Key Concepts in Tablighi Discourse

By Yoginder Sikand

Forming the underlying grid of the Tablighi Jama‘at (TJ) discourse as developed by Ilyas and later refined and articulated by leading ideologues of the TJ such as Maulana Zakariyya, Maulana Yusuf and others, are a number of binary opposites that set the limits for the immediate focus of the Tablighi project. These include pairs such as din vs. duniya, 'ibadat vs. mu'amilat, faza'il vs. masa'il, ittefaqi (consensual) vs. ikhtilafi (contested) and ma'ruf (good) vs. munkar (evil). In Tablighi discourse, these sets of terms are linked in such a way as to lay out the boundaries within which tabligh work is to be conducted.

Islamic groups that see Islam as an all-embracing worldview or ideology recognise no division between the spiritual and temporal realms. For them, Islam is all-encompassing, including both personal devotion, individual behaviour and worship as well as the ordering and regulation of social affairs. For them, the duniya, this-world, cannot be separated from the din. In fact, the duniya is the arena where the din must be made manifest and actualised. On the other hand, the Tablighi position on what constitutes the din is ambiguous, to say the least. There is some evidence, as we have seen, to suggest that Ilyas himself did see the din in more holistic and inclusive terms in a manner not dissimilar from contemporary Islamists, and indeed, so it is claimed to have been the case by certain writers associated with the Jama'at-i-Islami. However, after Ilyas' death there seems to have been a gradual shift in perception in this regard, at least in actual practice. This may have had to do with the changed political context of post-1947 India, when Muslims found themselves a hopelessly outnumbered and increasingly threatened minority for whom the grand goal of establishing an Islamic state obviously appeared almost an impossibility. Consequently, the Tablighi focus as it came to be developed after Ilyas' death, fitted in with the demands and constraints of the new political order. This was a focus on the realm of personal worship, interpersonal behaviour and the sphere of Muslim personal law as recognised by the Indian Constitution, and increasingly projecting in actual practice, if not in theory, these alone as the domain of the din. Today, when pressed by their detractors, Tablighi leaders will often reply that they recognise no division between the din and the duniya and that they, too, are, in their own way, working to bring the whole of man's life—spiritual as well as this-worldly, private as well as public—in accordance with the laws of the din. In actual practice, however, many Tablighi activists do tend to make a distinction between the din, as rituals, moral behaviour and personal worship, on the one hand, and the duniya, on the other. As a Tablighi writer approvingly quoting a government intelligence officer stresses, the activists of the movement, 'either talk about things above the sky [heaven] or of the world beneath the earth [hell]. They do not...[talk of] things on the surface of the earth.'[1] The din, then, is, in practice, usually seen not simply as apart from the duniya. Rather, it is often, at least in common Tablighi perception, set up against the duniya itself. Consequently, worldly engagement comes to be seen with considerable distaste, and so Tablighi activists must constantly be aware that, as the Prophet himself is said to have declared:

“This world and whatever is in it is cursed by Allah with the exception of prayers and dhikr [remembrance of God] and the religious scholar and the religious student” (quoted in Bulandshahri 1989:7).

Ilyas would himself often pray to God thus:

“O God! Keep me alive in the state of indigence and grant me death in the state of indigence and raise me up on the day of resurrection in the company of the indigent” (quoted in S. Nadwi 1983:167).

As a result of this distinction often made between the din and the duniya, the din comes to be seen by many Tablighi activists as more or less synonymous with obligatory ritual practices and personal conduct, although this may not have been what Ilyas himself believed. The duniyavi realm is then all that lies outside of what, for many Muslims, is this narrow understanding of the din. Tablighi activists believe that while in this world people do have to engage in duniyavi affairs in order simply to survive, such involvement should, as far as possible, be limited to the very basic minimum, for the world and all that is in it is but a snare, a 'toilet' or a 'prison-cell'. A Bangladeshi writer closely involved in the TJ puts it thus:

‘Living men who eat food must respond to the call of nature. They need toilet (sic) […] Toilet is so useful. Still, a toilet in a toilet, and none will spend more time in it than what is needed. […] If a person spends too much time in the toilet, people will think him to be abnormal. Similarly, if a person spends too much time in the satisfaction of his material needs, he is virtually a mad (sic.). Compared to the eternal life, this world is nothing but a toilet’ (Alam, op.cit.: 648).

 Thus, Muslims are exhorted to follow in the path of the companions of Muhammad, many of whom, a leading Tablighi ideologue approvingly says, had so little concern for the world that they 'could not even distinguish between salt and camphor or between a chapati and a handkerchief or between an apricot seed and a stone' (Baliyavi n.d.:60-6l). Tablighi activists must constantly engage in the inner struggle against the ego to suppress all worldly desires, including the thirst for political power (Muhammad Yusuf quoted in M.K. Nizami 1993:10). Like the Prophet, they must keep their houses empty of worldly goods and build up spiritual treasures for themselves in heaven instead. The pleasures of the world are illusory, for life on earth is just a fleeting moment when set against the eternity of the hereafter. Hence, instead of making success in this evanescent world the object of one's labours, one should devote oneself entirely to accumulating enough divine reward to earn the eternal pleasures of heaven.

Closely related to the dini-duniya division is the distinction that is often made in Tablighi discourse between the 'ibadat and the rest of the din as understood in its broader sense. While this does not seem to have been the case with Ilyas himself, TJ activists today generally claim as their focus of immediate attention only the former, along with the realm of personal behaviour. Islamists generally see 'ibadat as the observance of the shari'at in every aspect of personal as well as collective life, from prayers and fasting to the conduct of state affairs and international relations. In contrast, the general Tablighi understanding of the term is limited only to the sphere of personal devotion and ritual obligations. It is only after Muslims perfect their 'ibadat, as here understood, and bring Islamic morality into their personal dealings with others, that, it is believed, they can turn their attention to building society as a whole in accordance with the teachings of Islam. Political power, if at all God decides to pass it on to the Muslims, can only be had as a final culmination in this long-drawn process, but in no way should Muslims actively seek to acquire it (Ferozpuri n.d.a.:24).

That stage may be long in coming, though. Indeed, in practice it is often indefinitely postponed, with Muslims constantly falling prey to all sorts of worldly temptations. Hence, the need to repeatedly stress the importance of faith and personal devotion, to the exclusion of much else, over and over again lest the foundations of the faith begin to weaken. This is why the same message—of cultivating one's faith, conquering one's baser self, regularly saying one's prayers, abiding faithfully by the 'six principles' and so on—is constantly sought to be reinforced through lectures and in tracts penned by Tablighi leaders, as a consequence of which they all have a uniform and almost unvarying content.

Even within its restricted focus of immediate attention—the 'ibadat as the TJ understands it and the realm of personal behaviour—finer distinctions tend to be made in TJ discourse. The first of these is the masa'il-faza'il distinction. In Tablighi sermons preaching is limited to the narration of the faza'il, particularly the reward for ritual actions. Wahiduddin Khan, a noted Indian 'alim and at one time a leading activist of the TJ, says that it is interesting to note that the faza'il that these books deal with are all for the performance of external ritual acts. He remarks that although this may not have been the intention of Maulana Zakariyya, many Tablighi activists see the rewards as promised in the books of faza'il as following simply from mechanical performances of ritual acts enjoined therein, thus negating the spirit of Islam in favour of the letter of the law. The Qur'an, he stresses, is more a book of the spirit than the law, which, he contends, is very often overlooked by Tablighi activists.[2]

 As for the masa'il—Islamic injunctions on all matters, ranging from divorce and inheritance to the treatment of captives and punishments for various crimes—the Tablighi policy is to remain strictly silent, particularly on those that concern what are seen as duniyavi affairs. This, again, seems to be at odds with Ilyas' own views, for, to him the focus on the faza'il was probably just an initial means to ultimately bringing Muslims to deal with the masa'il related to the duniya in accordance with the shari'at. Today, at the most it is simply the masa'il related to 'ibadat that are touched upon, and that too not in general sermons but in case ordinary Muslims approach Tablighi 'ulama with specific queries about ritual matters.

As opposed to the faza'il, various schools of Islamic law are divided among themselves over many matters related to the masa'il. While the faza'il are generally not a matter of dispute and are, therefore, ittefaqi, there is no such unanimity regarding the masa'il. They are, therefore, ikhtilafi. Consequently, Tablighi activists are not to refer in their preaching to the masa'il as this might open the doors to schisms and internal dissensions. This does not mean, however, that knowledge of the masa'il related to the realm of obligatory ritual practices can be dispensed with. They are recognised as important, indeed essential, but for this purpose Tablighi activists and the people whom they address are instructed to turn to the 'ulama of their own respective schools of law for proper guidance.

Paralleling, in a sense, the distinction between the ittefaqi and the ikhtilafi is another pair of binary opposites—the ma'ruf and the munkar. Although the Qur'anic commandment which is taken to suggest the obligation of tabligh includes both enjoining what is 'good' (ma'ruf) and forbidding what is 'evil' (munkar), in actual practice Tablighi activists are expected to steer clear of the latter. Tablighi activists are taught that they are not to criticise or directly oppose other Muslims for their supposedly 'un-Islamic' customs and practices, the logic being that if they were to do this, it would inevitably cause strife and would provoke the hostility of those to whom they preach. Instead, the entire burden of the Tablighi appeal should be on the enjoining of the ma'ruf in the hope that in this way people will themselves begin to discard their 'un-Islamic' ways without having to be told to do so. Thus, the agenda of religious 'reform' is to unfold very gradually, inch by inch, person by person. This is, then, a 'bottom-up' approach, with individual reform being seen as the ultimate key to wider social transformation.