Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad’s Women’s Wing: Jamaat-ul-Muminat
By: ANIMESH ROUL, MjP Senior Advisor and Executive Director of the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict, New Delhi
06 May 2026
Executive Summary:
- In October 2025, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) launched a women’s wing, Jamaat-ul-Muminat (JuM), led by Sadiya Azhar, following organizational setbacks from India’s May 2025 Operation Sindoor airstrikes.
- JuM utilizes online platforms and social media for a structured training program, successfully recruiting women by seamlessly blending formal religious education with militant jihadist indoctrination.
- Marking a shift toward active combat roles for women, the group’s rapid expansion includes establishing an Indian branch directly linked to the November 2025 Delhi Red Fort bombing.
On October 8, 2025, Maulana Masood Azhar—leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in Pakistan and a UN-designated terrorist—announced the creation of a women’s wing called Jamaat-ul-Muminat (JuM), or “Organization of Female Believers.” The announcement was made from the group’s headquarters at Masjid Usman-o-Ali in Bahawalpur, Pakistan. A week later, on October 19, 2025, JeM held a recruitment event titled “Dukhtaran-e-Islam” (Women in Islam) to recruit women into the organization in Rawalkot, Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PAK) (IANS Live, October 22, 2025). The recruitment of women in groups such as JuM signifies a shift from their traditional, support-focused roles to more organized involvement in militant activities (see Terrorism Monitor, March 13).
JeM’s Gendered Expansion
This women’s wing was announced after a series of setbacks for JeM following India’s May 2025 airstrikes as part of Operation Sindoor. The airstrikes targeted the Markaz Suban Allah headquarters in Bahawalpur and other training sites in Kotli and Muzaffarabad, Pakistan. At least 12 relatives of Masood Azhar were killed, including Sadia Azhar’s husband, Yusuf Azhar. He was involved in the 1999 Kandahar hijacking and hostage episodes, leading to Masood Azhar’s release from an Indian prison (Hindustan Times, May 7, 2025; The Hindu, September 17, 2025).
JeM’s decision to impart both religious and armed training to women is likely a response to India’s employment of women in military roles, as Masood Azhar highlighted in one of his addresses last year (News9, October 29, 2025). This gendering of the anti-India or Kashmir jihad by JeM, however, seems more than just symbolic. Indeed, the leadership of the newly formed JuM includes several female relatives of deceased JEM commanders, strengthening the group’s core family and ideological network.
Sadiya Azhar—sister of Masood Azhar—leads the group, supported by other family members, including younger sister Sumeira Azhar and Afreera Farooq, the widow of Umar Farooq. He was a nephew of Masood Azhar, who was a key mastermind behind the 2019 Pulwama attack that killed nearly 40 Indian paramilitary personnel (Times of India, June 20, 2021). The involvement of family members in the organization ensures loyalty and doctrinal unity for the jihadist group. Like other Kashmir-focused terrorist groups, JeM has long relied on kinship networks, which extend into the gender domain, turning personal loss into a recruitment narrative and making recruitment largely dependent on trusted social ties and external outreach.
Methods of Engagement
The JuM initiative distinguishes itself not only for its inclusion of women. The training process is modeled on JeM’s well-known male indoctrination program, as explained by Masood Azhar during a recruitment rally in Pakistan. According to him, women recruits would undergo a 15-day “Daura-e-Taskiya,” followed by a two-week “Daura-Ayat-ul-Nisah,” where religious texts are interpreted to define women’s role in Islam. This is followed by a course on jihad. According to Masood Azhar, JeM’s male fighters would operate alongside female recruits and establish branches in every district of Pakistan, led by a district manager (muntazima) responsible for local recruitment. Recruits are required to follow strict communication rules, limiting contact to immediate family members and avoiding interaction with unrelated men (India Today, October 29, 2025; NDTV News, December 4, 2025).
Following the formal announcement of JuM, the group launched an online training program on November 9, 2025, to supplement indoctrination and broaden recruitment. This 15-day course module targets women in their homes through structured religious education and has been promoted on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. The program consists of 40-minute daily sessions, held on online meeting and messaging platforms such as Zoom and WhatsApp. Participants are required to pay a course fee of 500 Pakistani rupees and submit their personal information via a Google Form. Masood Azhar publicly promised female recruits “a direct place in heaven” if they became JuM members and urged others to support the unit (Bhaskar English, February 4). As evident from JuM’s posters, the training program begins with identity formation, a focus on Islam, prayer, moral education, and modesty in accordance with Islamic tenets, while introducing jihad in the following stage as a normative extension of Islamist belief (X/@SiyanaShaji, October 10, 2025; (Facebook/TimesNow, October 23, 2025).
The JuM posters and promotional materials shared on social media cite a Pakistan-origin virtual madrassa called “Syedna Zaid bin Thabit” as the source of the educational module. The use of madrasa branding provides institutional legitimacy and adds an institutional cover for legitimacy that seamlessly blends into existing religious education networks. As part of the learning module, enrolled candidates are also encouraged to read Masood Azhar’s book ‘Ae Musalman Behna’ (Times of India, October 29, 2015).
In November 2025, Indian authorities even uncovered a network linked to a female doctor named Shaheen Shahid based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. She was tasked with establishing JuM’s Indian branch. This involved recruiting women and staying in contact with Sadiya Azhar, coinciding with the November 10 blast near Delhi’s Red Fort area, which killed at least 13 people and injured several others (Deccan Herald, November 15, 2025; India Today, November 15, 2025; see Terrorism Monitor, January 15).
Conclusion
The focus on women reflects a strategic move by Pakistan-based terrorist groups. These groups have historically exclusively used women as religious teachers, cash couriers, informers, and propagators. The latest shift suggests the groups are keen to mobilize women for militant or combat roles, including as armed fighters and suicide bombers in the region. These assumptions are primarily derived from the narrative shared by JeM members in various recruitment rallies in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, following India’s Operation Sindoor military campaign targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan in May 2025. Subsequent developments suggest a strategic shift aimed at enhancing jihadist recruitment and propagating ideology beyond gender boundaries. By December 2025, Masood Azhar claimed (perhaps exaggeratedly) that over 5,000 women had already joined the program (NDTV News, December 4, 2025).
JuM represents a strategic expansion of JeM’s organizational structure. It merges religious instruction, digital outreach, family connections, and cross-border ideological guidance, blurring the line between formal education and militant indoctrination. The Delhi Red Fort blast investigation indicates that the initiative may have shifted from mobilization to operational support within a very short period. Even if female-led attacks do not immediately become common in the region, the involvement of women in recruitment, logistics, and the spread of ideology enhances JeM’s resilience and firepower.
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This article was published on 6 May 2026 here: https://jamestown.org/pakistan-based-jaish-e-muhammads-womens-wing-jamaat-ul-muminat/
The views and opinions expressed in this article represent those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Monitoring Jihadism Project (MJP).
