The Mutahida Majlis-e-Ulema, or MMU, adopted two resolutions at a one-day Ulema and Seerat Conference in Srinagar on September 15, chaired by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. More than 70 ulema and mashaikh attended from Kashmir as well as Jammu, Poonch, Rajouri, Kargil and Doda, after authorities permitted the body to hold such a gathering for the first time in more than two years.
The resolutions also identified weakening family bonds, irresponsible social-media use, moral disorientation and a growing disconnect between some young people and community institutions as issues requiring attention. Rather than framing every problem as a matter for sermons alone, the conference called for counselling, family engagement and referral to appropriate professional services where necessary. Its published resolutions specifically assign an expanded role to ulema, mosques and madrasas; they do not set out a separate formal programme for shrines. Organisers said the aim was to make religious institutions more responsive to social pressures while preserving their primary religious and educational functions and avoiding substitution for medical or psychological care.
The most concrete decision was to organise coordinated Friday sermons on selected social problems across participating mosques. The MMU also proposed regular district-level meetings involving local clerics, imams, mosques and madrasas to identify community concerns and work out practical responses.
The first resolution called for religious institutions to expand their social role alongside worship and religious education. It said mosques and madrasas could serve as centres of guidance, counselling, youth engagement, family support and community welfare because of their close contact with neighbourhoods.
On suicide, self-harm and emotional distress, the scholars urged a shift from condemnation or silence towards early support. They said young people and families should have safe spaces to discuss loneliness, anxiety and family pressures without stigma, while people needing specialist care should be directed to trained mental-health professionals. The resolution explicitly recognised that serious mental-health conditions require professional treatment and that religious guidance should complement, not replace, such care.
Drug and substance abuse was another central concern. The conference called for sustained awareness through sermons and community outreach rather than occasional meetings. It also questioned moves to expand alcohol availability in the name of tourism, reflecting the religious body’s stated position rather than a government policy change.
Environmental protection was added to the proposed programme of mosque-based awareness. Scholars urged communities to reduce plastic and polythene use, prevent littering and dumping in water bodies, and treat protection of lakes, wetlands and other shared resources as both a civic and moral responsibility.
A second resolution focused on relations among Muslim schools of thought. Participants said doctrinal differences should not become a source of hostility and urged clerics to maintain mutual respect, dialogue and accepted religious etiquette. The conference also said mosque pulpits should not be used to ridicule another school of thought or spread sectarian hatred.
The gathering included scholars associated with different Sunni and Shia traditions, giving the decisions a broader institutional base than a single-school initiative. The MMU said closer interaction among religious leaders from different regions and traditions was necessary if common social concerns were to be addressed consistently.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said the pressures facing young people and the deterioration of the environment required a sustained social response and could not be left solely to government agencies or occasional seminars. He argued that the reach of mosques and their pulpits gave religious leaders a responsibility to use those platforms constructively.
The initiative comes as Kashmir’s clerics have increasingly engaged with social questions alongside religious instruction, but the September conference sought to create a more coordinated framework. Earlier local efforts have involved religious leaders in anti-drug campaigns and engagement with mental-health professionals, while the new resolutions envisage common messaging across a wider network.
