Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliyar, a prominent Sunni scholar leading the Kerala Muslim Jamaat, has been drawing significant attention during his ongoing Kerala Yatra.
The outreach tour comes in the run-up to the centenary celebrations of the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, the largest and most influential body of traditional Islamic scholars in the State.
Mr. Kanthapuram’s yatra, being conducted from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram from January 1 to 16, stands in sharp contrast to the Samastha Centenary Sandesha Yatra led by Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama president Syed Jifri Muthukoya Thangal, which travelled from Kanyakumari to Mangaluru from December 19 to 28.
Despite health struggles, Mr. Kanthapuram has been spreading the message of human love and kindness, sparking a social media buzz.
Kanthapuram is also eliciting praise and support from several Muslim League workers who once had opposed him vehemently. “We don’t have any enemies,” said Karulai Jamal, explaining the arrangements of the yatra.
The Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, mononymously known as the Samastha, is turning 100 years in 2026. The organisation’s two dominant factions, led respectively by Syed Jifri Muthukoya Thangal and Kanthapuram, are commemorating the milestone in different ways, each chalking out large-scale celebrations.
Both factions claim to represent the original Samastha. However, it was Kanthapuram who, along with his followers, walked out of the apex scholarly body in 1989, citing concerns over the influence of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and subsequently formed a parallel organisation bearing the same name.
“But ours is the original Samastha, which continues to uphold the principles and objectives for which it was formed,” said Mr. Kanthapuram.
The Samastha was established in 1926 largely to counter the challenges posed by reformist and modernist movements to traditional Sunni Islam.
The Samastha faction under Syed Jifri Muthukoya Thangal, which currently has a strained relationship with the IUML, is celebrating its centenary from February 4 to 8 at Kuniya in Kasaragod. In contrast, the Kanthapuram group is set to announce its centenary celebration plans at the conclusion of Mr. Kanthapuram’s ongoing yatra in Thiruvananthapuram on January 16.
During the yatra, he is being supported by Kerala Muslim Jamat general secretary Syed Ibrahim Khaleel Bukhari and secretary Perodu Abdurahman Saqafi.
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