Shah Shafiya
Irfan came to our house in Pulwama town on Eid morning.
This wasn’t the first time I had seen him. He’s been to our home on many occasions—deaths, marriages, Eid Qurbani. He always arrives silently, stands at the gate waiting, and leaves just as quietly. This time, after he finished the Eid Takbeer, my father handed him a ₹500 note.
The butcher, who had come just an hour earlier, got ₹1,200.
It stunned me. Not because both should be paid equally—but because one offered meat, the other offered prayer, and yet the man who summoned the name of God received not even half of what the man with a knife did.
Outside, I noticed Irfan lingering on the street. The Eid crowds were out in their best clothes. Music played from homes. I watched him—roaming slowly, quietly, perhaps looking for more houses, more people who might call him in for the Eid Takbeer. It struck me then: everyone had a holiday, but not him. He had travelled at least 20 kilometres from Tral that morning. And yet no one even offered him tea.
This is what it means to be an imam in Kashmir today—present at every moment of joy or grief, but absent from our imaginations of fairness, dignity, or celebration.
In Shopian, Mehraj-u-Din spends his days at a local seminary, teaching more than a hundred students—most of them children of farmers, labourers, or orphans. “We have over a hundred students here,” he says. “Some don’t even have money to buy basic groceries. They come from very poor backgrounds, and yet they’re trying to learn the Qur’an, Hadith, Fiqh. Who takes responsibility for them if not us?”
Mehraj, like many clerics in the region, has given his life to teaching Islam—but his social status remains suspended between reverence in sermons and ridicule in society.
There are more than 7,500 mosques and seminaries across Kashmir, along with over 14,000 maktabs (small Quranic schools), according to Dr. Nisar Ahmad Trali’s 2015 research published in Aaena-e-Madaaris (reprinted 2022). Yet those who run them—often without institutional support—are rarely respected in material terms.
In a Muslim-majority region where 97 per cent of the Kashmir Valley’s population follows Islam (2011 Census), one might expect greater community care for its religious stewards. But as Mehraj tells it, perception has eroded into prejudice.
“Last year, I bought a small car. It was second-hand, nothing fancy. But people started whispering: How did a molvi get this much money? Must be doing black magic, or taking bribes for nikah papers. Imagine—a school teacher buys a bike and he’s praised for ambition, but when a cleric does the same, it becomes a scandal.” He laughs, but it’s the bitter kind.
“I used to walk kilometres in snow and summer to reach my students. When I finally got some ease in life, I was mocked for it,” he said.
What hurts him more than the taunts is the deep disconnect between what clerics do and what people believe about them. “People think we live off charity. They don’t realise we teach, we lead, we counsel. We’re the ones they call when someone is dying, when someone is suicidal, when there’s a family feud no one else can fix.”
Still, the respect doesn’t translate to real support.
Across Kashmir, most imams earn between ₹7,000 to ₹12,000 per month, if they’re paid at all. This comes despite years of religious study and service, often without formal recognition. The Jammu Kashmir Waqf Board announced a 30% salary hike in 2023 to the Imams recruited by Waqf, but many clerics say implementation remains patchy across districts (J&K Waqf Board Annual Report, 2023).
“Some imams in Uttar Pradesh—where Muslims are a minority—get more than what we do in Kashmir. Isn’t that shameful?” Mehraj asked. To make ends meet, many clerics take on extra work—selling books, stitching clothes, or tutoring students after dark. Mehraj himself is among them.
“You tell people you’re a molvi and they automatically imagine you live on leftovers. That’s how far the perception has fallen.”
In August 2023, the J&K Waqf Board introduced new guidelines requiring mosque appointments to have a minimum Class 10 education, along with Islamic qualifications such as Molvi-Faazi, preferably a Mufti or Faazil degree. This policy aims to “professionalize” the clergy but risks sidelining many who have served devotedly without formal certificates.
“I cannot speak publicly,” Mehraj said softly. “I haven’t received modern education—only studied till Class 6. But I’ve pursued IFTA, after Molvi Aalim and Faazil. This tendency to evaluate people only on one form of education is deeply problematic.”
In a region rich with mosques and tradition, clerics like Irfan and Mehraj remain the invisible backbone of Kashmiri society—called upon for prayer, counsel, funerals, and festivals—but often denied the very dignity they help uphold.
In Kashmir, where nearly 45% of adults experience psychological distress—ranging from depression to PTSD—there is growing concern about the overlooked mental health of imams. While they serve as the first point of contact for many facing emotional crises, there is no institutional mental health support for them. A 2020 study by MSF and the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS) found that imams often carry the emotional burdens of their congregations without training or counseling of their own (MSF-IMHANS Report, 2020).
Globally, this aligns with patterns found in research showing up to one-third of clergy suffer from burnout, stress, or trauma, due to the dual pressures of being constantly available and managing others’ grief. A cross-sectional study from Bangladesh similarly revealed that many imams had low suicide literacy and stigmatizing attitudes, influenced by income and education level (PubMed, 2024). These findings suggest Kashmir’s imams, while critical community figures, may also be silent sufferers of mental strain, urgently in need of tailored psychosocial support.
In the end, behind the sermons and recitations are men quietly carrying wounds of neglect.
Everyday Stories of Humiliation
In a village in Anantnag, an imam—Mohammed Adil (name changed)—was asked to perform a nikah ceremony at a wealthy family’s home. He entered as instructed, sat in the living room, recited the required verses, and then waited to sign the documentation. As he waited, he glanced toward the courtyard—where a young woman, perhaps a relative of the bride, stood briefly adjusting her dupatta before disappearing inside.
“I didn’t think anything of it,” Adil later told a colleague. “It was a passing moment. I was thinking about whether I’d catch the last bus home.”
By evening, the family had circulated a message on a local WhatsApp group, alleging that the imam had been “staring at women” and “making everyone uncomfortable.” No confrontation. No clarification. Just digital slander. The next morning, the mohalla committee called an emergency meeting.
“They didn’t even ask my version,” Adil later confided. “They just said: molvi hai, haya nahi rehti tum logon mein? I’d been leading prayers for five years in that village. Five years. It took five minutes to undo all that.”
He was replaced within a week, without salary clearance. His reputation tainted, he left the village quietly and now works part-time at a madrasa in another district, avoiding public gatherings.
“We walk into homes to bless people, not to disgrace them,” said another imam, commenting on the incident. “But today, one sideways glance—even unintentional—can destroy a life. No one asks what it’s like to be watched, judged, and discarded like we are.”
In Kakapora in Pulwama, Mohammed Irfan begins his day before dawn, preparing to lead the Fajr prayers in a modest mosque perched on the edge of a small orchard. He walks nearly one kilometer to the mosque in Tral, regardless of snow or sun. Five times a day, seven days a week, he is expected to summon the faithful, deliver sermons, advise the confused, reconcile the conflicted, and keep the moral compass of the community steady.
And for all of this, Irfan earns 8,000 rupees a month.
He smiles faintly when asked about it. “If I reach five minutes late, they call a committee meeting,” he says. “Once, I got stuck in traffic during Maghrib. They threatened to replace me. They said, you’re the Imam, not a labourer.”
In a region where drug addiction, crime, and mental health crises have surged, the Imam is expected to be flawless—offering clarity while his own life is blurred by precarity, pressure, and poverty.
“We are told to lead the community towards perfection,” Irfan says, “but we are constantly battling for survival. Who leads us?”
The Imams Who Watch from the Margins
Across Kashmir, imams like Irfan—many trained in Darul Ulooms and seminaries—live under immense expectation but with little dignity. They are often seen as outliers, even met with suspicion. The title meant to carry spiritual respect—Molvi Sahib—has become a cultural slur, used to dismiss or insult.
“For some among the public intellect, the name ‘Imam’ has become a slur. To keep their status, they avoid speaking about religion openly. These respected, luxury-living people have defamed the name so much that being called ‘Molvi’ feels like a shame. But despite all this, we hold firmly to our faith,” said Irfan.
In Eid sermons, Imams preach equality and humility, only to walk home past lavishly built homes, many constructed in the name of the very religion they represent. One such imam, who requested anonymity fearing reprisal from his mohalla committee, recalled a bitter Eid memory.
“I went for Qurbani prayers and was invited into a house. It was a huge villa, marble floors, chandeliers. I was genuinely admiring it, just looking around. Suddenly, the children called their father and whispered something. The man asked me to leave. Later I heard they thought I was doing black magic. Black magic! Just because I looked around with interest.”
He pauses. “We are part of society too. Maybe we don’t crave wealth, but we feel the weight of it. We’re not made of stone.” Despite their centrality to every lifecycle event—birth, circumcision, marriage, death—imams are rarely considered professionals. Many rely on alms, leftovers from Eid feasts, or seasonal donations during Ramadan to meet expenses. And yet, even asking for help is seen as disgraceful.
Last year, when Irfan decided to get married, he approached the local mosque committee to ask for advance salary. “They looked at me like I’d committed a sin,” he said. “One of them said: if you can’t afford a wife, why marry? And I wanted to scream—you’re my employers, you pay me this!”
Another imam from Bijbehara described the humiliation of waiting at a butcher’s shop on Eid al-Adha. “On Arfah day, I waited till everyone got their meat. Then someone from the committee handed me half a kg, wrapped in an old newspaper. I’ve led janazas of every person in his family. But that’s all I got.”
The disconnect between society’s expectations from imams and their treatment is growing. The generation of legacy molvis, who took pride in inherited honour, is shrinking. Many young men no longer want to pursue Islamic studies, having witnessed the public shaming and financial strain faced by their fathers.
“We are told to be humble, not materialistic,” said an elderly cleric from Awantipora, “but we are also mocked for not having bikes, smartphones, or good clothes. So what are we? Saints? Servants? Or society’s moral garbage men?”
Some committees have started modest reforms—offering imams medical insurance or small annual increments. But these are exceptions, not the rule. In most towns, the imam’s house is crumbling, his child attends the very madrasa he teaches at, and his wife juggles illnesses in silence.
“What surprises me,” Irfan says, “isn’t just the low salary or the insults. It’s that the same people who come to me for blessings, for duaas, for marriage advice—they never once ask: Molvi sahib, aap khud kaisay hain?”
This is the first in-depth report shedding light on the struggles and social challenges faced by Kashmir’s imams—an issue not covered in mainstream discourse. As a news organization, we are committed to amplifying voices and stories that often remain unheard, bringing attention to the realities behind the headlines.
Additional reporting by Meer Irfan
