Deobandi Quotes

I saw a man on a bridge about to jump. I said, ‘Don’t do it!’ He said, ‘Nobody loves me.’ I said, ‘God loves you. Do you believe in God?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Are you a Muslim or a non-Muslim?’ He said, ‘A Muslim.’ I said, ‘Shia or Sunni?’ He said, ‘Sunni.’ I said, ‘Me too! Deobandi or Barelvi?’ He said, ‘Barelvi.’ I said, ‘Me too! Tanzeehi or Tafkeeri?’ He said, ‘Tanzeehi.’ I said, ‘Me too! Tanzeehi Azmati or Tanzeehi Farhati?’ He said, ‘Tanzeehi Farhati.’ I said, ‘Me too! Tanzeehi Farhati Jamia ul Uloom Ajmer, or Tanzeehi Farhati Jamia ul Noor Mewat?’ He said, ‘Tanzeehi Farhati Jamia ul Noor Mewat.’ I said, ‘Die, kafir!’ and I pushed him over.

the Taliban travesty, a noxious combination of Deobandi rigidity, tribal chauvinism, and the aggression of the traumatized war orphan.

One hundred and forty years later, it was out of Deobandi madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan that the Taliban emerged to create the most retrograde Islamic regime in modern history, a regime that in turn provided the crucible from which emerged al-Qaeda, and the most radical and powerful fundamentalist Islamic counter-attack the modern West has yet encountered.

DuriAmong these imported Islamic schools, the Deobandis are the most powerful and closest to the Wahhabis. The name comes from the original madrassa set up in 1866 in a small town near Delhi called Deoband. The madrassa was part of the insular Muslim response to British rule in the nineteenth century, the work of men who felt that Western-style education of the kind proposed by the British, and embraced by the Hindus, would fracture the Muslim community, men who were convinced that a training in the fundamentals of the Quran and the Sharia would shield Indian Muslims from the corruption of the modern world.

The generation of leaders of this network following in the wake of the Hadda Mullah’s death—centered in particular on one Haji Sahib Turangzai—became increasingly influenced by the teachings of the revivalist and anti-colonial Deobandi school of South Asian Sunni Islam, whose influence was rapidly spreading throughout the region during this same period.

While Barelvis emphasise the importance of spiritual mediators and stress personal devotion to the Prophet Muhammad, the Deobandis call attention to individual responsibility and correct religious practice in line with the sharia.