Home to the world’s second-largest Muslim population, India has long been relatively immune to Islamic radicalism—as evidenced by the fact that only 75 Indians have joined Islamic State (compared to over 600 from Belgium, which has an exponentially smaller Muslim population). Yet in recent years, thanks in part to Saudi-funded proselytization, Wahhabi Islam has increasingly displaced the more moderate local traditions, as Abhinav Pandya explains. (Free registration may be required.)

[O]ver the last decade and a half, Saudi Arabia has become increasingly uncomfortable with the rising Shiite influence in India and with Tehran’s overtures. They therefore decided to provide a religious and cultural [counterweight by] pumping in money to promote Wahhabism in India. During a single two-year period (2011-2013), according to an Indian Intelligence Bureau report, 25,000 [Saudi] Wahhabis visited India for missionary work; over that period they brought, in installments, $250 million to propagate Wahhabism, $460 million to set up madrasas, and $300 million for miscellaneous costs, including alleged bribes to mosque authorities. . . .

It’s already noticeable in visiting the [southern Indian state of] Kerala that a process of Arabization among the Muslim population is already underway, as reflected in language, eating habits, belief systems, and dress code; more women are wearing the hijab or even the niqab. It may come as a surprise, but Salafist and Wahhabi ideologies in India appear to have won more appeal among the educated classes. [These denominations’] austerity acts as a way for [the educated] to differentiate themselves from rural Muslims with their “ignorant” and “superstitious” beliefs. . . .

[B]ecause of Muslim radicalization’s politically sensitive nature, and the lack of any national-level strategy and program to address it, most of the time it is left to the state police to deal with such matters. . . . But it’s clear that state police do not have the requisite skills and infrastructure to detect such trends and take effective action against them.

A properly thought-out counter-radicalization program for India also faces another obstacle: the prevailing sentiment in India’s mainstream academia and media that domestic Muslim radicalization has increased in reaction to the Narendra Modi government’s embrace of Hindu nationalism. However, it’s not clear that such a connection can be made. There have been no major inter-communal riots, busting of terror sleeper cells, or terrorist attacks within India since 2014, the year of Modi’s election.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.