The first amir of JIJK was Sa'aduddin Tarabali, who was from a family associated with the Sufi mystic of Srinagar, Ahmad Sahib Tarabali. Sa'aduddin Tarabali influenced many Kashmiri men in Shopian, then a political hub, and these men included Maulana Ghulam Ahmad Ahrar who was a member of the Islamic reformist group Majlis-i-Ahrar and also came from a family of Sufi connections and later went on to join Tarabali as one of JIJK's earliest members. Hakim Ghulam Nabi of Pulwama, who came from a family of Pirs, was another of the earliest members of JIJK.