But What Do They Preach?

The Tablighi Jamaat ("group of preachers") has beenin the limelight since 9/11 for all the wrong reasons. Britian’s MI5 andAmerica’s FBI have been alleging that it is the recruiting ground for wannabeIslamic terrorists. The organization has once again come into sharp focus afterthe recently foiled plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. UK’s securityservices have found that at least seven of the 23 suspects under arrest onsuspicion of involvement in the transatlantic airliners plot may haveparticipated in Tablighi events. The organisation was also found to be linkedwith two of the July 7 suicide bombers. The jailed shoe bomber Richard Reid hadsupposedly attended its sessions.

In their defence, the Tablighis completely disavow anylinks from anything other than Islam. The Guardian ("Inside theIslamic group accused by MI5 and FBI", Augsut 18) reported a Tablighidefend the organization in these words (when asked about the association betweenTablighi Jamaat and terrorist groups): "Tablighi is like Oxford University.We have intelligent people - doctors, solicitors, businessmen - but one or twowill become drug dealers, fraudsters. But you won't blame Oxford University forthat. You see, it does not matter if someone speaks in favour or against thiseffort. Everything happens with the will of God."

Though Olivier Roy, the French scholar on Islam, hasdescribed Tablighi Jamaat as "completely apolitical and law abiding," isit really an innocuous religious organization as is claimed by its followers? Oris it a silent and hidden breeding ground of Islamic terrorism? To assess this,we need to look at its background and activities.

The Tablighi Jamaat was an offshoot of the Deoband movementand it represented a commitment to individual regeneration apart from anyexplicit political program. According to American scholar Barbara Metcalf, themovement began in the late 1920s when Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi (d.1944), whose family had long associations with Deoband and its sister school inSaharanpur, Mazaahiru'l-`Ulum, sought a way to reach peasants who were nominalMuslims being targeted by a Hindu conversion movement.

The basic strategy of the movement is to persuade Muslimsthat they themselves, however little book learning they had, could go out ingroups, to remind the lay Muslims to fulfill their fundamental ritualobligations. Participants were assured of divine blessing for this effort.Tablighis not only eschewed debate, but also emulated cherished stories,recalling Prophetic hadith, and of withdrawing from any physical attack.A pattern emerged of calling participants to spend one night a week, one weekenda month, 40 continuous days a year, and ultimately 120 days at least once intheir lives engaged in tabligh missions. The thrust of the movement is notclearly on conversions but on bringing the "wayward" Muslims back to thefold of practicing Islam.

This does not mean that all is well with the Tablighmovement. Its ambitions might be noble but sometimes it harms the interests ofthe Muslim community in no ambiguous terms. This may not be deliberate, but itnonetheless has deleterious effects.

And now with the Jamaat’s emphasized association withterrorism, it is facing its strongest moment of criticism, though it has been onthe radar for some time now. Alex Alexiev, in his paper "Jehad’s StealthyLegions" (The Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005) had noted that the"West's misreading of Tablighi Jamaat actions and motives has seriousimplications for the war on terrorism." He argued that Tablighi Jamaat hasalways adopted an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, and in the past twodecades, it has radicalized to the point where it is now a driving force ofIslamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for terrorist causes worldwide.

For a majority of young Muslim extremists, Alex Alexievpointed out, joining Tablighi Jamaat is the first step on the road to extremism:"Perhaps 80 percent of the Islamist extremists in France come from Tablighiranks, prompting French intelligence officers to call Tablighi Jamaat the"antechamber of fundamentalism". He also quoted Americancounterterrorism officials: "We have a significant presence of TablighiJamaat in the United States," the deputy chief of the FBI's internationalterrorism section said in 2003, "and we have found that Al-Qaeda used themfor recruiting now and in the past."

Ziauddin Sardar, a British journalist and writer, describeshis experience of the Tablighi Jamaat: "So here was the essence of theTablighi approach. Observance of religious practice was a quid pro quowith the Almighty, one merely applied the ready-made formula and one couldrelax, confident in the assurance that paradise would be the outcome, theconsummation of a life-time of duty done. It seemed the Tablighis neitheroffered nor considered they had to do anything particular about rampantinjustice, the horrors of suffering and neglect that formed the circumstancesand deformed so many lives in country after country, the Muslim worldespecially." (Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Mulsim,p. 12)

Looking at the flip side of Sardar’s observations, theproblem with the Tablighi approach is precisely this: they can inculcate intheir followers so much of a sense of otherworldliness that they may as wellbegin to fall prey to the suicide bombing recruitment spiel. Tablighis liveand breathe in the real world and those who feel that Muslims are beingpersecuted in the hands of Western or west-supported hegemonies, might as wellturn towards violence and murder as a means to attain a piece of the promisedparadise. This is especially true for the young and the impressionable, theShahzad Tanweers of UK and other western societies.

The western policymakers need to tread a fine line in orderto deal with the Tablighi Jamaat. It may not necessarily attract ablanket ban, but being the possible ground for the first step on the road toextremism, it certainly warrants some rethinking and attention on the part ofthe Muslim community and the government agencies. A ban might becounterproductive, but neglecting it would be akin to acting like an ostrich.

Zafar Anjum is a Singapore-based journalist. These are hispersonal views.