Mohammad Yusuf Shah (born 18 February or December 1946), commonly known as Syed Salahuddin, is the head of Hizbul Mujahideen, a terrorist organization operating in Kashmir.
He also heads the United Jihad Council, a Pakistan-based conglomeration of jihadist militant groups sponsored by the ISI,[1][2] with the goal of merging Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan.
[19] Syed Mohammad Yusuf Shah was born in December 1946 in Soibugh, Budgam, a village in the Kashmir Valley.
[20] Then he studied arts at the Sri Pratap College, Srinagar and Masters in Political Science at the University of Kashmir, receiving his degree in 1971.
[citation needed] A year after his graduation, Yusuf Shah was appointed as the tehsil chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir for Budgam.
His sermons were contemporary and "had the power to articular what was in our minds", according to Showkat Ahmad Bakhshi of the Islamic Students League.
[22] In 1987, Yusuf Shah contested the J&K assembly election as a candidate of the Muslim United Front, in Srinagar's Amira Kadal constituency.
He soon took over as the chief of Hizbul Mujahideen and then adopted nom de guerre "Syed Salahuddin", named after Saladin,[citation needed] the 12th century Muslim political and military leader, who fought in the Crusades.