Background
Dawat-e-Islami (DeI) (which means “Invitation to Islam”) is a Pakistan-based Sunni Islamic non-profit organization. It was founded in 1981 in Karachi by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Attar Qadri.
DeI has branches the world over, including in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Korea, USA, and Canada among others. DeI’s Indian chapter is Dawat-e-Islami Hind (DeI-Hind) with headquarters in Delhi and Mumbai and branches in all major states and cities of India. DeI-Hind has consistently stressed of having no links with its Pakistani counterpart, but evidence in the public media points otherwise.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210428003709/http://www.dawateislamiindia.org/
This organization was catapulted into media attention in 2022 with Udaipur’s Kanhaiya Lal murder case wherein investigative agencies’ probe revealed that the key accused in the case was connected with Dawat-e-Islami Pakistan. Kanhaiya Lal was murdered by two Muslim assailants for him openly expressing support for Nupur Sharma in the anti-Prophet remark row.
DeI’s declared mission is, “I must strive to reform myself and people of the entire world”. The organization doesn’t shy away from projecting itself as a socio-religious reform organization.
In addition to charity campaigning locally, Dawat-e-Islami also offers online courses in Islamic studies. The organization also runs a television station, Madani Channel, which is very popular among followers.
Dawat-e-Islami Hind (DeI-Hind)
States and UTs having one or more branches of Dawat-e-Islami have been labeled in green (map above)
DeI-Hind’s workings are spread over 80+ departments. Prominent departments include Darul Madinah (International Islamic schooling system), Jamiat-ul Madina (Islamic Institution), Madrasa-tul Madina (Teaching Quran), Madani Qafila, and Garib Nawaz Online Academy, among several others.
Syed Arif Ali Atari is the current Nigraane Hind Mushawarat (head) of Dawat-e-Islami Hind.
While Faizan Global Relief Foundation (FGRF) is DeI’s charity wing, the same for its Indian counterpart goes by the name ‘Garib Nawaz Relief Foundation’.
It is pertinent to note that Dawat-e-Islami Hind is not to be confused with another organization, Sunni Dawat-e-Islami. It is an altogether separate Mumbai-based Sunni group whose members broke away from Dawat-e-Islami in the 1990s over an internal dispute.
Dawat-e-Islami’s media coverage
In global discourses surrounding Dawat-e-Islami as an organization, it is being widely hailed as a start-out revivalist group influenced by Sufi beliefs which has since transformed into an extremist Islamist group with overt ties to terrorism. In the Indian context, as is aforementioned, DeI rose to prominence in 2022 for multiple reasons.
When a series of murders happened across the country targeting those who supported Nupur Sharma in the Prophet remarks row, key accused persons in two of such high-profile cases were found to have links with the DeI.
The most infamous of them all was the Kanhaiya Lal murder case of June of 2022. Rajasthan police found in its probe that the murderers of Kanhaiyalal had links with Dawat-e-Islami and one of the two accused Ghous Mohammad was inspired by Islam and visited Karachi in 2014. Notably, Pakistan refuted the claims of the involvement of a Pakistan-based organization in the Kanhaiyalal murder case.
Maulana Qamar Gani Usmani, one of the accused in the Kishan murder case of 2022 itself is believed to have been running a center of DeI.
Besides, DeI garnered a negative spotlight again over the former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister sanctioning the allotment of 10 hectares of land to it. Following heavy backlash, the Raipur administration allegedly canceled the allotment overnight.
Furthermore, DeI-affiliated schools in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur and Pili hit attracted action from State authorities over registration anomalies and illegal occupation of government land.
What makes Dawat-e-Islami a potential threat?
Radical Islamic ideals
A 2022 special investigation in Dawat-e-Islami Hind by India Today brought to light the organization’s support of radical Islamic beliefs and teachings. The report presented proof as to how DeI-Hind’s online courses glorified Pakistan and sacrificed for the cause of Allah.
DeI India’s official YouTube channel also pushed for viewers to subscribe to the Pakistan-based & run Madani channel’s official page.
https://www.youtube.com/@MadaniChannelOfficial
Children are a key target
Many of DeI’s initiatives are either specially targeted at children or have a version for the young age group to connect to. These programs evidently push for Islamic ideals and concepts down on children of the community in an aggressive manner.
For instance, in a video from the Annual event of DeI’s Darul Madinah English school, a member can be heard stating how the school has come up with a reward badge method to enforce a habit of performing Namaz five times a day among its students. He further emphasizes how the management aims at introducing modern education among girls of the community, however within strict boundaries of Islam.
The practice of making content specially targeted at children is the hallmark of DeI. Its Madani channel sports a kids-friendly version of its own on YouTube.
Leveraging technology to perpetuate radical Islamization
The India Today investigation referenced before highlights how DeI-Hind has multiple affiliated online platforms to distribute radicalizing teaching materials in the form of Islamic courses (both long and short-term) among members of a certain community. Faizan Online Academy is specially mentioned in the report.
Their medium: Skype. The mode is strictly audio, with no video streaming permitted. The content was purely religious in the initial stages but soon began to include video and audio materials from Pakistan-based preachers.
Recent videos posted from random channels on YouTube suggest that Faizan Academy and other DeI-affiliated centre’s have only had their offline presence increase in the last few years.
(left) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EozdtbvAov0 (right) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7OIUGZL4bg
Besides, the IT department of DeI has enlisted a long list of affiliated mobile store applications that can be easily accessed to connect with DeI’s teachings.
Wide Global Network
As has already been mentioned, DeI has branches spanning across continents, all united under the common radical Islamic ideals pushed by the Pakistan-based home branch where it was founded. In the past, the media has covered the donation box idea heavily deployed by DeI. In 2022, Gujarat police had claimed that over 2000+ donation boxes seeking donations in the name of Pakistan’s DeI were found in Ahmadabad alone. In many cases, shopkeepers in possession of those boxes had genuinely no idea that funds were being sought in the name of such an organization.
https://x.com/MehHarshil/status/1488710607419641857/photo/1
There have also been records of instances wherein DeI-Hind has solicited donations in the name of the Turkish earthquake and for the Palestinian cause, denoting internal links with its chapters based in these geographical territories.
Cue from Global events
On September 25, 2020, a Pakistani terrorist Zaheer Mehmood was involved in a stabbing incident outside the former headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The probe revealed that Mehmood’s religious guide was Maulana Ilyas Qadri, the leader of the DeI.
On similar lines, Pakistani Governor Salman Taseer was killed by a follower of the DeI. The killer Mumtaz was declared a ‘Ghazi’ by Qadri following the killing. He said that the Muslim scholars agree that a blasphemer must be killed.
Quite recently on September 5, 2024, members of the Pakistani Islamist organization Dawat-e-Islami (DeI) marched through the streets of Agios Nikolaos-a picturesque town on the Greek island of Crete, their loudspeakers blaring Islamic chants and the call of “Allahu Akbar” echoing through the air. Leading the procession was Maulana Ubaid Raza, the son of Dawat-e-Islami’s founder, Maulana Ilyas Qadri.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, Dawat-E-Islami (DeI) and its followers have been consistently found to be targeting those whose values don’t align with the radical Islamic ideals being aggressively pushed by them. In a wave of attacks on so-called blasphemers, DeI has engulfed the social balance and harmony everywhere it has spread its influence in the world. The march in Greece is a case in point.
In the context of India, DeI’s teachings have already been proven to have incited violent perpetrators to carry out brutal killings. The organization’s target on children and youths by way of leveraging modern learning technologies shall only contribute to distributing its ideology among the larger masses. Before the DeI becomes an even larger threat to India’s security and peace in the region, it warrants united action towards curbing its influence.
