Deobandi

This weekend the Times has said that 600 out of Britain's 1350 mosques are under the control of the Deobandi. They also control 17 out of Britain's 26 Islamic seminaries, and produce 80% of Britain's home-trained Muslim clerics.

Wow.

I've never really learned the difference between the Wahhabi and the Deobandi, except that the former are Sunni fundamentalist revivalist nuts from Saudi Arabia, and the latter are Sunni fundamentalist revivalist nuts from India and Pakistan. I am sure that there are some other truly religious differences, like that the ones celebrate the prophet's birthday and the others don't or something just as deep, but if I have to describe the Deobandi with one word to the people who are not interested in details, the word would be "Taleban".

Anyway, 600 out of 1350 is 44%, and 17 out of 26 is 65%. That's pretty wild, considering that even in Pakistan the Deobandi only run about 25% of the madrassas.