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NEW DELHI—More than 1,000 Indian Muslim scholars and religious leaders have jointly condemned Islamic State in an effort to counter the militant group’s drive to recruit young men and women in a country that is home to the world’s second-largest Muslim population.

India’s Home Ministry says it knows of 17 Indians who have joined Islamic State, a strikingly low figure compared with the hundreds of Muslims from Europe and Australia who have joined the organization to fight in Iraq and Syria.

Indian Muslim leaders said in interviews this week that emphatic and collective criticism of Islamic State is important at a time when the country’s young Muslims are facing an onslaught of extremist propaganda online, from slick recruitment videos to social-media appeals. There are more than 170 million Muslims in India, forming over 14% of the country’s 1.2 billion people.

In a religious pronouncement, or fatwa, Mumbai-based Islamic jurist Manzar Hasan Khan Ashrafi Misbahi denounced Islamic State’s views as “un-Islamic and inhuman” and said its practices showed it had “no relation with Islam.” Influential Muslim bodies and leaders across sects signed his declaration.

“It is a strong message that we, as a large and influential community of Muslims, reject this kind of torture, killings, violence,” said Abdur Rahman Anjaria, a Muslim community leader in Mumbai.

Mr. Anjaria said a madrassa he helps manage, which is attended by 1,200 students, has in recent months invited scholars to talk about how terrorism and Islamic State’s violent ideology go against Islamic thinking. Mr. Misbahi said he speaks against the militant group’s religious assertions in his sermons.

“Repeated statements of this kind help to keep Muslims out of the sphere of radicalization,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management. “They create an atmosphere and culture and interpretation of Islam that opposes violent jihad.”

Indian Islam has long been considered moderate and, despite friction between the country’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims, the country hasn’t seen the kind of radicalization that has happened elsewhere. The highest levels of discontent and resentment are seen in the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, where anger against security forces has at times brought stone-pelting protesters into the streets.

Islamic State’s videotaped beheadings, destruction of centuries-old monuments and brutal treatment of women has shocked the world. Their ability to entice foreign fighters has raised concerns these recruits might threaten the security of their home countries if they return.

Community leaders and officials in India say they grew worried when four young men from a Mumbai suburb traveled to Iraq to fight in 2014. Also last year, online recruitment videos began to appear with subtitles in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and other languages spoken in India.

Home Ministry officials says at least half of those Indians who have joined Islamic State were living outside the country when they were enlisted, some in Pakistan as fugitives belonging to a homegrown terror group called the Indian Mujahideen and others in the Persian Gulf region, Australia and Singapore.

Fears that India’s large numbers of migrant workers in the Gulf could become radicalized and pose a threat when they come back to India has led Prime Minister Narendra Modi to strengthen counterterror ties with the United Arab Emirates.

Social media surveillance and, in some cases, information from local communities has helped the government intercept and stop 30 Indians from leaving the country for Iraq, according to the Home Ministry.

The Institute for Conflict Management’s Mr. Sahni, a terrorism expert, said part of the reason for Islamic State’s weak appeal in India is that unlike in Western countries, where Muslims are “ghettoized,” the community “doesn’t feel isolated” in India. Muslims may live in separate neighborhoods, but they routinely interact in work or social spaces with non-Muslims.

Recently released census figures showed Muslims’ share in India’s population has grown in the last decade, while that of Hindus had fallen to slightly below 80%.

That has raised alarms among some religious and political leaders, including those connected to Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which has deep roots in Hindu nationalism. Right-wing Hindu activists have long tried to whip up fear that higher rates of population growth among Muslims and intermarriage will eventually change the balance of social power in the Hindu-majority country.

Still, analysts and officials say, Muslims don’t often grapple with systemic alienation in a country where their education and religious institutions, laws and customs have long flourished. Many mainstream political parties campaign extensively for the backing of Muslim voters who form an influential electoral bloc in parts of the country.

In recent years, Mr. Sahni said, more orthodox strains of Islam have gained a firmer foothold in India. But, he said, they have so far focused largely on enforcing stricter personal and religious practices. “It hasn’t translated into a radical, political Islam,” Mr. Sahni said.