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ALL ABOUT TAGLIGHI JAMA'AT
A VERY BALANCED INTRODUCTION TO VARIOUS FACTIOS OF SUNNI ISLAM AND THEIR CONNECTION WITH JIHADISM
Tablighi Jamaat: An Indirect Line to Terrorism
January 23, 2008 | 1448 GMT
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Spanish police conducted a series of raids on apartment buildings, a mosque and a prayer hall in
A Muslim leader in
The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) name has come up before in connection with terrorism plots, including the October 2002 Portland Seven and the September 2002 Lackawanna Six cases in the United States, as well as the August 2006 plot to bomb airliners en route from London to the United States, the July 7, 2005, London Underground bombings and the July 2007 attempted bombings in London and Glasgow, Scotland. Over the past several years we also have received several queries about TJ from
This, then, is a good time to correct some of the erroneous information regarding TJ — and attempt to paint a realistic portrait of the very real threat posed by some of the people affiliated with TJ.
Tablighi Jamaat
The Tablighi Jamaat (Group for Preaching) movement was established in Mewat,Haryana, India, in 1927 and stems from the Deobandi brand of the Hanafi Sunni school of jurisprudence. Deobandi is the most commonly practiced form of Islam in South Asia, and TJ is but a small subset of the larger Deobandi community. TJ was designed to be an apolitical, pietistic organization that sends missionaries across the globe on proselytizing missions intended to bring wayward Muslims back to more orthodox practices of Islam.
TJ followers (Tablighis) are mostly of South Asian origin, though there are Tablighis from many different ethnic and national backgrounds. In fact, TJ operates in 150 countries and has an estimated 70 million to 80 million active followers, making it the largest Muslim movement in the world. Its annual gatherings in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh reportedly bring together the largest congregations of Muslims in the world outside of the Hajj. The group's stated mission is to work at a grassroots level, reaching out to Muslims across the social and economic spectrum. Tablighis do not solicit or receive donations, but rather are largely funded by senior members.
At face value, TJ is a peaceful, egalitarian and devotional movement that stresses individual faith and overall spiritual development. In a sense, TJ is a widespread training system that urges average Muslims to examine their own lives and become involved in calling their fellow Muslims back to orthodox Islam. Because of TJ's tactics, some Islamist groups refer to its members as "Muslim Jehovah's Witnesses" and accuse them of abandoning politics and jihad. Upon joining the movement, Tablighi recruits are given the option of attending the Tablighi center in the Pakistani city of
It is important to understand that TJ is a loosely controlled mass movement rather than a centralized group, as some would maintain. Although TJ operates mosques, it has no fixed membership and Tablighis are free to leave the movement. The mosques are used to support the efforts of the independent jamaat (groups of 10 preachers) that undertake preaching missions. The type of work performed and the duration of that work are left solely to the discretion and conscience of the individual jamaat. Some jamaat choose to serve a short period of time while others preach for months or even years. Although TJ is Deobandi, it allows any Sunni Muslim to join in its missionary work as long as that person accepts the group's austere creed.
Because of the large number of South Asian Muslims in the
In the
The Wahhabi/Salafi Myth
In addition to the misconception that TJ is a hierarchical group, perhaps the second most commonly held misconception about the Tablighis is that they adhere to a Wahhabi branch of Islam. In much the same way that there are different denominations of Christians, there are several different branches and sub-branches of Islam. Wahhabism, sometimes also referred to as Salafism, is an orthodox belief system held by the Saudi ruling family and most people in
In fact, the Deobandi Tablighis often are severely criticized by orthodox religious authorities (ulema), such as Sunni Wahhabi ulema in
Remember that not all Wahhabi or Salafi Muslims are jihadists and not all radical Islamists are Wahhabi/Salafi — or even Sunni for that matter. Many groups ascribing to a jihadist theology, such as the Taliban, are Deobandi. Hizbullah is a Shiite organization, while Jamaat al Fuqra has Sufi leanings.
Tablighis also are heavily criticized by militant Deobandi Islamists, such as the Taliban, Kashmiri militant groups, anti-Shiite sectarian militant groups and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) for their apolitical stance regarding the war on terrorism, which many Muslims perceive as a war against Islam. Tablighi theology stresses that Muslims must first devote themselves to becoming good, practicing Muslims in their own personal lives, rather than struggling for political power or even protesting oppression by non-Muslims. This focus on the inner person first is the opposite approach to that taken by radical Islamists, who seek to seize political power through force and then form an Islamic state or caliphate that can impose Shariah law on the individual. Because of this, some Islamist militants accuse the Tablighis of being a tool of the Jews and Hindus because they deny the need for a physical jihad and focus on the "greater jihad," which is the inner struggle for faith and piety.
The Tablighi Role in the Global Jihadism
However, there are indeed some links between Tablighis and the world of jihadism. First, there is evidence of indirect connections between the group and the wider radical/extremist Deobandi nexus composed of anti-Shiite sectarian groups, Kashmiri militants and the Taliban. This link provides a medium through which Tablighis who are disgruntled with the group's apolitical program could break orbit and join militant organizations.
One apparent manifestation of this nexus was a purported militant offshoot of TJ, Jihad bi al-Saif (Jihad through the Sword), which was established in Taxila,
The TJ organization also serves as a de facto conduit for Islamist extremists and for groups such as al Qaeda to recruit new members. Significantly, the Tablighi recruits do intersect with the world of radical Islamism when they travel to
Because of the piety and strict belief system of the Tablighis and their focus on calling wayward Muslims back to an austere and orthodox Muslim faith, the movement has offered a place where jihadist spotters can look for potential recruits. These facilitators often offer enthusiastic new or rededicated Muslims a more active way to live and develop their faith. Although the TJ promotes a benign message, the same conservative Islamic values espoused by the Tablighis also are part of jihadist ideology, and so some Muslims attracted to the Tablighi movement are enticed into becoming involved with jihadists.
Additionally, because of its apolitical belief system, TJ seems to leave a gap in the ideological indoctrination of the individual Tablighi because it essentially asks the novice to shun politics and public affairs. The problem in taking this belief system from theory to practice, however, is that some people find they cannot ignore what is happening in the world around them, especially when that world includes wars. This is when some Tablighis become disillusioned with TJ and start turning to jihadist groups that offer religiously sanctioned prescriptions as to how "good Muslims" should deal with life's injustices.
Once a facilitator identifies such candidates, he often will segregate them from the main congregation in the mosque or community center and put them into small prayer circles or study groups where they can be more easily exposed to jihadist ideology. (Of course, it also has been shown that a person with friends or relatives who ascribe to radical ideology can more easily be radical).
Examples of people making the jump from TJ to radical Islam are the two leading members of the cell responsible for the July 7, 2005,
After Khan and Tanweer left the Tablighi mosque, they began attending the smaller
TJ also is used by jihadists as cover both for recruiting activities, as discussed above, and for travel. Like Khan and Tanweer, many jihadists desire to travel to
Foreigners traveling to
Similarly, in the spring of 2001 the members of the so-called Lackawanna Six cell traveled to
Although the TJ organization unintentionally serves as a front for, or conduit to, militant organizations such as al Qaeda, there is no evidence that the Tablighis act willingly as a global unified jihadist recruiting arm. Rather, such activities appear to occur without the knowledge or consent of TJ leaders. Additionally, because of the very size of the organization and it activities in Muslim communities in the West, a great many Muslims have had some sort of contact with the group. TJ itself, however, is not an intentional propagator of terrorism.
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