10 Years Since the Martyrdom of Burhan Muzaffar Wani: A Cry From the Kashmir Valley and the Responsibility of the Ummah

Allah (swt) said,

[مِّنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ رِجَالٌ صَدَقُوا مَا عَاهَدُوا اللَّهَ عَلَيْهِ فَمِنْهُم مَّن قَضَىٰ نَحْبَهُ وَمِنْهُم مَّن يَنتَظِرُ وَمَا بَدَّلُوا تَبْدِيلاً]

“Among the believers are men who have proven true to what they pledged to Allah. Some of them have fulfilled their pledge with their lives, others are waiting their turn. They have never changed their commitment in the least” [TMQ Surah Al-Ahzab:23].

On 8 July 2016, the Indian occupation forces martyred Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a young Kashmiri commander barely in his twenties. What followed those fateful days was a glimpse of the raw defiance of the Hindu occupation: millions poured onto the streets, defying curfews, facing pellet guns that blinded a generation, and burying their martyrs while raising chants of liberation. Kashmir, the forgotten front, roared once more.

However, the roar was met with stony silence where it should have echoed loudest. The agent leadership of Pakistan from civilian to military, reduced Burhan’s blood to a diplomatic bargaining chip. Its generals, chests heavy with medals earned for service to America, issued statements crafted in the language of the international disbelieving order while their hands remained tied by the chains of the IMF, the World Bank, and the pleasing of their American masters. The agent rulers in Islamabad never answered the cries of the oppressed. They offered resolutions at the United Nations — the same United Nations whose Security Council resolutions have guaranteed nothing for the Muslims of Palestine, Kashmir, or anywhere else but cemeteries that stretch beyond what the eye can see.

This is the bitter lesson Burhan Wani’s martyrdom forces upon the Ummah: the nation-state is a cage constructed by the colonialist architects of Sykes-Picot and Radcliffe. Its guardians are watchmen loyal to the very system that drew the nationalist borders of blood. The generals with their medals have betrayed the blood of the martyrs for worldly posts and the pretense of independence. They parade as defenders of the Deen while their prisons are filled with those who call for its complete implementation. They have made the blood of the Muslims of Kashmir a currency in their secret negotiations with the Hindu state, selling honor for trade routes and martyrdom for diplomatic recognition.

Kashmir’s graveyards, torture centers like the infamous Papa II interrogation center, and the mass graves of the disappeared testify to a brutal reality: occupation is not a border dispute to be managed; it is a war against Islam and Muslims. It cannot be resolved by toothless UN resolutions, nor by the empty slogans of agent rulers. The Jihad in Kashmir is not a struggle for a piece of land to be ruled by another set of agents. It is a struggle for the supremacy of the Kalimah of Allah (swt), and it will only find its victorious conclusion under the shade of the Khilafah (Caliphate) State.

Only the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate) on the Method of the Prophethood will mobilize the armies of the Muslim lands, not as national forces divided by passports, but as a single, unified army marching under the Rayah banner of the Messenger of Allah (saw). It will breach the artificial nationalistic borders and liberate the occupied lands — from Kashmir to Palestine — not for territory, but to replace the laws of kufr (disbelief) with the justice of Islam. The Khilafah does not recognize the treaties that sold Kashmir into bondage. It answers to no Security Council, bows to no human rights report, and fears none but Allah (swt).

The martyrdom of Burhan Wani, at such a young age, is both a reminder and a responsibility. He reminds us that the youth of this Ummah are ready to sacrifice everything while those who claim leadership have sold everything. He burdens us with the question: what did we do while a 21-year-old shook the occupation? The answer cannot be sorrow alone. It must be a relentless, political, and ideological work to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing the Khilafah Rashidah, the only leadership that will make the blood of Burhan, and all the martyrs, a fuel for victory rather than a footnote in the ledger of betrayal. Until then, the cry from the valleys of Kashmir will continue to haunt the sleep of those men who have the capacity to answer the call of liberation. So, O armies of Pakistan and Bangladesh, respond!