Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad

• In the late 1980s, A. P. Aboobacker Musliyar and E. K. Aboobacker Musliyar were the leaders of the Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema.

• A. P. Aboobacker Musliyar broke away due to differences in opinion and formed a new group called the AP Faction. The other group became known as the EK Faction.

• Both groups are primarily active in Kerala and have established similar organisations at both the state and national levels.

• Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad leads the organisations under the AP Faction.

  

• In 2014, he launched a campaign to plant 100,000 trees across India after the Sheikh Zayed Peace Conference in New Delhi.

• He has taught many Islamic scholars from different parts of India.

• He is associated with Markaz Knowledge City, Markaz Unani Medical College and Hospital, and Higher education and research projects. In an interview with a media house, he once expressed his views on education. He said,
  

  Education is key to peace.”

• He has often criticised Islamic extremism, saying that groups like ISIS were misusing Islam, a religion of peace and tolerance.

• On 27 August 2014, he issued a fatwa against ISIS and became the first Islamic scholar to do so. According to Khaleej Times,
  

  This is the first fatwa—a nonbinding legal opinion in Islamic law—issued against ISIS.”

• After that, a copy of the fatwa was kept in the UAE National Archives.

• The fatwa encouraged all Indian Sunni Jamiyyathul Ulama to raise awareness and actively speak out against terrorism.

• Later, he issued more fatwas against ISIS and other terrorist groups.

• In November 2015, he commented on gender equality. He said,
  

  Gender equality is something which is never going to be a reality. It is against Islam, humanity and was intellectually wrong. Only a woman can give birth.”

• Reportedly, some media houses wrongly quoted him as saying that women were only meant for childbirth.

• In January 2018, it was reported that AP and EK factions would unite in future to increase their political strength.

• On 20 July 2018, he was chosen as the Grand Mufti of India by the All India Tanzeem Ulamae Islam after the death of Grand Mufti Muhammad Akhtar Raza Khan Qadri.

• On 24 February 2019, a ceremony was held at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi with a huge crowd in attendance.

• After that, he was appointed as the General Secretary of both the All-India Muslim Scholars Association and All India Sunni Jamiyyathul Ulama.

• After becoming Grand Mufti, he was welcomed with receptions in many muslim countries, including the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

• In India, a huge reception was held at his hometown in Kozhikode, India, where many leaders and guests attended the reception, including Kerala Assembly Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan, Ministers T. P. Ramakrishnan, U. T. Khader, and Rahim Khan, MLA A. Pradeepkumar, Kerala Haj Committee chairman C. Mohammed Faizi, Tamil Nadu Haj Committee chairman Haji Abdul Jabbar, Kozhikode Mayor Thottathil Raveendran, Zamorin K. C. Unniyanujan Raja, Historian Dr. M. G. S. Narayanan, as well as many politicians, religious, and cultural leaders from other Indian states.

• After that, he began participating in many national and international peace and interfaith conferences.

• He then became the Chairman of the Sheikh Zayed International Peace Conference.

  

• In 2019, he was invited as a guest speaker to the First World Tolerance Summit organised by the International Institute for Tolerance in Dubai, UAE.

• After that, he attended the Global Conference of Human Fraternity, where he met Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church.

• That same year, he opposed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and participated in and organised several protests against the CAA.

• He did not support the strike declared by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and called it unnecessary.

• During the protests, he visited the families of protesters killed in police firing in Mangalore to offer condolences.

• He was criticised for his comments on women protesting against the CAA. He said publicly that women should not protest in the streets and raise slogans.

• In November 2019, he requested the Indian Muslim community to accept the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Babri Masjid case, both before and after the judgment. He said,
  

  We respect the Supreme Court. Peace in India is more important than winning or losing the case.”

• He added that the Babri Masjid was a sacred place to Muslims, so living peacefully together in India was more important.

• On 20 March 2020, he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah and requested to remove religion as a criterion for citizenship in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).

  

• He has published many books, including Muhammad: The Messenger, Religion, Polity and Nationalism, and The Mind of Islam.

• He is a member of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan.

• He has signed the ‘A Common Word Between Us & You’ interfaith message.

• He is a member of the General Authorities of the Fatwa Council in Egypt and a member of the Muslim Elders Council in the UAE.

• He is part of the World Muslim Communities Council in the UAE.

• Sheikh Abubakr has more than 2.5 million followers, mainly students and young people, across India.

• He has started groups like the Sunni Students Federation, Sunni Yuvajana Sangham, and Kerala Muslim Jama’ath, which involve both young and older people in social and community work.

  

• In July 2025, he came into the limelight when he delayed the execution of Indian nurse Nimisha Priya in Yemen.

• Nimisha Priya, a nurse from Kerala, was sentenced to death for killing a Yemeni man, Talal Abdol Mehdi, in 2017.

• Her lawyers stated that the killing was not planned and happened while she was suffering abuse.

• Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad said in a media conversation that in Islam, the victim’s family could forgive the murderer and stop the execution. He said,
  

  Islam has another law. If the murderer is sentenced to death, the family of the victim has the right to pardon. I don’t know who this family is, but from a long distance, I contacted the responsible scholars in Yemen.”

• A day before Nimisha Priya’s execution, he contacted a respected Yemeni scholar, Sheikh Umar bin Hafiz and asked him to speak to the victim’s family.

• After the Mufti’s request, Sheikh Umar sent his students to meet the victim’s family.

• After several discussions, the family agreed to delay the execution, which gave Priya’s legal team more time to work on the case.

  

• Later, during a media interview, he said about his role in halting the sentence. He said,
  

  After I requested that they intervene and take action, the scholars (in Yemen) met, discussed, and stated that they would do what they could. They have officially informed us and sent a document stating that the date of execution has been postponed, which will help facilitate the ongoing discussions.”