J&K Waqf Board takes U-turn on uniform Friday sermons

In the face of opposition by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Kashmir chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti to the J&K Waqf Board’s move to introduce uniform Friday sermons in mosques, senior BJP leader and Board chairperson Darakshan Andrabi on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) took a U-turn and said “such decisions will be taken by preachers and not politicians”.“There is no order to have uniform sermons. In a meeting on Sunday, religious scholars and preachers suggested to fight social evils collectively. Ulemas (scholars) and khateebs (preachers) will decide the topics for Friday sermons through a board. It’s them (preachers) and not politicians who get to decide on such matters,” Ms. Andrabi said.She said the idea was to “forcefully and unitedly raise voice over social issues like drugs, late marriages, waywardness and the recent cases of damaging of orchards.”The U-turn came two days after Ms. Andrabi proposed to have a core committee of preachers to pre-decide on the topics for the sermons in J&K mosques. Ishtiyaq Mohi-ud-Din, an Executive Magistrate at the Board, had informed the preachers about the Board directive that “only one topic will be highlighted [in the sermons]”.The Board’s move, however, evoked public outcry and drew criticism from the regional parties, including National Conference, PDP, J&K Peoples Conference (JKPC), Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) etc.“This is an unacceptable attempt by the BJP to interfere in the religious affairs of Muslims and will not be accepted under any circumstances. The BJP-appointed Chairperson must immediately halt this misplaced attempt to please her masters,” Mr. Abdullah said.Mr. Farooq, who also heads a pan-J&K conglomerate of religious bodies, Mutahida Majlis-e-Ulema, said, “Even the suggestion that a statutory body could determine or regulate what is to be preached from the pulpit is ridiculous, and will never be accepted by the Muslims of J&K.”He said the move amounts to “forcible State intrusion into the religious sphere, which is against law and principles of freedom of religious practice”. “The Waqf Board should remain within its administrative responsibility of management, maintenance and protection of the Waqf properties entrusted to it, rather than come up with such a devious agenda and unnecessary controversy,” he added.Former J&K Chief Minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti termed the Board’s move “totally unacceptable”. “This is an interference in our religious affairs. Friday sermons are primarily shaped by the issues and circumstances confronting a particular region or locality, while also addressing wider social and national concerns. Imposing a uniform template on these sermons disregards the diversity of local realities,” Ms. Mufti said.Ms. Mufti said the BJP cannot use Waqf institutions to interfere in religious affairs or prescribe what should be preached from the pulpit. “Our religious preachers know well about the subjects to be talked about. It’s them who spread and protected Islam in J&K. A Board run by the BJP and the Minority ministry headed by a non-Muslim cannot decide what should be in a sermon,” Ms. Mufti said.She said it’s a bid to push the BJP agenda on the lines of Uniform Civil Code in J&K. “Kashmir has become a laboratory for the BJP. What is applied here first is later introduced in the whole country. Mosques in J&K are built by the donations of locals and are not a personal property of the Board,” Ms. Mufti said.She demanded that the Waqf Board be handed over to the elected government. “Let Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who heads the MMU, get to decide on sermons. He is well within the rights of doing that as a cleric,” Ms. Mufti said.Former Srinagar Mayor Junaid Azim Mattu said the J&K Waqf Board must be constituted by the elected government and not by an unelected Lieutenant Governor. “You can’t foist unelected boards and institutions on the people as a parallel form of policy administration and still have delusions about being a democracy. Having ten sarkari maulanas on a table is not a carte blanche to issue fatwas. If the BJP wanted to decide what our imams say in Friday sermons, what is left in this pretence of freedom of religion or the Constitution,” Mr. Mattu said.JKPC chairman Sajad Lone termed “pre-vetting and deciding Friday sermons through a J&K Waqf Board committee as direct interference in religious freedom and pulpit autonomy”. “The pulpit belongs to faith, not government micromanagement. Hands off our mosques,” Mr. Lone said.AIP warned the Board against “interfering in religious affairs”. “The pulpit of a mosque is not an administrative desk, and an imam is not a spokesperson required to read out an approved script,” AIP spokesperson Inam Un Nabi said. He said imams must retain the freedom to address injustice, corruption and the concerns of their communities without being confined to a predetermined agenda.