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A useful account of the travelling fraternity
By Abdar-Rahman Koya
Travellers in
Faith: Studies of the Tablighi Jama’at as a Transnational Islamic
Movement for Faith Renewal edited by Muhammad Khalid Masud.
Pub: Brill Academic Publishers, Boston, US, 2000.
Pp. 268.
Hbk: $103.00
Mention of the Tablighi Jama’at often conjures up images of ascetic
Muslims with long beards and loose dresses. Such steoreotyping is not
always inaccurate. Those who attend Tablighi groups have been
unconsciously trained during their many gatherings in local mosques to
dress and behave in a homogenous manner. Sadly, this outer appearance is
about the only aspect of this Islamic movement that most outside the fold
know. Its history, ideology and methodology are rarely mentioned at
Islamic forums or studies.
A book like Travellers in Faith is therefore a welcome contribution. It
brings together observations and studies by several social scientists
about the Tablighi phenomenon as a transnational movement. There have not
been many such writings on the Tabligh, although the fact that the
movement is one of the largest in the world should warrant it more
attention. Available accounts are almost all by the Tablighis themselves
or opponents and critics of the movement.
Many would be surprised to learn that the Tablighi movement has no formal
structure or organization, yet is considered the largest Muslim missionary
group in the world, with followers in more than eighty countries. It will
come as no surprise that the Jama’at originated in Delhi, India, the
birthplace of many other colourful movements as well, and has millions of
adherents in the Indian subcontinent. An annual Tablighi congregation in
Pakistan, India and Bangladesh attracts large crowds of Muslims from
around the world, second only to the Hajj.
As in the Subcontinent, so elsewhere: Tabligh discussion-groups and
meetings are followed with equal vigour growing in silence despite the
‘unglamorous’ image it possesses compared to other Islamic groups. In
many Muslim countries, the Tabligh movement attracts everyone from hawkers
to medical students and businessmen to weekend-gatherings held in mosques
and Islamic centres. Despite this, Tablighis always keep a low profile and
therefore attract little public attention and controversy. Having said
that, the chief minister of one Malaysian state imposed a ban on Tabligh
activities in his state, calling it ‘deviant’ and ‘detrimental to
the well-being of one’s family’, especially when the breadwinner goes
on months of ‘retreat’ for his Tabligh activities. (Ironically, the
minister later resigned after being accused of rape by an underage girl.)
The general belief is that the Tablighis are apolitical, with members
giving all their attention to matters of faith and religious learning, and
orienting Muslims toward an Islamic pattern of individual lives. This
dimension of life, according to them, is the easiest to control. This view
has attracted the accusation that the Tablighis are just ‘pseudo-sufi’
escapists who seek God for inner peace. This is partly true, yet highly
debatable: it is perhaps because of its apolitical nature that the
Jama’at and its activities are tolerated, indeed encouraged, by almost
every Muslim regime that suppresses Islamic organizations in Muslim
countries in the name of political stability. Even its transnational
nature, the main subject of this book, does not make it a significant
threat to the secular nation-states, as other Islamic movements are. But
to equate it with retreating from the world and ignoring it would be
unfair.
It is amazing that despite having no formal structure, the Tabligh’s
activities and methods around the world are almost uniform - from the way
they dress to the way that they attract more people to come into its fold.
The Tabligh’s typical modus operandi is to invite people to come to the
mosque for religious lectures, often by a visiting ‘senior’ Tablighi
member from overseas. Unlike other movements, the Tablighis’ targets are
Muslims; they rarely preach to non-Muslims. The atmosphere in a Tablighi
meeting is reasonably egalitarian; members organize themselves into small
missions (jama’ats), and normally learn from and encourage each other.
They quietly pay visits to Muslim homes near mosques, inviting them to
join their gatherings. The Tabligh’s distinguishing mark is that
Tablighis are asked to volunteer their time rather than just their money,
to travel to different towns, cities and countries.
The opening chapter on the evolution of the Tabligh — for the movement
as it is today is an evolution, not an overnight formation — will
benefit those who know little or nothing about the group. With a detailed
explanation of the movement’s founders, Mawlana Ilyas and others, and
their early activities, Khalid Masud sets the mood for the other issues
facing the movement, most of which, oddly enough, have to do with the
movement’s image. In chapter three he studies the Tabligh ‘ideology’
and literature.
Barbara Metcalf’s observation of the ‘absent’ dimension of the
Tablighis — the female — is eye-opening. One point that she, a
westerner, rightly notes is the preoccupation with the question of
women’s participation among the critics of Tabligh. It has always been
fashionable, not only among orientalists but also among ‘pro-women’
Muslim critics who, as she notes, ‘talk about women a great deal...
Indeed, one sometimes thinks they talk about nothing else.’ Metcalf
dismisses the idea that women have no role in the movement, saying:
‘Women are encouraged to engage in Tabligh and go out, so long as they
do not mix with unrelated men.’ Just as men are supposed to mix with
men, so too women have their own jama’ats, meeting in their own circles
and neighborhood. She also suggests, although this could be an
exaggeration, that the Tabligh offers South Asian women the opportunity to
gather for occasions other than weddings and deaths. In another
interesting observation, Metcalf notes that the men in their Tabligh
journey, whether rich or poor, are expected to develop a new standard of
humility, as is traditionally expected of women by the menfolk. Men learn
to cook, wash their clothes and look after each other; thus the Tabligh
encourages a certain redistribution of gender roles. She further explains:
‘[The Tablighis’] undertaking a range of activity associated with
women’s work, marks them as inculcating what may be core religious
values but are also culturally defined as quintessentially feminine’
(p.50). Part two is the thematic centre of the book, on the Tabligh as a
transnational movement. It begins with a general introduction to the modus
operandi of the Tabligh’s activities, with South Asians playing an
important role in transforming it into a transnational movement. A study
of the Tabligh in different parts of the world then follows. These studies
were made by researchers and social scientists from both Muslim and
western backgrounds, and cover Europe, Canada, South Africa and Morocco.
However, Asian (other than South Asia) and Arab countries are not covered,
which is a major failing as transnationalism is the main focus of the
book.
Having said that, the book does give a useful account of how Tabligh
movement developed and spread to different parts of the world, along with
an examination of the variety of political as well as cultural challenges
facing the movement, even if the country-by-country analyses of Tabligh
groups is incomplete. q |
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