THE TABLIGHI JAMA‘AT: SHIFTS OVER TIME

By Yoginder Sikand

Most writings on the TJ tend to take a completely static view of the movement, presenting it as unchanging over time. While this can be attributed, in large measure, to the insistence by TJ leaders that the method of tabligh that Ilyas devised be strictly adhered to for all times, it has also much to do with the almost total reliance by scholars who have written about the TJ on textual material in place of actual empirical investigation. Some indication of a distinct shift in Tablighi perceptions over time comes from hitherto little-studied polemical writings directed against the TJ by persons earlier closely associated with the movement, some of whom occupied important positions of responsibility within it in Ilyas' time. Thus, writing in 1985, Tabish Mahdi, one of the few scholars to have seriously questioned this image of an unchanging Tablighi essence and a former Tablighi activist himself, alleged that the TJ then was 'not the jama'at that Maulana Ilyas started in 1926' and that between the two there was 'a difference [as] between the earth and the sky' (Mahdi 1985:9). The TJ, he says, had turned into a playing field for ruthless 'opportunists' (Mahdi op. cit.:13).

Mahdi's is no voice in the wilderness though, nor is it the first. As early as 1962, by which time the TJ had passed under the control of Ilyas' son Yusuf, a one-time top Tablighi leader and ideologue and a close associate and relative of Ilyas, Ehtisham-ul Hassan Kandhalawi, went so far as to assert that after Ilyas the movement had been so transformed that it was 'no longer in accordance with the Qur'an, the traditions, the school of thought of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, Shah Waliullah and the pious 'ulama' (E.H. Kandhalawi 1962:31-32). Ilyas, he writes, clearly recognised that the principles with which he had started his work were not exactly those of the Prophet, being merely a bid'at-i-hasana or permissible innovation. Today, he alleges, these principles have been promoted to the status of unchallengeable doctrinal truths by the TJ (ibid.:32).[1] Interestingly, not long after Ilyas’ demise, Ehtisham ul-Hasan disassociated himself from the TJ and retired to his (and Ilyas’) native village of Kandhla to pursue his scholarly activities. Isa Ferozepuri (n.d.a:54), another former leading Tablighi ideologue who later distanced himself from the movement, echoes a similar view, and apparently so do some deputies of Ashraf Ali Thanawi, spreading whose teachings Ilyas had envisioned as the central purpose of his movement (Qadri n.d.:117).

While there seems to be no consensus as to when after Ilyas' death these transformations within the movement came about— Mahdi suggesting the period under the leadership of Yusuf and Ferozepuri that of his successor, Enam-ul Hassan—these writers seem to be agreed on what they see as a growing dilution of the movement's   'true'   Islamic  missionary spirit  over  time.   Ilyas looked upon his method of tabligh as simply a means to the higher goal of the establishment of Islam as what he considered a complete system or way of life. He himself put it as merely 'the a,b,c of Islam'. A common accusation is that after his demise his method began increasingly being seen as a, indeed, the only, goal itself (Mahdi op. cit.:l4-15). According to one source, Ilyas himself was aware of the grave consequences for the movement if this were to happen, for he is said to have declared that were the means to be taken as the goal, then 'those disruptions that would otherwise take ages to appear would emerge in a matter of just a few months' (Ferozepuri op. cit.:54).

Referring to what he saw as this neglect of the actual goals of Tabligh, no less an ardent supporter of the TJ than Sayyed Abul Hassan Ali Nadwi, a close associate of Ilyas and his principal biographer, was provoked to declare at a large Tablighi gathering at Aurangabad in 1988 that it was 'regrettable that the TJ had restricted its sphere of activity to just the six principles'.[2] In a similar vein, Wahiduddin Khan alleged that instead of encouraging Muslims to work for the enforcement of Islam in their lives, as Ilyas had, the TJ today, with its promises of great reward for every small ritual act, can only produce people whose 'hearts are empty of the fear of God'. 'If for every small action heavenly palaces are being constructed for them day in and day out', he asked, 'what need is there to tremble for fear of the hereafter?' In actual fact, he added, this sort of religiosity had practically reduced Allah's din to a 'cruel joke' (quoted in M. Ashfaq Hussain n.d.:44-45). Writing in 1993, Sayyed Zahirul Hassan, an 'alim from Sahar, Mathura, echoed the same view when he argued that the TJ, far from working for the establishment of Islam as a complete system, was now focussing 'only on simple masa'il of prayers that every schoolboy knows' and that the missionary zeal of its activists was limited simply to such ritualistic acts as the trimming of the beard, the use of the tooth-stick and exhorting people to be regular in prayer.[3]

The transformations that these writers discern in the TJ after the demise of Ilyas may be traced, in large measure, to the growing institutionalisation of the movement over the years. This was probably, in part, an outcome of the need felt by TJ leaders to maintain a distinct identity for the movement, setting it clearly apart from other Islamic groups, thereby reinforcing their own positions of power and influence. As in the case of all constructions of self-identity, one way in which the TJ leadership after Ilyas has sought to stress the distinct nature of the movement is by drawing sharp lines between it and other Islamic groups and movements that compete for support among the same sections of society. Not surprisingly, this has led to tensions between the TJ and its Islamic opponents against which it seeks to define itself, thus bringing into question the TJ leadership's own commitment to a central tenet of the movement particularly dear to Ilyas—'respect for all Muslims'. Thus, Mahdi alleges that TJ activists generally believe that Muslims who are not in their jama'at are 'misguided' and so they 'do not reply to their salaam. He cites the instance of the amir of the TJ in Nanpara, Bahraich, who, when he realised that the imam leading the congregation was a Jama'at-i-Islami activist, left the prayer midway, saying that he refused to pray behind the imam because 'so polluting were the followers of Maududi' that if he were to come in contact with their body or even their clothes, he would have to wash himself 'at least forty times' (Mahdi 1985:35—36). So pervasive has this sense of being the spiritually elect among Muslims become, says one critic, that even 'ordinary', 'ignorant' TJ activists have begun to strut about thinking themselves to be superior to the 'ulama who do not go out on tabligh tours, seeing them as having strayed far from the 'true' path (Khadaunfarosh; n.d.b:ll). Travelling on tabligh has become such a central component of Tablighi identity now that it has been elevated within the movement to the status of a religious obligation, implying that those who are not involved in the movement are 'misguided'. However, the fact is, says a critic, that nowhere hi the Qur'an or the traditions of the Prophet has travelling on tabligh been specified as a duty (Khadaunfarosh op. cit.:25). Another writer adds that Ilyas himself was aware that his method was specific only to the context of Mewat where he was working (Mahdi 1985:10)   and,   therefore,   did   not   have   universal applicability.

Over time, as the TJ has undergone a distinct phase of institutionalisation, transformations in the nature of the leadership of the movement have emerged, in which some critics trace a discernible departure from Ilyas' mission. Thus, the shift from the agenda of iqamat-i-din to mere ritualism and passive 'apoliticalness' is said to have come about, at least in part, by the growing salience of a conservative trading class, disproportionately Gujarati, element in the top-level TJ leadership, particularly in the years after Yusuf s death. They have a vested interest in the maintenance of the status quo. This class of people, it is alleged, are content with restricting the TJ's agenda simply to ritual matters, finding calls for basing their collective lives on the basis of the shari'at inimical to their own economic interests that are heavily enmeshed with 'un-Islamic' national and global economic structures. Moreover, it is said, this class has worked out a viable relationship with secular politics, wherein religion is restricted simply to the private domain of personal belief and ritual activity, and are thus not enthused with appeals for working towards the establishment of an Islamic state, something which, if some critics are to be believed, was Ilyas' own long-term goal.³⁶

The noted Pakistani scholar Mumtaz Ahmad notes that while Ilyas stayed aloof from politics so as to devote his entire attention to tabligh he was not opposed to the work of Muslim groups participating in the political arena, and, indeed, saw their work as complementing his. He writes that the TJ seems to have adopted a policy of strict political aloofness only after the Partition of India in 1947. This, he attributes to the changed political situation in India after 1947 when the government and the Hindu majority viewed any attempt at the political assertion of Muslims qua Muslims as a threat to national security. Another factor that he cites is the expansion in this period of the TJ to new pastures in South-East Asia and Europe, where any political assertion on the part of Muslims would have been looked at with grave suspicion (M. Ahmad 1991:521-22).

Ferozepuri (n.d.a: 174-76) laments that disproportionate importance is now being given to wealthy and resourceful men in the higher levels of authority within the movement, which he sees as a distinct move away from Ilyas' concern with the poor. Discussions with former TJ activists suggest that Tablighi leaders today tend to turn a complete blind eye to the plight of the poor of the community, a striking illustration of which is the acute poverty of most Muslims living in the vicinity of the New Delhi markaz itself, many of whom just about manage to survive as scavengers and beggars. Senior Tablighi leaders at the markaz argue that rather than offer the poor material assistance in this limited life on earth, it is far more important to help them gain untold riches in everlasting life in heaven by inviting them to participate in the work of tabligh. This growing distance from the practical, this-worldly concerns of ordinary Muslims has gone together with what is seen as a marked shift in the approach of TJ leaders, from practice to preaching, and from deepening the faith of their followers to simply attracting ever increasing crowds (Ferozepuri op. cit.:118). Thus, while Ilyas is said to have organised just one large public gathering—at Nuh in Mewat in 1941—and that too very reluctantly, today's TJ leaders are said to have made the regular holding of large rallies a rivaj –a formality or mere custom (Ferozepuri op. cit.:115-l6).

It is likely that the elevation of the Faza'il-i-'Amal as a central text for the movement after Ilyas' death, and one that, according to some, threatens even to take the place of the Qur'an itself, might itself have much to do with leadership tussles within the movement in the years after Ilyas. One writer obliquely suggests that the increasing importance that began being placed on the book reflected a concern to bolster the image and authority of its compiler, Muhammad Zakariyya, as part of a possible quid pro quo arrangement with Yusuf s successor, Enam-ul Hassan— Zakariyya enabled Hassan to be appointed as the amir of the TJ though he was not the most competent person for the post (Mahdi n.d.:13-17). This, in turn, ties in with the movement's perceived hostility to the writings of Muslim scholars of other schools of thought, says Khadaunfarosh (op. cit.:36). For, if TJ activists were to gain access to them, 'they would begin to work for their own reform', because of which the TJ might suffer a depletion in its own ranks, for, 'who knows what matters they contain that might cause their faith in the Tablighi Jama'at to be weakened?' Apparently, according to Mahdi (1985:34), so deep is this fear that TJ activists at the Deoband madrasa itself openly discourage the reading in ta'lim circles of any book other than the Faza'il-i-'Amal, including even Ashraf Ali Thanawi's books, although it was to spread Thanawi's teachings that Ilyas had started his movement.

All this, then, points to a distinct shift over time in the TJ, a transformation that remains hidden behind a seeming constant, unchanging image owing to its strict adherence to a standard method of tabligh. This also, interestingly enough, points to a certain flexibility in the movement which is often not recognised, and which, in turn, might help account for the ability of the movement to adapt to new situations and contexts.