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JeM’s women-centric online jihad course reveals how Pakistan’s digital and ideological ecosystems continue to enable extremism under the cloak of religious education.
In late October 2025, the Pakistan-based and UN-proscribed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) launched an online course titled Tuhfat-ul-Mu’minat, meaning The Gift for Female Believers. The course, designed explicitly for women, is being endorsed via encrypted Telegram groups, social media handles linked to JeM’s media wings, and affiliated madrassa networks. The course enrolment fee is PKR 500 (150 INR) for women to participate in what is framed as a “spiritual journey” towards “understanding jihad, sacrifice, and modesty.”
The same women’s brigade, the Jamat-ul-Muminatis, is now suspected to be involved in the Delhi Red Fort blast that occurred on November 10, 2025. Dr Shaheena Shahid, who was part of this wing, is suspected to be heading its operations in India. The online course comes a few months after JeM announced the acceptance of donations through digital wallets like EasyPaisa and SadaPay to facilitate ‘digital hawala’ and raise funds to finance its activities, soon after Operation Sindoor razed the group’s bases. JeM operates over 2,000 active digital wallet accounts, moving an estimated US$2.8–3.2 million annually. A significant portion of these funds is allegedly used for procuring weapons and funding terror operations, with some estimates suggesting that up to 50 percent goes directly towards arms purchases. JeM’s ability to evade FATF scrutiny is unlikely without the support of the Pakistani establishment.
The same women’s brigade, the Jamat-ul-Muminatis, is now suspected to be involved in the Delhi Red Fort blast that occurred on November 10, 2025. Dr Shaheena Shahid, who was part of this wing, is suspected to be heading its operations in India.
The online course is intended to serve both as an ideological training platform and as a fundraising apparatus for JeM’s operations. Female relatives of senior JeM commanders are leading the online modules, including Masood Azhar’s sisters Sadia Azhar, Samira Azhar, and Sia Azhar, as well as Afra Farooq, the wife of Omar Farooq, one of the Pahalgam terror attackers. The course has already been discreetly promoted through JeM’s internal Telegram and WhatsApp networks, as well as through closed online religious forums.
Image: Announcement of the Online course Tuhfat-ul-Muminat.
Source: NDTV online, October 2025.
Yet under this veneer of piety lies a calculated strategy, one that weaponises faith, technology, and gender to expand JeM’s ideological footprint while Islamabad turns a blind eye, even as it receives international counter-terrorism funds.
This is emblematic of how Pakistan’s accommodating environment and its misuse of international counter-terrorism funds continue to sustain extremist ideologies under the guise of religious education. JeM’s online course illustrates the digitisation of modern jihadist movements and Islamabad’s continued failure, if not deliberate evasion, in enforcing anti-terrorism commitments.
The evolution of jihadist movements in South Asia has followed a clear trajectory—from madrassa-based indoctrination and militant training in the 1990s to digital radicalisation and online propaganda in the 2020s. JeM, founded by Masood Azhar in 2000, was an early adopter of information technology as a tool for mobilisation. From its weekly publications like Al-Qalam to its online magazines such as Zarb-e-Momin, the organisation has steadily built an ecosystem of cyber extremism.
The evolution of jihadist movements in South Asia has followed a clear trajectory—from madrassa-based indoctrination and militant training in the 1990s to digital radicalisation and online propaganda in the 2020s.
The launch of Tuhfat-ul-Mu’minat marks a significant shift as it exclusively targets women as ideological participants rather than passive supporters. This course represents a convergence of jihadist ideology and digital communication—a hybrid model in which platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram serve as virtual seminaries. The course materials, reportedly shared through private online groups, use Quranic verses selectively interpreted to justify militancy, martyrdom, and anti-India sentiment.
Unlike earlier propaganda that glorified frontline heroism, this digital jihad is intellectual and domestic in tone, encouraging women to “support jihad from home,” manage social media propaganda, and raise “spiritually prepared sons.” It is a modern adaptation of the same doctrinal rigidity that once drove thousands of Pakistani youths into Kashmir and Afghanistan.
JeM’s approach reflects a broader trend of gendered jihadism. While global attention has often centred on the Islamic State’s recruitment of women, Pakistan’s Deobandi militant groups have quietly nurtured a parallel ecosystem. The JeM’s women’s wing, Khatoon-e-Islam, has long organised informal study circles, publications, and religious lectures designed to cultivate ideological loyalty. The online course is merely an institutionalisation of that effort.
Women are increasingly viewed not as peripheral actors but as force multipliers. They serve as disseminators of extremist narratives within family networks and local communities, where their influence can be profound and often unnoticed. JeM’s narrative deliberately blends domesticity with devotion, portraying a woman’s obedience to jihad as an act of faith and motherhood as a battlefield of ideas. This ideological framing not only normalises extremism but also ensures the intergenerational continuity of jihadist values.
Image: Announcement of the Online course Tuhfat-ul-Muminat.
Source: NDTV online, October 2025.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this digital migration. Religious scholars began hosting sermons on YouTube and delivering fatwas over Zoom. JeM’s online course is a natural evolution of that environment, blending old doctrinal material with new digital delivery methods. The group’s latest campaign demonstrates how terrorist organisations have fully adapted to the architecture of the modern internet.
This new course integrates multiple online platforms:
Such sophisticated use of social media mirrors the methods of the Islamic State’s Al-Khansaa Brigade, which mobilised women for online and logistical jihad. JeM’s approach, however, is tailored to South Asian contexts, drawing upon the emotional appeal of Kashmir, anti-India sentiment, and the perceived protection of Islamic identity.
The inclusion of multimedia content and emotional storytelling reflects JeM’s understanding of digital attention economies. Its propaganda is not confined to violence but extends to psychological manipulation, framing radical participation as a moral obligation.
Women are increasingly viewed not as peripheral actors but as force multipliers. They serve as disseminators of extremist narratives within family networks and local communities, where their influence can be profound and often unnoticed. JeM’s narrative deliberately blends domesticity with devotion, portraying a woman’s obedience to jihad as an act of faith and motherhood as a battlefield of ideas.
These videos employ sophisticated production techniques—soft background nasheeds, high-definition imagery of Kashmir, and emotionally charged narration—designed to evoke grievance and religious solidarity. They are often re-uploaded from multiple accounts to evade content moderation.
Telegram channels associated with JeM share course materials in encrypted formats. At the same time, X accounts amplify them using hashtags related to Muslim identity and women’s empowerment—an intentional inversion of progressive discourse to normalise extremism. This is the new frontier of influence operations: religious radicalisation wrapped in the language of empowerment.
The Tuhfat-ul-Mu’minat initiative thus represents not just an ideological project but an information operation—one that seeks to blur the lines between faith and fanaticism, education and indoctrination.
The launch of Tuhfat-ul-Mu’minat once again exposes the group’s malign intentions against India. Among the most prominent of JeM’s front organisations is the Al-Rehmat Trust, its charitable arm, which continues to function openly in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Despite being linked to an UN-designated terror group, the Trust benefits from tax exemptions, public donations, and in some cases, indirect state support via provincial grants for “religious welfare.”
At the same time, online jihadist propaganda, recruitment pages, and donation drives continue to flourish. JeM’s digital ecosystem, including its virtual classrooms and encrypted communication platforms, operates with remarkable impunity.
Reports also indicate that several JeM networks displaced during Operation Sindoor have relocated deeper into Pakistan’s provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The emergence of Tuhfat-ul-Mu’minat, therefore, reflects more than a tactical adaptation; it demonstrates the group’s resilience and its continued mission to distort Islamic teachings while targeting India both physically and psychologically. As JeM’s online mobilisation of women illustrates, the global jihadist threat is evolving in digital form, and Pakistan’s selective complicity risks turning its counter-terrorism funding into an incubator for the very extremism it claims to combat.
The international community must view the Tuhfat-ul-Mu’minat initiative not as an isolated incident but as symptomatic of Pakistan’s structural failure and deliberate neglect in countering extremism. Western governments that continue to provide Islamabad with counter-terrorism funds or defence aid must demand transparency in utilisation and independent auditing of religious education initiatives.
Moreover, digital forensics collaboration between India, the EU, and the US could play a critical role in tracking JeM’s online operations, identifying server origins, and dismantling associated social media clusters. Multilateral mechanisms such as the FATF must expand their focus beyond financial networks to include digital propaganda economies, where extremist groups monetise online content, donations, and recruitment courses.
Equally important is the creation of a regional digital counter-radicalisation framework that addresses gendered recruitment. Counter-narratives targeting women should highlight the exploitation and deception inherent in jihadist messaging, using culturally resonant voices and community-based engagement rather than generic security rhetoric.
Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Tuhfat-ul-Mu’minat is more than an online religious course; it is an erudite experiment in psychological and digital warfare. It underscores how extremist movements are adapting to the rhythms of a connected world, using the very tools of modernity to push regressive ideologies.
Unless international oversight is tightened and Islamabad’s accountability is enforced, the digital jihad factory will continue to thrive, producing not only militants but also ideologues who can continue to have a butterfly effect. As social media becomes the new madrassa and hashtags replace sermons, the line between faith and fanaticism will blur even further unless the world recognises that counter-terrorism today cannot be waged with force alone, but must be fought with truth, transparency, and digital vigilance.
Soumya Awasthi is a Fellow with the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Dr Soumya Awasthi is Fellow, Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation. Her work focuses on the intersection of technology and national ...
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