Srinagar: Prominent Shia cleric of Kashmir Moulvi Abbas Ansari, 86, passed away after a prolonged illness on Tuesday.
His death has been widely mourned.
Hundreds of people from both the Sunni and Shia sects attended his funeral and offered his Nimaz-e-Jinazah in the Alamgari Bazaar area of Srinagar.
His relatives said that Ansari passed away Tuesday morning at his Nawa Kadal residence in old Srinagar city.
He had been ailing for some time and was shifted to his home from SKIMS Soura a few days ago.
National Conference (NC) President and Member of Parliament Farooq Abdullah and Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari had visited him at the hospital to enquire about his health.
After his schooling in Srinagar, Ansari went to Lucknow for higher education and then to Najaf, Iran, where he spent eight years.
He was a scholar of authority on Islamic jurisprudence, Arabic literature, Hadith, and Quranic exegesis.
In 1962, Ansari founded Ittihadul Muslimeen, a Shia socio-religious organisation that advocated unity among the Shia and Sunni Muslims in J&K.
