Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir – On a sunlit June Friday in Srinagar’s Old City, the Jamia Masjid stands as it always has, ornate and imposing. Its 14th-century wooden pillars have been witnesses to centuries of sermons and struggle.Inside, about 4,000 worshippers sit in silence.When Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the spiritual leader of Kashmir’s Muslims, rises to speak, he does so with grace but caution. Draped in his customary golden-bordered white thobe and crowned with a brown Karakuli hat, he delivers a sermon laced with quiet prayers.“As we enter the new Islamic year,” he said, “I extend greetings to the entire Muslim Ummah. May Allah grant us peace, unity and strength, protect the oppressed, and guide our leaders with wisdom and righteousness in these testing times.”His tone is unrecognisable from just a few years ago, when the now 52-year-old mirwaiz – as Kashmir’s chief Muslim leader is known – was a fiery orator, thundering with conviction, his speeches a powerful cocktail of religious messaging and politics.For almost three decades, Kashmir’s supreme Muslim leader was also one of the region’s most influential voices arguing for its independence from India through peaceful dialogue, at a time when the valley was a cauldron of violence. An armed secessionist struggle that kicked off in the 1980s led to a massive Indian security presence in Kashmir, and since then, more than 40,000 pe …
