were part of a wider "Wahhabi" conspiracy. Apart from the British, many Hanafite scholars also were critical of Sayyid Ahmad and his followers. Throughout the 19th century, Ahl-i Hadith scholars were persecuted under various pretexts during the "Wahhabi trails" (of 1850s–1870s). Eventually the leaders of the movement sought pragmatic accommodation with the British Raj in order to stop the repression campaign against Wahhabis. Upon the petition of Ahl-i-Hadith scholar Muhammad Hussain Batalvi to the British Indian Administration, the government of India issued a notification in 1886, stopping the use of the term "Wahhabi" in official correspondence. In a victory to reform movement, the government conceded to referring the community as "Ahl-i Hadith". University of Paris political scientist Antoine Sfeir has referred to the movement as having an elitist character which perhaps contributes to their status as a minority in South Asia. Folk Islam and Sufism, commonly popular with the poor and working class in the region, are anathema to Ahl-i Hadith beliefs and practices. This attitude toward Sufism has brought the movement into conflict with the rival Barelvi movement even more so than the Barelvis perennial rivals, the Deobandis. In the 1920s, the Ahl-i Hadith opened a center for their movement in Srinagar. Followers of the Hanafi school of law, forming the majority of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, socially boycotted and physically attacked Ahl-i Hadith followers, eventually declaring such followers to be apostates and banning them from praying in mainstream mosques. From the 1930s the group also began to be active in the political realm of Pakistan, with Ehsan Elahi Zaheer leading the movement into a full foray in the 1970s, eventually gaining the movement a network of mosques and Islamic schools. Following other South Asian Islamic movements, the Ahl-i Hadith now also administer schools and mosques in the English-speaking world. In the modern era, the movement draws both inspiration and financial support from Saudi Arabia, now being favoured over the rival Deobandi movement as a counterbalance to Iranian influence. Tenets Its adherents oppose taqlid. They reject being bound by the four mainstream Islamic jurisprudential mad'habs, and the four Imams. Hence they are known as ghair muqallidīn (non-conformists). They repudiate the traditions of the schools of jurisprudence and consider it permissible to seek guidance directly from Qur'an and authentic hadith. This set them in opposition to the Sufi sects of the subcontinent with whom they often have arguments, and