Tablighi Jamaat
TABLIGHI BACKGROUND
The Tablighi Jamaat was founded in the late 1920s by the Deobandi cleric Maulana Muhammad Ilyas in the Mewat province of India as a reaction to the supposedly depraved state of Islam. The initial aim of the Tablighi Jamaat was to work at the grass roots level whilst at the same time keeping out of politics and shunning all publicity. Ilyas wanted the movement to be pietistic and focused on the spiritual renewal of the individual Muslim. The Jamaat strives to strictly resemble their Muhammad in every aspect of their life, from the clothing they wear, to the way they sleep and brush their teeth. In doing so they reject modernity as being antithetical to Islam.
The conventional belief, to which we do not subscribe, is that the Tablighis are simply apolitical, with members giving all their attention to matters of faith and religious learning, and orienting Muslims toward an Islamic pattern of individual lives. It is because of this supposed apolitical nature that the TJ have worked hard to promote, that its activities are tolerated by most governments even when other Islamic organisations have been banned. It is because of this that the Tablighis have remained off the radar screen, and why very few have bothered to investigate the movement. Moreover, the leadership of the Tablighi Jamaat has been a familial affair with all leaders of the organisation being related to Ilyas. This has allowed for the TJ to maintain a high level of secrecy and control over the movement.
For nearly two decades, the Tablighi Jamaat operated mainly within South Asia. With the ascent of Maulana Yusuf, Ilyas’ son, as its second leader, the group began to expand activities in 1946, and within two decades the group expanded throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. Although the group first established itself in the United States, Britain is the current hub of activities in the west. This is primarily due to the large South Asian population that has been arriving to the UK since the 1960s.
Since its inauspicious origins, the Tablighi Jamaat has grown in size to be the largest Muslim missionary movement in the world. The Tablighi’s annual gatherings in Pakistan are second only to the Hajj (the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim must undertake at least once in their lifetime) in the numbers it attracts. Some 3.5 million followers from 70 different countries were estimated to have attended the gathering in 2004, with these numbers set to increase. The movement has currently expanded to 150 different countries and claims to have between 70-80 million followers. It is extraordinary, therefore, that until recently very few non-Muslims have heard of this group, and even more so that hardly any literature on the group exists.
Male members of the Jamaat must travel and undertake proselytising missions over varying durations. This could be over three days, forty days or four months. This has led a chief minister of one Malaysian state, where the TJ have been active, to argue for the imposition of a ban on Tabligh activities in his state. He called the group "deviant" and "detrimental to the well-being of one’s family", especially when the breadwinner goes on months of ‘retreat’ for his Tabligh activities.
The Tablighi Jamaat may claim that they are not political (as yet), but this does not mean that they have no ambitions in that direction. The Jamaat teaches world domination through Islam; it does not recognise the nation state; and teaches doctrines such as the second class status of women and the sinfulness of interfaith dialogue. Simply trying to Islamise and change the values of a society can be seen as a political project.
Tablighi Jamaat has even caused controversy within Islam, with many scholars claiming that the Jamaat are using weak and fabricated hadiths(the sayings and acts of Islam's founder Mohammed) in order to promote their own cause. Those who follow classical Islam, rich in its history of literature and culture, view the Tablighi Jamaat as puritanical and backwards, choosing instead to focus on its own manifesto, the Six Points of Tablighi.
Tablighi Jamaat is not a small vulnerable naïve group struggling for some form of recognition in the UK, but rather a powerful, ambitious but narrow-minded transnational sect with a foothold in practically every major city in the world. It is increasingly emerging that the TJ have links with terrorist organisations, and individuals associated with the organisation have planned and/or committed atrocities. The very fact that they wish to construct their large European head quarters, a landmark mosque, next to the site of the 2012 Olympics shows that the group has real ambitions in the UK.
It is only right in a democracy that TJ, or any other group, that wishes to erect a national landmark should expect robust scrutiny, both of themselves and of their plans.