The Hindu Editorial Vocabulary 15 July 2020

Tablighi Jamaat, an island unto itself

1. The Tablighi Jamaat is considered to be the ‘ideal Muslim organisation’, focused solely on introspection in isolation.

2. Inside the Tablighi Jamaat provides a lowdown on the organisation and its ideological beliefs.

3. Anexcerpt : Founded in 1927 in Mewat, the Tablighi Jamaat is now perhaps the largest Muslim organisation in the world.

4. Its membership is rather conservatively pegged at 80 million, with millions of floating members who join for a tour and drop out.

5. Or, perhaps, even desirable.

6. People join of their volition and leave accordingly; sometimes they return.

7. That this leaves the organisation vulnerable to charges of possibly hosting a potential terrorist who might use his membership to get visas and lodging in mosques is another matter.

8. Although this did not prove that the Tablighi Jamaat was involved in the incident, the organisation did come under suspicion.

9. Due to its almost unprecedented flexibility on membership and lack of records, the Tabligh has flummoxed sociologists and religious commentators alike.

10. Unlike the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind or the Tanzeem-e-Islami of Pakistan, the Tablighi Jamaat defies easy definition.

11. Unlike the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, it nurtures no pronounced emphasis on the concept of nationalism either.

12. Its volunteers travel to a new city or a country, park themselves in a mosque, read and recite from religious books, share the message of faith with their fellow practitioners, and go back home.

13. The body eschews conversion of people of other faiths and concentrates on making Muslims better Muslims.

14. After all, it does not seek depletion of numbers in other religions, or augmentation within the ranks of Islam.

15. If it says not a word on divorce among Muslims, internationally, it does not speak on political issues…

16. This again is unlike other Muslim organisations which have taken an unequivocal pro-Palestine stance, or a more nuanced stand in the Saudi-Yemen conflict.

17. The Tabligh professes a uniquely insular approach that chooses to emphasise particular aspects of Islam while underplaying others, thus ensuring the organisation remains an island unto itself.

18. The Tabligh’s proponents say that it is because of the Tablighi Jamaat that several community members who might have fallen prey to the last century’s Shuddhi campaigns did not.

19. No other organisation came forward to help the deprived and the dispossessed find their way back to their own faith.

20. A huge number of young men and women today owe a debt of gratitude to the Tabligh for teaching their ancestors the correct way to offer prayers and perform ablutions,

21. While these are, undoubtedly, laudable accomplishments, a few questions about the Tablighi Jamaat and the way it functions remain.

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