pakistan banned Sipah-e-Sahaba again. The government of the United Kingdom banned the group earlier in 2001.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan refers to violence directed against people and places in Pakistan motivated by antagonism toward the target's religious sect. As many as 4,000 Shia are estimated to have been killed in sectarian attacks in Pakistan between 1987 and 2007, and thousands more Shia have been killed by Sunni extremists from 2008 to 2014, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Sunni Deobandis and Barelvis have also suffered from some sectarian violence, with attacks on religious shrines killing hundreds of worshippers, and some Deobandi leaders assassinated. Pakistan minority religious groups, including Hindus, Ahmadis, and Christians, have "faced unprecedented insecurity and persecution" in at least two recent years, according to Human Rights Watch. One significant aspect of the attacks in Pakistan is that militants often target their victims places of worship during prayers or religious services in order to maximize fatalities and to "emphasize the religious dimensions of their attack".
Madrassas of Pakistan are Islamic seminaries in Pakistan, known in Urdu as Madaris-e-Deeniya . Most madrassas teach mostly Islamic subjects such as tafseer, hadith, fiqh and Arabic ; but include some non-Islamic subjects, which enable students to understand the religious ones. The number of madrassas grew dramatically during and since the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. They are especially popular among Pakistan's poorest families, in part because they feed and house their students. Estimates of the number of madrasas vary between 12,000 and 40,000. In some areas of Pakistan they outnumber the underfunded public schools.
Sunni Tehreek is a Pakistani Barlevi organization. The organization was founded by Muhammad Saleem Qadri in 1990 in order to prevent Barelevi mosques from being seized by Deobandi and Wahabi organizations. It also sees itself as a defender of Barelvis from attacks from Deobandis and Wahabi Muslims.
Haq Nawaz Jhangvi was a Pakistani cleric who founded the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a militant Sunni Deobandi group known for its anti-Shia activities, on 6 September 1986.
The May 2010 Lahore attacks, also referred to as the Lahore massacre, occurred on 28 May 2010, in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, during Friday prayers. 94 people were killed and more than 120 others were injured in nearly simultaneous attacks against two mosques of the minority Ahmadiyya muslim community. After the initial attack, a hostage situation lasted for hours. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, as well as their Punjab wing, claimed responsibility for the attacks and were also blamed by the Pakistani Police.
Akhundzada Mohammad Abdul Ghafoor Hazarvi was a Muslim theologian, jurist, and scholar of ahadith in Pakistan. He was active in the Pakistan movement, member of Council of Islamic Ideology. He was the companion of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and separatist leader Maulana Zafar Ali Khan and was active in the independence movement of Pakistan against the British Raj. He was a Sufi of the Chishti Sufi order and the founding member of the religious Barelvi Sunni strain political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP). He became its president in 1948. He was also a political figure in Pakistan and was the first recipient of Nishan-e-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan. He was also the chairman of Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, an organisation opposed to the Ahmadiyya Movement that waged a campaign against Mirza Ghulam Ahmed's claim of prophethood.
Nearly 97% of the population of Karachi is Muslim. There is also a small number of Qadiyyani Non-Muslims. The Sunnis follow Hanafi fiqh while Shia are predominantly Ithnā‘Ashariyyah in fiqh, with significant minority groups who follow Ismaili Fiqh, which is composed of Nizari, Mustaali, Dawoodi Bohra and Sulaymani fiqhs. The Sunni Hanafis are also known as Ahle-sunnat-wa Jamat Barelvi. The followers of Wahabism are divided into two sub divisions called Ahle-haddeth and Deobandi sects and both have their own mosques.
ʿAbd al-Ḥāmid al-Qādirī al-Badāyūnī was a traditional Islamic scholar, Sufi master, poet, and leader from Pakistan. He was the founder of the Islamic college Jamia-Talimat-e-Islamiya located in Karachi.
Persecution of Sufis over the course of centuries has included acts of religious discrimination, persecution, and violence both by Sunni and Shia Muslims, such as destruction of Sufi shrines, tombs and mosques, suppression of Sufi orders, murder, and terrorism against adherents of Sufism in a number of Muslim-majority countries. The Republic of Turkey banned all Sufi orders and abolished their institutions in 1925, after Sufis opposed the new secular order. The Islamic Republic of Iran has harassed Sufis, reportedly for their lack of support for the government doctrine of "governance of the jurist".
The 2016 conference on Sunni Islam in Grozny was convened to define the term "Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah", i.e. who are "the people of Sunnah and majority Muslim community", and oppose Takfiri groups. The conference was held in the Chechen Republic capital of Grozny from 25 to 27 August 2016, sponsored by the president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and attended by approximately 200 Muslim scholars from 30 countries, especially from Russia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Kuwait, Sudan, Jordan, etc. at the invitation of Yemeni Sufi preacher, Ali al-Jifri.
The Therhi Massacre was a mass murder that occurred on 3 June 1963 in Thehri, Sindh, Pakistan. In it, 118 Shia Muslims were killed by a mob of Deobandi Muslims. Although it was not the first incident of violence against the Shia Muslims of Pakistan, this attack is considered to be the first major massacre of civilians in the Sindh.
The Deoband Madrassah Movement: Countercultural Trends and Tendencies is a book authored by Muhammad Moj, a research fellow at the University of Western Australia, that aims to examine the Deobandi movement from a counter-cultural perspective, with a particular focus on its impact in Pakistan. The book comprises six chapters, providing insights that challenge conventional views of madrasas as centers of learning and socialization. Zeeshan Chaudri, a PhD scholar at SOAS University of London, commented on the book, expressing concerns about its research methodology and the potential bias in portraying the Deobandis as an intolerant faction in South Asia.
