AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Moulvi Abbas Ansari, a prominent Shia cleric in the Indian-administered Kashmir, passed away on Tuesday.
He died at the age of 86 after a prolonged illness. His death has been widely mourned.
Hundreds of people from both the Sunni and Shia Muslims 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 organization that advocated unity among the Shia and Sunni Muslims in J&K.
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