Tablighi Jama'at: Principles and Strategies

Yoginder Sikand

The word tabligh is derived from the Arabic root balagha, which means 'to reach one's destination', 'to achieve an objective', 'to come to hear' or 'to come of age'. Tabligh means 'to convey' or 'to communicate' a message. The word jama'at is best translated as 'party' or 'organised collectivity'. The term 'Tablighi Jama'at', then, simply means 'preaching party'. Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, the founder of the movement, does not appear to have himself referred to it by that name, however. The reason for this seems to be that the term jama'at can be understood in a very different sense from 'party'—as 'community', for instance, as in the phrase ahl al-sunnat wa 'l jama'at. The one true jama'at—the jama'at of the followers of Muhammad—had already been founded by the Prophet, stressed Ilyas, and no one after 'the seal of the prophets' could lay claim to establishing a new jama'at. However, despite Ilyas' insistence that he was not forming a jama'at of his own, the label 'Tablighi Jama'at' has got so closely associated with his movement that few refer to it today by the term that Ilyas himself preferred, the Tehrik-i-Iman, or 'The Movement of the Faith'.

The immediate focus of Ilyas' tablighi project was not so much   the  conversion  of non-Muslims   to   Islam   as   making Muslimswhat he regarded as 'true', self-conscious Muslims, strictly abiding by the dictates of their faith, as he understood them. Ilyas argued that Muslims needed first to strictly follow Islam themselves before they could go out to preach to others. Once they began to lead their own lives in accordance   with   the   shari'at,   he believed, non-Muslims   would   be   so impressed that they would themselves seek to enter the Muslim fold.   Ilyas'   principal   aim,   then,   was   the   spread  of Islamic teachings among ordinary Muslims. He subscribed to what is commonly called the Deobandi school of thought, and it was the teaching of the founding 'ulama of this school that he sought to popularise. These 'ulama had, in 1867, come together to set up a large madrasa, the Dur-ul 'Ulum, at Deoband, a town in northern India not far from Delhi (for details, see B.D. Metcalf 1982; Singhanawi n.d.). They saw themselves as bringing back to life the days of the Companions of the Prophet through their writings and speeches and the issuing of legal opinions or fatawa (Usmani 1995:3). They were strict adherents of Hanafi Islamic law and saw themselves as guardians of the shari'at and crusaders against   popular   religious   practices   and   beliefs   among   the Muslims which they believed contravened the shari'at. In this they claimed to be carrying on in the reformist tradition of the renowned 'alim of the eighteenth-century Delhi, Shah Waliullah (1703-62), his son, Shah 'Abdul 'Aziz (1746-1824) and his follower and leader of a militant jihad movement, Sayyed Ahmad Barelwi (1786-1831). Of particular concern to them were the threats posed by Westernisation, Christianity, secularisation and materialism  and the consequent laxity on the part of many Muslims in matters of religious observance and their growing alienation from the 'ulama. They were also stiffly opposed to modernist  attempts,   such  as  those  of Sayyed Ahmad  Khan (1817-98) and the Aligarh College, to reconcile Islam with the challenges of modernity, Western culture and science.

While Ilyas was himself a devoted disciple of the leading Deobandi 'ulama and was committed to popularising their teachings, he believed that the methods of communication that they had adopted — setting up dini madaris (religious schools), issuing fatawa or writing scholarly tomes — could hardly take them beyond a small, select circle. Ilyas' own contribution lay here, in devising a novel method of tabligh to spread the Deobandi message to a wider audience. As he himself would often stress, his aim was to spread the teachings of his spiritual preceptor, the leading Deobandi ‘alim, Ashraf All Thanawi — hailed by many as the mujaddid (renewer of the faith) of the age — but by using his own methods (Qadri n.d.:53).

Surveying the world around him, Ilyas came to believe that the fall of the Muslims from the heights of power and prosperity was actually God's punishment for their having strayed from the path of Islam and for having given up their responsibility of constantly engaging in its tabligh, having wrongly left this task the 'ulama alone. The Muslim ummah (worldwide community) could, he repeatedly stressed, regain its lost glory as the khalifa (vicegerent) of God on earth only if every Muslim began to lead his or her life strictly according to the dictates of Islam and constantly engage in its da‘wah (Urdu: da‘wat or ‘invitation’) and tabligh (M. Numani 1991).[1] It was the religious duty of each Muslim to see himself or herself foremost as a muballigh or missionary of Islam. God, Ilyas said, had promised the Muslims that if they faithfully followed the path of Muhammad and devoted themselves to the task of the spread of Islam they would 'always dominate over non-believers' and would be 'destined to be the masters of each and everything on this earth’ (Kandhlawi 1989:8). This, he insisted, could only come about once Muslims had recovered unflinching iman, or faith, in Islam. For, it was only through the cultivation of faith that Muslims would be enthused to struggle to acquire knowledge of Islam in order to live strictly by its injunctions.

Fortifying faith was, for Ilyas, to go with knowledge of at least the fundamentals of Islam as he understood them. Muslims, for him, were no longer to be Muslim simply by birth, but self­-consciously Muslim, grounded both in a firm faith in and strict personal practice of Islam. Given the backdrop of the menacing irtidad onslaught of the Arya Samaj, Ilyas believed that the strongest defence against the threat of apostasy was the spread of basic Islamic teachings among the Muslim masses. He believed it was the duty of all Muslims, both men as well as women, to have the minimum knowledge of Islam necessary for them to carry out their religious ritual obligations (fara'iz). There was no need, however, he felt, for every Muslim to become an 'alim, and in matters related to the intricacies of Islamic law ordinary Muslims could always resort to their own 'ulama for instruction (S.A. Khan n.d.:27). For Ilyas, every Muslim was to strive to embody Islam within himself, taking the companions of Muhammad as his model, in order to achieve salvation.  This call for each individual Muslim to constantly and consciously strive towards emulating the companions in his own personal life represented a radical break from traditional South Asian Muslim modes of piety, in which the intercession of a whole hierarchy of saints was seen as the key to ensuring one's entry into paradise as well as to fulfilling one's own worldly desires.

The importance that Ilyas gave to the role of ordinary believers in his project of Islamisation did not mean the bypassing of the 'ulama. Rather, the 'ulama were to have their own special place in his scheme of things. They were to themselves step out from their madrasas, and, like the companions of the Prophet, go from house to house, exhorting people to participate in the tablighi project (Falahi 1996:305). Worried by the growing distance between the 'ulama and common Muslims, Ilyas repeatedly stressed that he wanted to bring the two groups closer together and to strengthen the control of the 'ulama as leaders of the masses who, in his view, were gradually falling prey to what he regarded as 'un-Islamic' ways and beliefs (S.A. Haq 1972:95). He  considered the growing gulf between the 'ulama and ordinary Muslims as 'most unfortunate for the community' and a grave 'danger for the future of Islam' because it 'foreshadowed apostasy and irreligiousness' (S.A. Haq 1972:4). At a speech before an audience of 'ulama, one of his leading disciples, Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, declared that if the 'ulama did not strengthen their relations with the community by participating in the work of the TJ they would 'become an untouchable minority' to whose culture and way of life common Muslims 'would become total strangers'. 'Even their language and ideas', he warned, 'would be unfamiliar to the general public, necessitating a translator between the two' (S.A. Haq 1972:133).

While Ilyas himself subscribed to the Hanafi mazhab as understood by the Deobandis, he steered clear of intra-mazhab disputes among the Sunnis, for the cultivation of faith, central to all the four Sunni mazahib, was his main aim. He believed that the call to faith should be made to all Muslims, irrespective of mazhab. Over time, the movement spawned by him was to make silence on inter-mazahib differences a matter of policy, arguing that in matters of the detailed application of Islamic law, on which the mazahib differed from each other, Muslims could take recourse to the 'ulama of their own respective mazhab.

Two points, then, formed the core of Ilyas' Tablighi project, at least in its initial stages—strengthening faith, and spreading awareness and practice of the basic Islamic ritual obligations ('ibadat). Ilyas saw these as simply a means to the higher goal of bringing all affairs—ikhlaq (morals), mu'amilat (transactions), ma'sahrat (society) and siyasat (the polity), that is, both the personal as well as public spheres, individual as well as social matters—in accordance with the dictates of the shari'at (S.A. Haq 1972:137). In several of his speeches and letters Ilyas appeared to have referred to Islam in terms of a broader system extending beyond mere personal worship and ritual observance. Thus, in a letter to one Maulana Abdul Latif of Saharanpur, Ilyas wrote that the Meos of Mewat must be told that it was essential to 'subordinate their panchayats and their trade to the dictates of the shari'at' and to take 'all decisions in that light', considering this to be 'the essence of Islam'. If they did not do this, he warned, their faith would remain 'most defective' and could threaten to turn into 'pure infidelity' (quoted in S. Nadwi 1983:115). Though never explicitly repudiated, in actual practice a distinct shift seems to have occurred away from this position in the years after Ilyas' death in 1944. It was largely the domain of the 'ibadat or personal piety that grew to become the immediate focus of Tablighi attention.

For Ilyas and his activists, the primary aim was not so much detailed religious instruction as promoting a spiritual thirst among the Muslims to acquire knowledge of Islam so that, on that basis, they could begin to order their own lives in accordance with the injunctions of the shari'at. The best way to do this, Ilyas suggested, was to step out of the 'un-Islamic' environment of one's home and join a touring jama'at of fellow Muslims also on the same spiritual quest.

JAMA'AT PRACTICES

Each roving jama'at was expected to conform to a strict regimen, being bound by a set of detailed rules and regulations that later came to be spelled out in a few slim tracts written in simple Urdu. Participants were expected to cover their own expenses. When visiting a place on tabligh they were to stay in the local mosque. Here, they would learn from each other, besides gaining instruction from local 'ulama. They were to use their own bedding and cook their own food, for, Ilyas stressed, it was important that they should not be a burden on others.

While on jama'at, activists were expected to observe great simplicity and austerity. They were to spend their time learning about Islam, listening to religious sermons, and immersing themselves in constant remembrance of God, turning their minds completely away from worldly affairs. They were to deal kindly and humbly with each other and with fellow-Muslims whom they came in contact with, never missing an opportunity of being of service to others. They were to strive to bring back to life the days of the companions of Muhammad, at least for the short span of time while they were on jama'at. The jama'at provided them an arena of profoundly close comradeship and brotherhood in a common spiritual quest.

In the two decades (1926-44) that Ilyas spent in launching and expanding his movement, a regular programme of religious instruction for participants in the jama'ats gradually evolved, In its final form as it exists today, in the course of the jama'at participants are expected to follow a set routine in order to improve their knowledge and strengthen their practice of the basic ritual obligations of Islam as well as to deepen their own faith. Among the various things that they learn are what in Tablighi parlance are known as the 'six principles' (chhe baten) (Bulandshahri n.d.a.; see also Kandhalawi n.d.c.). These are to be learnt from local Tablighi activists, from the more knowledgeable and experienced of the muballighin themselves and by reading and listening to the recitation of tracts written by senior Tablighi leaders.

The first and foremost of the 'six principles' is the first Muslim creed of confession of the faith, the kalima or shahada— 'There is no deity but Allah and Muhammad is Allah's Messenger'. While on jama'at the activist is to learn how to correctly pronounce the kalima as well as its literal meaning and the demands that it makes on the part of every Muslim. This is followed by learning the various details and rules of namaz, the obligatory and other prayers, as well as the rules about ritual purity. The third of the chhe baten is 'knowledge and remembrance [of God]' ('ilm-o-zikr').[2] Here, the muballigh is expected to learn the rules about various other obligatory religious rituals such as fasting and zakat, and how to meditate on God by reciting various Arabic supplications (du‘a). The du'a appropriate for different daily activities such as eating, sleeping, entering a house and even defecating are to be memorised. The fourth point is 'respect for [other] Muslims' (ikram-i-muslimeen). Here, the muballigh is to learn the importance of love for his fellow-believers, irrespective of caste, class or other such differences, and to never find fault with them, oppose them or even criticise them for their wrong ways. In particular, Ilyas insisted that they must learn to cultivate great regard for the 'ulama because they were the very repositories of the knowledge of Islam. 'Disrespect of the 'ulama', wrote Ilyas, 'is, in fact, disregard of religion and deserves the anger and curse of Allah' (ibid.: 18). 'Purification of [one's] intention' (tashih-i-niyyat) comes fifth. The muballigh is to learn that every act should be performed solely with the hope of earning divine recompense (sawab) in the hereafter and not out of any base or worldly motive. 'Spending of time' (tafrigh-i-waqf) is the last principle, in which the muballigh is exhorted to regularly devote time to the work of tabligh. A seventh point is sometimes added to the 'six principles'—tark-i-layani or 'the giving up of frivolities'. In the course of the tabligh tour, the cultivation of faith, the other major concern of Ilyas, is to be encouraged by the narration of the faza'il—the great blessings that await the true believer in this, or more often, the next world, as well as of the awful torments of hell for those who stray from God's path.

Ilyas himself favoured the method of direct oral communication. But after the movement began to spread outside Mewat his disciples requested that some texts containing the basic principles of the movement be issued, in which its aims and methods, as well as its divine rewards were outlined in brief. Ilyas gave in after some initial reluctance. Some of the texts that appeared before Ilyas' death in 1944, and which were commissioned by him, were the Payam-i-'Amal ('Message of the Practice') and Musalmano ki Maujuda Pasti ka Wahid Ilaj ('The Only Remedy for the Present Degeneration of the Muslims') by his cousin and brother-in-law, Ehtisham-ul Hassan Kandhalawi, and several tracts on the faza'il of ritual observances by another relative, his nephew and father-in-law of his son Muhammad Zakariyya.

After Ilyas' death, the influence of Muhammad Zakariyya as one of the chief ideologues of the movement grew considerably. He and Maulana Yusuf, Ilyas' son and successor as leader of the TJ, seem to have enjoyed a particularly close relationship. Consequently, over time, the TJ came to develop an elaborate set of texts of faza'il compiled by Maulana Zakariyya (Zakariyya 1990).⁵ This was published in two volumes, the Faza'il-i-'Amal ('The Blessings of Pious Acts', also known as the Tablighi Nisab or the 'Tablighi Syllabus'), which Zakariya began working on in 1366 A.H. (1946-47 C.E.). The first volume of this text is divided into six sections—the Hikayat-i-Sahabah or stories about the companions of the Prophet, written at the request of Zakariyya's spiritual mentor, Abdul Qadir Raipuri; and five sections dealing with the rewards of reciting the Qur'an, offering prayers, remembering God, participating in tabligh and observing the Ramadhan fast, respectively. The second volume contains various stories relating to the rewards of charity. Several of these chapters on the faza'il had been prepared under Ilyas' instructions. Later, the Faza'il-i-'Amal was supplemented with another set of texts, the Hayat-us Sahaba ('Lives of the Companions') compiled by Maulana Yusuf (M.Y. Kandhalawi 1981). This book consists of several short stories based on the lives of the Prophet, his companions and other pious Muslims. Like the Faza'il-i-'Amal it was read out in Tablighi circles and gatherings, and was to serve as a guide for instruction. Tablighi activists were discouraged by TJ leaders from reading any literature besides these two sets of texts, other works of Zakariyya, and the writings of another Tablighi ideologue, Manzur Numani of Lucknow (M. Ahmad 1991:516).

Narrating stories from these books, particularly the Faza'il-i-'Amal, emerged in the years after Ilyas' death as a central ritual act in Tablighi talim (education) sessions for the muballighin. One person would read aloud a story from the books of faza'il, while the others, sitting on the floor in a semi-circle around him, would listen attentively. The purpose of the narration of the faza'il, besides its use as a pedagogical device, was to serve as a major incentive for the listeners to strengthen their own faith, to emulate in their own personal lives, particularly in the realm of ritual practice, the examples of the early pious Muslims, and, above all, to actively participate in the work of tabligh in the hope of divine reward. Great blessings were said to follow from performing even the seemingly simplest of ritual acts. Thus, for instance, it was said that if one were merely to recite the first part of the kalima, 'There is no god but Allah', a hundred times a day, one would earn the reward of 'releasing ten slaves from among the sons of [the prophet] Ismail' (Bulandshahri op. cit.:15). Likewise, if a person who, while 'on the path of Allah' (i.e. while on tabligh), were to recite a thousand verses of the Qur'an, God would include him among the prophets (anbiya), the truthful ones (siddiqin), the martyrs (shuhada) and the pure (salehin) (Ferozpuri n.d.b:13). By simply using a stick toothbrush (miswak) one was promised that the value of his prayer would be multiplied to between 99 and 400 times, because it was the sunnat of the Prophet to do so, and for bringing back to life any practice of Muhammad, no matter how small, that had fallen into disuse God would provide immense heavenly reward (M. Athar Hussain n.d.:18). Regularly participating in tabligh tours itself would, it was claimed, bring great reward in God's account books. Thus, for each good deed that a person did 'while out struggling in the path of Allah', he would be bestowed with the reward for 7,000,000 such deeds, according to Mahmud ul-Hasan, Chief Mufti of the Dar-ul 'Ulum at Deoband (quoted in Vellori n.d.:84). For each word uttered while 'inviting [others] to the truth' during the tabligh journey, one would receive blessings equal to that for an entire year's worship (Haqqani n.d.:10). According to another report, the reward for this was the blessings that accrue for 49 crore such deeds (Qasmi 1996:44).[3] If one were to die while on tabligh one would earn a place in heaven just one step below that of the prophets (Bulandshahri op. cit.:25). Heaven itself was a place of eternal repose and pleasure, picturesquely described in later texts written by Tablighi leaders as a vast city of glittering palaces where pious Muslims would be waited upon by numerous dazzling houris whose youth, it was promised, would never fade away (see, e.g. Bulandshahri n.d.b; and also Alam op. cit.:3l6-18).

Although the first edition of the complete Faza'il-i-'Amal did not appear until after Ilyas' death, sections of it were already in use in Tablighi circles by the 1940s with Ilyas' approval. Nadwi writes that it was a sign of Ilyas' 'intelligence' that he understood clearly that the world 'runs on the power of the profit motive'. With the search for gain being the driving force behind every human action, Ilyas, he says, believed that Muslims could be encouraged to actively participate in the work of tabligh if they were told of the grand promises of eternal joy in heaven that they would have if they walked on the path of God. Hence, he writes, Ilyas commissioned Zakariyya to write the books of faza'il for the instruction of Tablighi activists (S. Nadwi op. cit.: 251-52). Narrating the divine rewards for pious acts, believed Ilyas, was a more immediate necessity than imparting detailed instruction in the masa'il, detailed matters related to Islamic law, because it was through the faza'il that 'belief in the recompense of actions was made firm', men were attracted to do good deeds and, consequently, 'motivated to find out about the masa'il themselves' (S. Nadwi op. cit.:252).

ORDINARY MUSLIMS AND THE TJ

A central thrust of Ilyas' tabligh project was the onus it placed on each individual Muslim to uphold, indeed to embody, the basic tenets of Islam. This shari'at-mindedness was to focus in particular on exhorting Muslims to emulate the lives of the companions of Muhammad down to every small detail. Thus, the faza'il literature dealt at great length with seemingly trivial acts such as how the Prophet and his companions laughed, ate, washed, bathed and so on, and the Tablighi activist was to give special attention in striving to follow these examples in his own personal life. In a context where Muslim political power was no more, each Muslim man and woman was now charged with the responsibility of upholding the shari'at. They were to bring Islam, firstly, and above all, into their own personal lives, not just in matters of ritual devotion but also in their own behaviour and deportment.

The focus, then, was on the transforming of individuals as a means to the gradual Islamisation of social institutions and structures, a process that would conclude only in the indefinite future. Since it was the individual Muslim who was the focus of attention of the Tabligh project, particular importance came to be placed on the symbolic value of the physical body as a repository or reflection of Islamic commitment, as a site of crucial markers of identity clearly setting apart Muslims from others. Thus, 'Islamic' dress was seen as inseparable from one's own commitment to and practice of Islam. Tablighi activists were expected to make a public announcement of their commitment to Islam by wearing modest dress such as that worn by the Prophet. Over time, in fact, there developed a sort of Tablighi uniform, which, while not compulsorily enforced, was invariably strictly adhered to by activists while on jama'at and often even after—long, loose-fitting garments that ended just above the ankles, with prayer caps or turbans as head-dress. Another distinguishing bodily symbol on which particular importance was placed was facial hair for males. Men were to shave their moustaches and keep their beards (at least 'one fistful' long). This was, after all, the sunnat of the Prophet himself, who, it was said, had enjoined this observance upon his followers so as to clearly distinguish them from the non-believers, for, as the hadith had testified, if a person practised the customs of another community, God would raise him among them on the day of judgment (see for details, al-Aql 1994). Such external markers of identity, wrote Maulana Zakariyya, were so important that, 'their protection is thought to be the protection of one's own community and religion'. Indeed, he maintained, one should even be ready to lay down one's life to protect these symbols that mark off the 'slaves' of God from 'those who rebel [against Him]' (Zakariyya n.d:19).

Simultaneously, with the cultivation of their faith and improving their knowledge and practice of the basic ritual observances and the 'six principles', in the course of the jama'at activists were expected to engage in tabligh activity among the local Muslims in the areas that they visited.⁸ This, however, was to be considered secondary to self-improvement (Alam op.cit.:807). Activists were simply to present the message of Islam before others, for that was what the Prophet himself had been commanded to do by God. Accordingly, activists were to first perform gasht or 'patrolling' in the localities where Muslims lived, knocking on people's doors, inviting the male members of the families to join them in offering the evening 'isha prayers in the local mosque. During gasht they were to be accompanied by influential or wealthy local men, to put at ease any apprehension that the people they addressed might have. After 'isha, the congregation would be asked to stay on to listen to a lecture that was delivered by a speaker from among the muballighin. In his lecture the speaker would passionately appeal to those present to strengthen their faith, to regularly practice the obligatory rituals and also to spare time—from just a day to several months, depending on their own convenience—to join a roving jama'at. They would be told all about the great rewards that they would earn for this as laid down in the books of faza'il.

Although great importance was given to going out of one's home on jama'at, Ilyas stressed that the actual sphere of work for the activist was his own locality and family.⁹ After he returned from the jama'at, he was expected to continuously engage in Tablighi efforts among his family and neighbours, exhorting them to strengthen their faith, abide in their personal lives by the laws of the shari'at and also to participate in the work of the jama'ats. He was to regularly perform gasht in his locality and arrange for a daily ta'lim session in his own home, where portions from the Faza'il-i-'Amal, the Qur'an and the books of the traditions would be read out to members of the family (for details, see, Qasmi n.d.). He was also expected to encourage the women of his family to go out on jama'at, though the rules for women's jama'ats were different from those meant for men.¹⁰ Besides encouraging others to join in the work of the movement, the activist was himself expected to regularly go on jama'at, for strengthening the faith was not a one-time affair. Rather, it required constant working upon and tending to in order to suppress the ever-present threat of the nafs (lower self).

Muslim women, too, were expected to play an important role in the work of Tabligh, for this responsibility rested with all believers. Tablighi work among women began in the early 1940s in Ilyas' lifetime. Although, in essence, women's Tablighi work is similar to that of men, special rules are to be followed when women go out on jama'at. They must be accompanied by their husbands or any other such close male relative; they must observe strict pardah; and special lodging facilities must be made for them. Their principal work, however, lies in their homes, where they are expected to organise daily ta'lim sessions for their families, in which portions from the Faza'il-i-'Amal are read out. The number of women actively involved in Tabligh work is actually fairly small, and this is the case in all three countries studied here. Most women Tablighi activists are wives of men who are themselves active in the movement.

Ilyas saw the active involvement of ordinary Muslims in his tabligh campaign as playing a dual purpose. On the one hand, it was a means for individual Muslims to strengthen their own faith, which would motivate them to bring their personal and collective affairs in line with the rules of the shari'at. On the other hand, it also served as a vehicle for spreading the message of the TJ to other Muslims, exhorting them to participate in the work of the movement. It was self-propelling, with an inbuilt mechanism for expansion at little cost. All Sunni Muslims could participate in tabligh tours, and there was no formal membership. Just as every Muslim was expected to possess at least a certain minimum knowledge of Islam, so, too, it was the religious duty of every believer to participate in tabligh, to strengthen his faith, as well as to bring other Muslims to the 'true' path. For, in the Qur'anic commandment of 'command what is good and forbid what is evil' (Qur'an 3:104, 110), Ilyas saw a divine order to all Muslims, and not just to a selected few such as the 'ulama or the Sufis, to engage in the work of tabligh.

This responsibility, which had been bestowed by God upon all the prophets, had, after the Prophet Muhammad's death, been entrusted to the entire Muslim ummah. One did not have to be an 'alim in order to be a muballigh. Indeed, one did not have to fully practise Islam or even all of what one preached before setting out to engage in tabligh among others. God, it was said, would himself guide one to the path of good deeds simultaneously with one's own participation in the work of the TJ (E.H. Kandhalawi n.d.:18—19). At the very start of his campaign in Mewat Ilyas had not laid down any fixed or prescribed routine for Tablighi activists. This was developed over time. In his own day the activists were expected to spend at least three days every month away from their homes in a roving jama'at travelling to one or more Muslim locality or village, spending their time there in teaching as well as learning. They were also encouraged to spend at least one chillah (a 40-day stretch) every year and at least three consecutive chillahs in a lifetime in jama'at work. Later, this came to be revised, when Yusuf took over as the amir of the TJ after his father's death. Now the ideal Tablighi activist was one who spent eight months a year on jama'at, devoting only four months to family affairs and to earning a livelihood (Agwani 1986: 47-48).[4]

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

In Ilyas' time the organising and co-ordination of the jama'ats was fairly uncomplicated, and this continues to be the case even today, the methods remaining almost wholly unchanged. The global headquarters, the 'alami markaz, of the TJ are, as they have been since Ilyas' days, located in New Delhi, in the locality of Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin, housed in a multi-storeyed building that contains a mosque (the Banglewali Masjid), an Islamic seminary (the Madrasa Kashf-ul 'Ulum) and several rooms and halls for guests and visitors. The buzurgan or elders of the movement reside here, too, in their own little cells. Till 1995, the global headquarters were presided over by a single amir, also known as the Hazratji, and elected for life by a council of elders. But after the death of the third amir, Enam-ul Hassan, in 1995, the leadership was transferred to a consultative committee (shura), consisting of three persons, Muhammad Zubair-ul Hassan (son of Enam-ul Hassan), Sa'adul Hassan (son of Muhammad Yusuf) and Izhar-ul Hassan (uncle of Ilyas). They were assisted by a team of twenty seniors and fifty workers who are each responsible for various tasks (Durrany 1993:24). The New Delhi centre is a hub of activity the year round, with Tablighi groups from all over the world heading there to spend a few days learning the methods of tabligh from the resident elders, reporting the progress of the movement in their respective areas or countries to the elders and, in turn, receiving instructions from them.

In India, where the movement is widespread, the TJ has regional headquarters in the capital cities of most states. These are housed in mosques whose congregations consist mainly of Muslims sympathetic to the move">going to different places for varying lengths of time.

The schedule for these jama'ats is worked out by the authorities at the local markaz, generally in consultation with the Tablighi elders at the New Delhi centre, or, in the case of countries other than India, with the elders in the nation's central markaz. The markaz authorities then bring together all those who have volunteered to participate in a particular jama'at and arrange for them to choose from among themselves a group leader or amir-i-jama'at. Then, under the leadership of the amir-i-jama'at, the group is dispatched on its tabligh tour to a given area for a specified period of time. When the jama'at returns after completing its work, it reports to the local markaz. Here, the muballighin narrate their experiences before the elders and report on the progress of tabligh work in the places they have visited. This is known in Tablighi parlance as karguzari.

Local TJ elders are in constant touch with the Tablighi authorities at the provincial and country levels. The elders at the central markaz in each country, in turn, maintain close links with the authorities at the movement's global headquarters in New Delhi. They regularly report to them about the progress of Tablighi work in their own countries and receive instructions from them from time to time. These links are sought to be strengthened by regular visits by Tablighi leaders in each country to the New Delhi centre as well as by the elders at New Delhi, who often tour various countries as participants in jama'ats or to address large Tablighi gatherings. Besides the regular exchange of letters, communication between the various Tablighi authorities is almost entirely oral.

Taken as a whole, the method of engaging in Tablighi work (tariqa-i-tabligh), as developed over time by Ilyas and Yusuf, is, in almost all respects, still faithfully followed by the TJ in all countries where it is active. In fact, great stress is laid on the importance of strictly abiding by this method, for, it is claimed, not only is this the 'natural method' (fitri tariqa) (Hafizullah n.d.: 11), but it is, above all, the method that the Prophet himself used (nabavi tariqa) (Ilyas quoted in Vellori op. cit.:65). Although it is not clear what Ilyas' stand on the matter actually was, it has now come to be widely believed in Tablighi circles that no change or modification in the method is at all possible. A leading Tablighi activist and close disciple of Ilyas writes that the method of tabligh that Ilyas employed must carry on unchanged to the letter right till the Day of Judgment (Ferozpuri n.d.a.:87). Being, or so it is claimed, a sunnat of the Prophet Muhammad, it must be adhered to faithfully. In Tablighi-type texts Ilyas is quoted as having claimed that he had been commanded by God himself to 'revive' this 'long-lost' method of tabligh that Muslims had gradually forgotten over the centuries. Indeed, so central is this method in forming the TJ's own identity as a distinct Islamic movement by itself that Tablighi leaders have gone so far as to suggest that not only is no other way of serving Islam so worthy in the eyes of God, but even that, as Maulana Yusuf, referring to the activities of the jama'ats, put it, 'this work is the Noah's ark of this age. He who comes shall be saved and he who stands apart shall not' (quoted in Ferozpuri op. cit.:39). The former head of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, the late Qari Muhammad Tayyeb, went so far as to claim that, ‘This Tablighi formula is not the product of human reason or thought, but owes itself to gnosis (ma‘rifat) of the Truth and inspiration (ilham) from the Unseen’ (quoted in Vellori, op.cit: 9).