One of the largest Islamic movements of contemporary times, in terms of bothgeographical spread and number of activists, the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) has received but scantattention from scholars. By and large, what little has been written about it has focused on themovement in its South Asian setting. To date no detailed study has been conducted on the TJin the West, where it has become increasingly active in recent decades. This paper seeks to studythe origins and growth of the TJ in one such Western country--Britain, starting from the1940s continuing till the present day. The paper begins with a brief account of the growth ofMuslim communities, largely of South Asian origin, in Britain and this provides the contextfor the study of the TJ in the country. It goes on to discuss the growing appeal of the TJ to theseearly migrants, seeing this as reflecting the concerns and needs of groups who found themselvesculturally uprooted in an alien land. The attraction that the TJ held was not, however,uniform across these Muslim groups, and here we deal with the movement's special appealamong certain classes and ethnic clusters among Britain's Muslim communities of South Asianorigin. Tracing the historical development of the TJ in Britain through the decades, we finallyturn to the state of the movement in the country today. Here we focus on how the movementis faring among young British Muslims and search for answers to the question of why it appearsto be facing a crisis of credibility, with young Muslims increasingly turning either the secularway or going in for more activist, and sometimes more aggressive, Islamic groups.
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This article was downloaded by: [Sheffield Hallam University] On: 25 December 2012, At: 13:25 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cicm20 The origins and growth of the Tablighi Jamaat in Britain Yoginder S. Sikand a a Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 OEX, UK Version of record first published: 18 Apr 2007. To cite this article: Yoginder S. Sikand (1998): The origins and growth of the Tablighi Jamaat in Britain, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 9:2, 171-192 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09596419808721147 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and- conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Transcript
This article was downloaded by: [Sheffield Hallam University]On: 25 December 2012, At: 13:25Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Islam and Christian–Muslim RelationsPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cicm20
The origins and growth of theTablighi Jamaat in BritainYoginder S. Sikand aa Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London,Egham, Surrey, TW20 OEX, UKVersion of record first published: 18 Apr 2007.
To cite this article: Yoginder S. Sikand (1998): The origins and growth of the Tablighi Jamaat inBritain, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 9:2, 171-192
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09596419808721147
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make anyrepresentation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. Theaccuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independentlyverified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions,claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever causedarising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of thismaterial.
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1998 171
The Origins and Growth of the Tablighi Jamaat inBritain
YOGINDER S. SIKAND
ABSTRACT One of the largest Islamic movements of contemporary times, in terms of bothgeographical spread and number of activists, the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) has received but scantattention from scholars. By and large, what little has been written about it has focused on themovement in its South Asian setting. To date no detailed study has been conducted on the TJin the West, where it has become increasingly active in recent decades. This paper seeks to studythe origins and growth of the TJ in one such Western country--Britain, starting from the1940s continuing till the present day. The paper begins with a brief account of the growth ofMuslim communities, largely of South Asian origin, in Britain and this provides the contextfor the study of the TJ in the country. It goes on to discuss the growing appeal of the TJ to theseearly migrants, seeing this as reflecting the concerns and needs of groups who found themselvesculturally uprooted in an alien land. The attraction that the TJ held was not, however,uniform across these Muslim groups, and here we deal with the movement's special appealamong certain classes and ethnic clusters among Britain's Muslim communities of South Asianorigin. Tracing the historical development of the TJ in Britain through the decades, we finallyturn to the state of the movement in the country today. Here we focus on how the movementis faring among young British Muslims and search for answers to the question of why it appearsto be facing a crisis of credibility, with young Muslims increasingly turning either the secularway or going in for more activist, and sometimes more aggressive, Islamic groups.
What is the TJ?
The TJ is a world-wide Islamic movement that seeks to revive Islam by encouragingMuslims to lead their lives in accordance with the injunctions of Islamic law, theShari'a. The movement has its roots in what is commonly known as the 'Deobandi'tradition. In the wake of the failed uprising against the British in India in 1857, a groupof ulama got together to establish an Islamic seminary or madrasa, the Dar-ul Ulum, atthe town of Deoband, not far from Delhi. The principal aim behind the setting up ofthe madrasa was to train Muslim scholars and activists who would work to 'purify'Indian Muslim society of supposedly 'un-Islamic' customs.
The founder of the TJ, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (d. 1944), was a student of theDeoband madrasa. Some time in the early 1920s, after graduating from the madrasa,Ilyas set about spreading the message of Deobandi reformism in the villages of northernIndia. By 1947, when India won her independence, Ilyas' efforts had blossomed into afully-fledged movement that had spread over much of South Asia.
Features of the TJ
The TJ shares with other Islamic movements the goal of the 'revival' of Islam, takingas its model the 'Golden Age' of the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs. However, it
possesses several distinguishing features of its own. One of these is its immediate focus,restricted as it is simply to matters related to personal worship or ibadah. It thus claimsno overt political ambitions, and its activists confine themselves to purely spiritual ordini affairs, developing, in the process, a distinct distaste for worldly or dunyaviinvolvement. Life in this ephemeral world is seen as a Satanic snare and believers areexhorted to turn their attention to build up treasures in heaven instead by leading piouslives. In order to encourage Muslims to devote themselves whole-heartedly to prayer(namaz) and remembrance of God (zikr), Maulana Ilyas commissioned the preparationof a voluminous tome, the Fazail-i-Amal ('The Virtues of Pious Deeds'). This bookcontains a number of stories about the great heavenly rewards (sazvab) that awaitMuslims if they follow the commandments of the Sharf a strictly in their own personallives and steer clear of worldly temptations. Tablighi activists are expected to read orrecite aloud this text in small groups in the mosque after the congregational prayers.
Another unique feature of the TJ is its method (tariqa) of preaching (tabligh). Smallgroups (jamaats) of ordinary Muslims go out from their homes and travel from place toplace exhorting local Muslims to attend prayers in the mosques. This is known, intablighi parlance, as gasht. After the congregational prayers are over, a muballigh(missionary, pi. muballighin) from among the jamaat delivers a lecture (bayan or taqrir)on the importance of cultivating one's faith (iman) and appeals to the men present totake time off from their dunyavi affairs and join a travelling jamaat to spread themessage of tabligh. In addition to the roving bands of muballighin, the TJ also organizeslarge congregations (ijtemas, jalsas) from time to time in which thousands of Muslimsparticipate. At the conclusion of these rallies, participants are exhorted to join one orother jamaat to engage in tabligh work for a fixed period according to a pre-set schedule.
TJ leaders and activists believe that the particular method of doing tabligh work(tariqa-i-tabligh) that Maulana Ilyas developed is actually the method that the ProphetMuhammad himself employed. Since it is seen as the nabavi tariqa, it is believed thatit cannot be changed or altered and that it must be followed to the letter at all timesand in all places. Consequently, the tariqa of the TJ is entirely the same wherever themovement is active.
The TJ in Britain
Before we go on to a discussion of the growth of the TJ in Britain, we need to turn ourattention to the question of the historical origins of the Muslim community in thecountry. The earliest Muslim settlements in Britain date back to the mid-nineteenthcentury, when groups of Muslim seamen from Asia are reported to have taken upresidence in port cities such as Cardiff, Liverpool, Tyneside and London. Ally1 dividesthe history of the Muslims in Britain into two broad periods. In the first period,stretching for a century from 1850 to 1949, the Muslims remained fairly small innumber. Most of them were seamen, students and professionals from abroad. Thesecond period, from 1949 to 1980, is really when large numbers of Muslims, mainly ofrural South Asian background, arrived in Britain as workers in search of economicprosperity in the wake of the post-Second World War boom that had resulted in a greatdemand for un-skilled and semi-skilled labour in the country.
As a result of this influx, South Asians came to form the vast majority—over 80%—ofthe British Muslim population. Of these new migrants, the largest group came fromwhat is now Pakistan, mainly from the Mirpur district in Pakistani-administeredKashmir, the Nowshera district of the North-Western Frontier Province, and the
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Origins and Growth o/Tablighi Jamaat in Britain 173
Rawalpindi, Jhelum and Lyallpur (Faisalabad) districts of the Pakistani Punjab. Mostof these people belonged to rural areas and were largely illiterate. The same was truein the case of another large group of South Asian Muslim migrants, the Bengalis ofSylhet, a district in what is now Bangladesh. Smaller numbers of Muslim migrants alsoarrived from India, particularly from the western state of Gujarat, as well as a numberof Muslims of Gujarati origin from East Africa.
Prior to 1961 Muslim immigration into Britain appears to have been entirelyunorganized, consisting predominantly of economically-active men. However, the pass-ing of several acts of immigrant-related laws in Britain in the 1960s severely restrictedthe further inflow of foreign workers, though it did allow for the entry of a substantialnumber of dependants of immigrants already in Britain. This led to the creation ofpermanent Muslim communities resident in Britain, with Muslim men now havingtheir wives, children and other dependants with them.
The pattern of South Asian immigration into Britain over the years seems, in a way,to have actually worked to preserve, rather than loosen, community structures andprimordial ties. As part of the process of 'chain migration', with immigrants sending fortheir relatives back in their villages in South Asia to join them, Muslims of a particularregional, linguistic or ethnic background tended to cluster together in residential areasinhabited largely by them. This process of 'ethnification' was given a major impetus bythe sudden influx of the dependants of the early migrants with the passing of the newlaws. From being a motley group of workers who saw themselves as temporary,transient migrants, Muslim groups now turned into fully-fledged communities.
This change in the structure of the Muslim society in Britain had far-reachingconsequences for how British Muslims were to now relate to Islam. 'Interest in religiousmatters', writes Nielsen, 'had been minimal among the (Muslim) male migrant workersliving in boarding houses.'2 Lewis says of the period before the arrival of the Muslimworkers' families in Britain, 'Earlier, religious sentiments had been expressed inavoiding non-halal meat, but for the rest the men were preoccupied with "survival",which left little time for religious devotions.'3 These early immigrants, it seems,typically saw their own stay in Britain as temporary, and they hoped to go back to theircountries of origin after accumulating enough savings. However, the arrival of theirfamilies and their receiving British citizenship put paid to what Lewis calls 'the myth ofreturn'. The Muslims were now here to stay—they were no longer temporary guest-workers but settlers, and Britain was henceforth to be their new home.
While the early Muslim migrants seem to have given Islam but little importance,increasing attention now began to be given to religion. This was reflected, for instance,in the setting up of several Islamic makatib (religious schools) for their children as wellas prayer houses. In 1963 there were just thirteen mosques registered with theRegistrar-General as places of worship. From 1966 onwards, new mosques began to beregistered at the rate of seven per year, a consequence, says Nielsen, of the reunion offamilies facilitated by the new immigration policies of the 1960s.4 One recent estimateput the number of mosques in Britain at around 1000, calling this 'the greatestachievement' of the British Muslims, adding that perhaps as much as £200 million havebeen invested in building these structures over the years.5
In the period before the migrant Muslim workers were joined by their families,mosques were generally housed in converted homes. Interestingly, Muslims of variousdifferent Sunn! groups who today in Britain, as also in South Asia, have their own,separate mosques—groups such as the 'Barelwis',6 the 'Deobandis' and the Ahl-i-Hadith7—shared the same prayer rooms and even prayed together, with little or no
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awareness of sectarian differences. However, the period which saw this rapid growth inthe number of mosques and Islamic schools also witnessed a growing sectarianism, withmosques and Islamic makatib now being set up on sectarian lines, thereby reproducingthe sharp divisions that characterize Islam in South Asia itself. This corresponds towhat Lewis calls the period of fission, as Muslim groups began to close in amongthemselves not just on the basis of ethnic, regional or linguistic background but,increasingly, on sectarian lines as well.8 Qualified religious personnel to staff themosques and to run the makatib and madrasas (institutes of higher Islamic education)had to be procured from South Asia, and they, in turn, brought along with them theirown sectarian antagonisms and quarrels. It was in this climate of growing 'fission' andsectarianism starting in the early 1960s that the TJ was to find fertile ground to growand flourish in pockets across Britain.
The TJ in Britain: the early years
Marc Gaborieau, in his paper, 'The transformation of the Tablighi Jama'at into aninternational movement' writes that, while by the time of Ilyas' death the TJ had spreadto various parts of India, it had not yet crossed the boundaries of the subcontinent,except perhaps for the brief and all too unsuccessful attempt by Ilyas himself to begintablighi work in the Hijaz when he had gone there for his third and last haj. Yet, he says,it is beyond doubt that Ilyas had envisaged the spread of the movement outside SouthAsia as well. This task was to be taken up in full earnest by his son and immediatesuccessor, Maulana Muhammad Yusuf (d. 1965), under whose leadership the TJmanaged to expand to over 30 countries in various continents. This trans-nationalexpansion of the movement under Yusuf, Gaborieau stresses, is to be seen as 'theaccomplishment of a plan made by Maulana Ilyas', and 'not as a new policy'.9
If the chronology of the initial spread of the TJ outside South Asia is observed, saysGaborieau, one can note that impetus for this expansion came basically from threecentres—from South Asia itself (from the TJ's headquarters in New Delhi), fromArabia ('in order to establish contacts with the Arab countries and more generally in theMuslim world through pilgrims'), and from London, where, 'from the very beginningan effort was made to build a ... centre ... in the heart of (the) industrialised countries',for these countries were 'an important target' for the TJ.10
The First Jamaats in Britain
One of the first steps that Yusuf is said to have taken on assuming the post of amir(head) of the TJ, writes one of his principal biographers, was to instruct his followersto spread the work of the movement outside the confines of South Asia, to which it had,till then, been restricted. Yusuf s first appeal in this regard is said to have been madeat a large tablighi ijtema held at the town of Moradabad in northern India in January1945. Accordingly, a year later, on 20 January 1945, the first tablighi gasht and meetingin the West was organized in an Indian quarter of London.11 The amir of the gasht partywas one Rahat Rizvi, scion of a wealthy family hailing from Lucknow, but having longsince settled in Calcutta. Rizvi is said to have come in contact with the TJ through oneHaji Irshad of Peshawar. The other main participant in this first tablighi group in Britainwas the noted educationist, Dr Zakir Hussain, who was later to go on to become thePresident of India. Hussain is said to have been in London at this time attending aneducational conference.
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Sani Hasni, Yusuf s principal biographer, writes that the Muslims of London re-sponded enthusiastically to this first jamaat's appeals, adding that this had much to dowith Dr Zakir Hussain's own personal reputation and fame in intellectual circles. Yet,'those who know London', he says, 'can well appreciate how difficult it must have beenfor them to do this work of tabligh there, especially since it involved such a practical(amali) exercise as gash?. However, we are told, against all die odds this jamaat was asuccess and that it laid 'the august beginning' of the TJ's activities in Britain.12
The enthusiasm which fired the early TJ muballighin to the West, and the sort ofexperiences that they must have encountered is well illustrated in the following accountwhich Sani Hasni gives of one of the first jamaats, to the West—in this case, to the USA.He writes that the members of this jamaat 'had no wealth and palaces, no honour orriches, no store-house of worldly knowledge and culture', but possessed just onetreasure that alone sufficed for them—unflinching faith in Islam.13 Before departing ontheir mission, they came to visit Yusuf, who addressed them, saying:
We need such firm believers (ahl-i-yaqiri) and men of God (rnardan-i-khudd)to go to the wealth-worshipping countries of Europe and America who, onseeing the glitter and glamour of life there, will not get beguiled by it all, butwill, instead, shed tears on seeing the anti-Islamic ways of the people who livethere.14
The zeal to begin tabligh work right away seems to have been so very irrepressible thatas soon as this jamaat boarded the aeroplane, 'they began discussing among themselvesas to how they should start their work (among the passengers of the plane itself)'. Theyapproached the captain to seek his permission to call out the azan (call to prayer) aloud.He told them that the other passengers might object to that. The muballighin, however,or so we are told, ignored the captain's warnings and, after calling out the azan,proceeded to offer namaz. The other passengers seem to have found this sight rathercurious. Many of them actually got up from their seats to see what they were doing.
When the muballighin found that the other passengers were taking an interest in whatthey were engaged in, they began their talim (teaching), which probably consisted, as itdoes till today, of reading aloud from the Fazail-i-Amal. They went around the planeidentifying all the Muslim passengers, beseeching them to join them for the talim. Thecaptain of the plane would, every now and then, pass by, and, according to Sani Hasni,seeing that 'these people were talking only about the importance of cultivating goodmorals, worshipping God, remembering the Hereafter, leading a good life and lovingothers' was reportedly 'greatly impressed'.
Sani Hasni would have his readers believe that the presence of the pious muballighinon board the plane had a miraculous effect of some sort, for he writes that, 'By thegrace of God, this time the plane did not run into rough weadier as it usually had inthe past'. On landing safely the captain is reported to have admitted, 'God has beenmerciful to all of us only because of these pious men, otherwise we certainly would havebeen troubled by a storm because, with the exception of this particular flight, everyflight of mine has got caught in bad weather.' It was as if God were blessing the firstforay of the TJ in the West, or so Sani Hasni suggests.15
On their arrival at their destination, the muballighin began scanning the telephonedirectory for the names of local Muslims whom they could work among, a practice,incidentally, often still used by tablighi groups going to new areas. They managed
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to locate a few names, and contacted them. At first, they had to struggle to convincethe local Muslims that they had come all the way from India, 'only for the sake of Allahand not out of greed for any worldly riches'. When at last they managed to set asidethese apprehensions, the local Muslims asked them to tell them how 'the wealth of lovecould be acquired'. They were told that the only way to do so was to take three daysoff and join them in a jamaat to do tabligh work.16 They readily agreed. After the tourwas over, the participants are said to have been so impressed that they said, 'We shallnever in our lives forget this jamaat. We would never have been able to acquire such joyeven if we had spent thousands of rupees.' The mubalUghin then told them that if theyreally wanted to remain immersed in the bliss they had just experienced they shouldform a jamaat and go to South Asia to do tabligh work there for a period of four months.All those who participated in the jamaat are said to have willingly agreed to thissuggestion and, accordingly, gave their names to the mubalUghin.I7
The TJ in Britain in the 1960s
Sani Hasni's account of the TJ in Britain is very sketchy, based as it is on a few letterssent by early mubalUghin to the tablighi authorities in Delhi. The dates of these lettershave not been provided, though there is reason to suggest that they were all written inthe 1960s. This was at a time when the TJ markaz (headquarters) in Delhi had begundespatching jamaats from India to Britain to carry out tabligh work there, the first ofwhich, probably sent some time in 1962 or 1963, is said to have been comprised of,among others, some teachers of the Muslim University, in Aligarh, India. These lettershighlight both the immense hurdles that the early mubalUghin in Britain had to face andthe limited, yet significant, achievements that they were able to make. Summing up thework of a particular jamaat, an early muballigh to Britain, in his letter to Yusuf, wrote:
All our companions are in good health, and with love and co-operation areengrossed in the work of the din. Every effort is being made to abide by therules of talim, tasbihat (counting the rosary), shab bedari (nightly vigil), nawafil(optional prayers) and tilawat (recitation of the scriptures) ... All praise be toAllah! Due to the blessings of this holy effort (of tabligh) many mosques havenow been set up in several cities of this country, in which the azan is beingcalled out and Muslims pray together in congregation. Where there is nomosque, many friends are thinking of setting them up. At the local level, at afew places, the weekly gasht, ijtema, talim and shab bedari have been started andjamaats are now being despatched to nearby places.18
It was not that the early mubalUghin faced no major difficulties in their efforts, for asthis muballigh continued in his letter, 'It was only with the special favour of God' thatthey were able to carry on with their work. One of the greatest challenges they seem tohave faced appears to have been cultural, with many local Muslims having 'succumbed'to what they saw as immoral and un-Islamic Western ways. As this muballigh went onto add,
The conditions in this country are indeed very difficult. The bazaar ofimmorality thrives and Satan has set here a wide and tough snare. Goodnessknows how many Muslims have got ensnared in this trap after coming here.There is a pressing need for doing (tabligh) work among them. Pray for us thatAllah should keep us firm on the principles (needed to do) this work here, that
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Origins and Growth 0/Tablighi Jamaat in Britain 111
He should accept us poor, miserable creatures in His court, that He shouldmake this tour of ours a means for our own complete guidance and that Heshould shower His blessings upon us ... May Allah the Pure One make us themeans (zariya) and pretext (banana) to convert this land of infidelity andpolytheism into the centre of peace and the Faith.19
The sudden influx of wives, children and other dependents of male Muslim workersinto Britain in the early 1960s meant, as we have seen, that British Muslims now hadto turn their attention from simply earning their livelihood to providing, among otherthings, for the religious needs of their families and communities. Thus began a phaseof feverish institution building, in which particular importance began to be given to thesetting up of mosques and religious schools. Like the other Muslim groups, the TJ, too,seems to have played a significant role in this regard. The particular importance that theTJ gave to mosque building activity at this time, as evidenced in the letter quotedabove, probably had much to do with the fact that tablighi work itself is largelymosque-centred. Makatib and madrasas, too, began being set up under TJ influence,and these assumed particular importance as a means to transmit religious learning tothe younger generation. Pointing to the attention that the TJ was now paying to theestablishment of schools for the religious education of the young, a London-basedmuballigh wrote,
Till now the religious education of our children has been completely ignored.Words cannot express our gratitude to Allah that in a short span of a mere twoyears since this madrasa was set up, we have managed to enrol over fortychildren ... For these children everything (that we teach) is new because theyhave an Islamic environment neither in their schools nor even in their homes.For them, the namaz itself is new and for the vast majority—by which is meant99% of the students—the kalima20 itself is something novel.21
The focus of this founder of one of the earliest tablighi madrasas in Britain seems tohave been three-fold—to impart knowledge of the basics of Islam, including its ritualsand fundamental beliefs, to the children; to combat Christian and Western culturalinfluences; and to instil in the children a spirit of dedication to the work of the din,which could later be channelled into tablighi activity. He wrote in his letter that he haddivided the students into three classes based on age. The children in the first class weretaught the kalima, iman, the divinity of Allah (Allah ki khudaniyyai), and the refutationof the Christian concept of the Trinity (Taslis ki nafi) and were also told about the livesof the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions. Children in the second class weretaught the same things, though in greater detail. The students in the third class weretaught how to say namaz, how to 'purify their intention' (khulus-i-niyyat), 'reflectingand relying upon Allah', 'knowledge of Allah as the Omnipresent and the Omniscient',along with the complete text of Maulana Kifayatullah's Talim-ul-Islam, a book used ina large number of Deobandi makatib all over South Asia. In addition, all the studentswere taught 'the great importance of struggling in the path of the din in this environ-ment', along with 'the rewards (fazail) of doing this work'.22
By the mid-1960s or so, the TJ seems to have made its presence felt in several townsand cities across England with a substantial South Asian Muslim presence. It wasprobably around this time that a muballigh wrote from London, hardly able to controlhis excitement:
People are now ... taking time off on weekends to go on jamaat. Last year 75friends from here went on the haj. Several mosques have now been set up, and
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parents have now been made concerned about how they can save the faith oftheir children. Mosques now get full on Fridays. In Newcastle, Glasgow andLondon, a couple of non-Muslims have accepted Islam ... A thirst for religionis now apparent among the (Muslim) women of Glasgow and Manchester ...they listened very attentively to (our) talk about Allah.23
The First Ijtemas in Britain
After the TJ had managed to spread to a few towns and cities in England, an ijtema, thefirst of its kind in Britain, was organized over the Christmas vacation in London. Thefour-day ijtema was attended by around one hundred people, and participating in itwere jamaats from Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield, besides activists fromLondon itself. Some time after the London ijtema, a similar gathering, but on a granderscale, was held at Manchester, providing another opportunity for tablighi activists fromall over Britain to meet and discuss plans for the future expansion of the movement.The participants in this ijtema seem to have been drawn from all walks of life. One ofthem excitedly wrote,
Ajamaat arrived (at the ijtema) this morning from Leeds ... Another came upfrom Birmingham. Ajamaat of seventeen brothers has come from London ...Ajamaat from Glasgow is due to arrive shortly and so is one from Liverpool.What, is this the Bhopal ijtema?2* No! It is the ijtema at Manchester inEngland. Here there are men with beards, men wearing (Western) suits,officers, traders, factory workers, doctors, scientists, students, old men, menfrom British Guyana, men who have come here by train, others who havecome by 'motor' and yet others who have come by car ... Today let thosepeople see with their very own eyes who say that there is no tabligh work beingdone in London, in England! Let them see the number of jamaats that hasnow gone off on gasht and the other jamaats that, standing outside themosque, are profusely shedding tears while earnestly making supplications toGod!25
The Manchester ijtema seems to have been a major success and to have enthused theparticipants with great zeal for carrying on their tabligh efforts. As one participant putit, 'It seems that Allah is (now) going to do some very big and important work throughus.' Another equally zealous activist declared, 'The so-called Big Powers will probablynot survive the terrible destruction that is sure to follow from Allah's wrath. If only (theMuslims) who have been influenced by the environment (of the West) would turn theirattention to this! May Allah give us the courage to fight this environment.'26
Further Expansion of the Movement in Britain
Sani Hasni stops abruptly at the Manchester ijtema and does not go on to describe thefurther expansion of the TJ in Britain. From here one enters difficult terrain, becauselittle or no literature is available that documents the subsequent course of the move-ment in the country. Material gathered through interviews with first-generation mi-grants27 suggests a slow but sustained expansion of the movement from the 1960s rightthrough the 1970s and after, particularly in industrial towns with a sizeable Muslimpresence, especially in the Midlands and Yorkshire. Not only was the TJ able to reach
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out to those South Asian Muslims who were already associated with the TJ or the'Deobandi' maktab-i-fikr (school of thought) before their arrival in Britain itself, it wasalso able to win over several who came from parts of South Asia where the cults of theSufis were popular. One reason for this could be that, compared with the TJ, thetraditionalist ulama seem to have been far less well organized and active. Interestingly,not all 'Barelwis', as these traditionalists are commonly referred to in South Asia, whowent on to associate with the TJ after their arrival in Britain, actually seem to have beenvery aware of the intricacies of the theological wranglings between the 'Deobandi' and'Barelwi' ulama. As a result, many of them continued to have faith in the efficacy of theintercessionary powers of the dead saints, a key concept in 'Barelwi' cosmology, but onecondemned as shirk (polytheism or associationism) by the 'Deobandis'. This accommo-dation to 'Barelwi' beliefs, which, in fact, enabled the TJ to make considerable inroadsamong the 'Barelwis', was facilitated by the fact that the TJ concerned itself only withmatters such as the fazail, namaz and iman, studiously avoiding ikhtilafi or contentiousreligious issues that divided the various Muslim sects.
It appears that many among the early Muslim migrants, hailing as they did from therural areas of some of the least urbanized parts of South Asia, were themselves hardlyfamiliar with some of even the most basic of Islamic beliefs and rituals, such as the rulesof namaz, wuzu (ritual ablutions), roza (fasting), and even, in some cases, of the verykalima itself. The TJ's sole focus on these simple Islamic basics, and its steering clearof theological intricacies, had, then, a natural attraction for many such people, a fairlyconsiderable number of whom were, at least formally, traditionalist Muslims. As oneformer 'Barelwi', an elderly Muslim of East Ham, London, originally from Belgaum inSouth India, who arrived in Bradford in 1961, put it,
In those days, jamaat would come here from India and Pakistan. With greatcourtesy they would approach us and would even share whatever little foodthey had with us. They would teach us things about Allah and Allah'sProphet. Who, tell me, could have had any objection to that? In those days,very few of us had knowledge of the masail (details) of ibadat—about howmany rakaats (genuflections) there are in namaz, what hfarz (a duty) in wuzuand about how ghusl (bath)should be taken—things which are most funda-mental in Islam, without which your namaz is not accepted by God ... Thejamaat people would teach us all this with great love and affection. Theywould, out of humility, say that they had come, not to teach us, but, in fact,to learn from us, so that we would not feel small. That is how many of usbegan participating in jamaat work.
Besides the quietistic and non-controversial nature of the TJ, which enabled the earlyMuslims to carry on with their business of struggling to make money unhindered bywranglings with their host society, the attraction the movement held for many first-generation Muslim migrants lay, as Lewis says, in its role of a surrogate family for thesesuddenly dislocated people who had been uprooted from their homes and communitiesin rural South Asia and had been thrust into an unknown and generally hostileenvironment.28 The TJ community provided them with a familiar South Asian atmos-phere, where they could spend at least a few days in the company of their co-religionistsfrom their own countries of origin, away from the hostile host population among whomthey otherwise had to live and work. The TJ, as Lewis perceptively notes, has a distinctSouth Asian 'flavour' about it, which made it particularly attractive to many Muslimsnewly arrived from that part of the world. Urdu, a language with which many of them
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were familiar, was, and still is, the medium generally employed in tablighi circles andmeetings, not the unfamiliar English, in which few Muslims were then fluent. Tablighitended to see, and this is true even today, Western dress as somehow outside the bondsof Islamic modesty. Consequently, TJ activists generally wore (and still wear) tra-ditional South Asian attire—baggy trousers or shalwars or lungis, a long, wide clothwrapped around the waist, knee-length shirts or kurtas or katneez, or Arab-style gowns,along with either skull-caps or turbans. The books that they read out from in theircircles were all written by South Asian Deobandi and Tablighi buzurgs (elders), manyof whom, including Maulana Enamul Hasan, the amir of the TJ who succeeded Yusufon his death in 1965, and Maulana Muhammad Zakariyya, the chief ideologue of themovement, visited Britain periodically to strengthen ties between the tablighi markaz(headquarters) in Delhi and its branches in Britain. Even the food that was served attablighi meetings was, by and large, South Asian—consisting, almost invariably, of spicyrice, meat curry and thick roth or unleavened bread. The TJ, then, was, in some sense,a home away from home for newly arrived South Asian Muslim migrants, aliens in ahostile land. Several respondents who arrived in Britain in the late 1950s and in the1960s cite this as a major attraction and appeal that the movement held out for them.
The Establishment of the Tablighi Markaz in Britain
As we have seen, by the early sixties the TJ seems to have established a fairly significantpresence in several towns in England. Steps now began to be taken to establish amarkaz in the country from where the activities of the movement, not just in Britainalone but in Europe as a whole, could be directed and co-ordinated under the guidanceof an amir appointed by and directly responsible to the TJ authorities in Delhi. Theperson who was to become the first amir of the TJ in Britain and all Europe was aGujarati first-generation migrant, one Hafiz Patel, who, though fairly advanced in yearsnow, still continues to occupy that position. According to a student at the tablighimadrasa at Dewsbury (West Yorkshire), the hafiz had come to England as an ordinaryworker. One year he went on haj, where he is said to have met Yusuf, then the globalamir of the TJ. Yusuf was apparently so impressed with his sincerity to the cause ofIslam that he took him in front of the Ka'aba and there 'offered supplications to Allahto make him the instrument for winning the whole of Britain to Islam.'
According to another source, an elderly Gujarati man who runs a small Islamicbookshop at Dewsbury, even before the tablighi markaz was set up at Dewsbury underthe supervision of Hafiz Patel, there was already a sizeable Gujarati presence in thetown. However, they did not have a mosque and not many of them were regular in theirprayers. In fact, says this informant, most of them had little knowledge of even thefundamentals of Islam. Then, in 1963, these Gujaratis invited Hafiz Patel, a fellowGujarati, who was then working in a factory in Coventry, to come and live amongstthem in Dewsbury and to guide them in religious matters, since, being a hafiz, he knewmore about Islam than the rest of them. One of the Dewsbury Muslims offered hishouse to be converted into a mosque. Over time, this became the markaz of the TJ inBritain. Later, when this building proved too small to accommodate the growingnumber of tablighi activists from Dewsbury and elsewhere, a large plot of land waspurchased in Dewsbury itself, and an impressive new markaz building was constructedthere. On a visit to Britain, Maulana Zakariyya is said to have come to the constructionsite to make special supplications for its future success as the centre of tabligh work inthe West.
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The construction of the new campus of the Dewsbury markaz, crowned with thebuilding of the grand Markazi mosque in 1982 along with the adjacent seminary,signified the fact that the TJ had now struck firm roots in British soil. Yet, the TJ wasnot to get a uniformly warm response from all sections of British Muslim society. Forone thing, outside the industrial belt in the Midlands and Yorkshire, its influence wasnot very significant. For another, its followers were to be drawn largely from onlycertain particular social groups, reflecting the fact that it was unable to transcend itsown inherent limitations and constraints. It is to this that we now turn in the nextsection.
Social Support Base of the TJ in Britain
Most social, including religious, movements, while attracting individuals from severalsocial groups, develop a core support base among certain generally identifiable sectionsof society that find a particular social movement more in tune with their ethos, theirstyle and, of course, their interests, than other movements. This core support base maybe distinguished on the basis of one or more of a number of social variables such aseconomic class, occupation, age-group or generation, ethnicity or race, gender, level ofeducational attainment, religion and sectarian affiliation and so on. In the case of theTJ in Britain we find that, as a consequence of a variety of factors, it tends to find itscore support base among certain specific social groups, even though its appeals aredirected at all Muslims.
Ethnicity: Explaining the Gujarati Presence
To begin with, and not simply because of their numerical preponderance among BritishMuslims, the TJ in Britain is largely, though not entirely, associated with Muslims ofSouth Asian origin. Yet, it does not seem to be equally popular among all the variousSouth Asian ethnic groups. Of them, it is less strong among the Pakistanis, who hailfrom a region where the cults centred around the shrines of the Sufis are still verypowerful and popular. The TJ does have some following among the Bengalis fromSylhet, but it is its association with the Gujarati Muslims, in both its general followingas well as higher-level leadership, that is most marked, a fact that has been commentedupon by several writers. In this section we take up for discussion the case of the GujaratiMuslims of Britain and shall seek to understand the particular attraction that the TJholds for this ethnic group.
In his paper on the 'Deobandi' mosques in Britain, King argues that the Gujaratiaffiliation with the TJ stems from their long association with the Deobandi school ofthought, from which the TJ itself actually emerged. Deobandi reformism, he says, tendsto have greater influence among the urban middle-classes, especially traders, amongwhom he includes many Gujaratis in Britain as well as in India. As a result of thehistorical links between the TJ and the Deobandi school of thought within the SouthAsian community inside which tabligh originated, the movement is limited to theDeobandi section, and it is to this section that a large proportion of Britain's GujaratiMuslim population belongs.29
Ally suggests that the strong Gujarati presence in the TJ in Britain has to do with thefact of the Gujaratis having traditionally learnt how to come to terms comfortably withminority status, both in India itself and in East Africa as well.30 Presumably, because ofits strict aloofness from active political involvement and controversy, it is particularly
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suited to Muslim groups that are a minority in non-Muslim societies, as is the case inBritain. In this regard, Lewis remarks that the Gujaratis in Britain have learnt to adjustto a minority situation, unlike, say, British Muslims of Pakistani origin. That is why, hesays, 'the Pakistanis here tend to get involved in all sorts of political wranglings', whilethe Gujaratis do not, preferring, instead, to 'quietly get along making their money,studiously avoiding a high profile'. A politically quiescent sort of Islam, such as the TJpresents, therefore suits them ideally. 'Being a minority does not worry them', he says,'and so they have learnt to recreate their own separate world wherever they might be.'On the other hand, he says, the Punjabi Muslims, coming from an overwhelminglyMuslim country, would take an Islamic ambience in society for granted and would,hence, find it difficult and distressing to live comfortably as a minority. 'That probablyexplains', he says, 'the relatively greater popularity of political Islamic groups—groupsthat talk about the setting up of an Islamic State—among them.'31
Drawing attention to another dimension of the traditional minority status of theGujarati Muslims which could have some relation with their active involvement intablighi activities, a leading activist of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic group saysthat there is 'a tremendous difference' between the Gujarati and Punjabi Muslim youthin Britain. The Punjabis came here from a country where there are almost nonon-Muslims at all, where one's 'Muslimness' is taken for granted. 'Punjabi parentsback in Pakistan', he says, 'are then not overly careful to teach Islam to their children,because there is no threat of their children going astray by turning kafir.' PunjabiMuslim parents in Britain apparently, carry over this attitude as well, which is why 'ifyou visit a mosque in a Punjabi locality in Britain you will hardly find more than ahandful of youngsters praying'. On the other hand, he says, mosques in Gujarati areasin Britain are 'packed with youngsters', because the Gujarati Muslims, who havetraditionally always lived as a minority, have learnt that if they do not pay properattention to the Islamic education of their children, 'they would be lost in the vast seaof kufr (unbelief) that surrounds them'. 'This is why', he adds, 'Gujarati parentsgenerally make it a point to encourage their children to go on tablighi tours right froman early age itself.'
Gujaratis, both Hindus and Muslims, are well-known for their entrepreneurial skills,and have a long tradition of migration to far-off lands in search of opportunities fortrade. Significant Gujarati settlements are to be found in countries as far apart as SouthAfrica, Fiji, Mauritius and the West Indies, besides Britain. In Britain itself theGujaratis mainly come from two different backgrounds. Firstly, migrants from EastAfrica, who are, for the most part, traders and merchants and are comparativelywell-off, and then migrants from the villages of Gujarat who have now, as HumayunAnsari puts it, 'been plugged into the merchant-trader grid at some level or the other'.32
The Gujaratis, on the whole, are thought to be a well-knit and closely integratedcommunity, characterized, as one informant says, by 'an insular, almost caste-likementality'. They maintain strong family and cultural, including religious, ties withGujarat and are acutely conscious of their own Gujarati identity, while at the same timealso stressing their links with the wider Muslim ummah (fraternity). Various Gujaraticommunities all over the world are thus linked with each other by a multiplicity of ties,religious as well as mundane, including economic. This international dimension of theGujarati community, suggests Ansari, 'equips them with a broad international vision,which then links up comfortably with tabligh's international reach and networks and itsthrust to expand all over the world'. Going out of one's home to other cities andcountries, therefore, is not new for many Gujaratis, only this time it is for tabligh and
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not trade, 'so it is easy to see how tabligh fits in with the general Gujarati ethos'.Likewise, Murshid remarks that, "The tablighi activists and the Gujaratis share acommon bond that draws them together—they are both great travellers.'33
'Their habits as travellers and their international links,' writes King of the Gujaratisin Britain, 'have naturally led them to be attracted to the similar spreading networkrepresented by Tabligh, and to be ideally able to serve Tabligh's purposes at the sametime as their own business interests.'34 In this regard, both Ansari as well as Murshid,stress that white on tabligh tours, Gujarati traders do not engage directly in economicactivities to promote their own business interests, for dunyavi dealings, barring the mostbasic, are strictly prohibited while on jamaat. However, suggests Murshid, 'While onjamaat, the contacts made with other Muslims or the knowledge of opportunitiesgained could later be used by them to further their own economic interests.' Similarly,Ansari adds that if one were to see how interactions and interrelationships developbetween people, at a subliminal level and in a subtle, probably unconscious, way thecontacts that muballighin develop while on tabligh might later go on to prove useful fortheir business prospects. For a largely trading community with international links, suchas are the Gujaratis, this feature of the TJ could possibly serve as a major attraction, atleast for some.
Social Class
Due largely to certain peculiar features that it possesses that set it apart from otherIslamic groups, the TJ is especially strong among particular socio-economic classclusters. Personal observation, as well as responses from interviewees, suggests a verystrong presence of lower and lower-middle class Muslims in the TJ, and this seems tobe the case not just in Britain but in many other countries as well. In the case of Britainthis may not seem very surprising, for as Lewis, quoting Modood, notes, the SouthAsian Muslim community in Britain could, by and large, itself be characterized as 'asemi-industrialised, newly urbanised working class community that is only one gener-ation away from rural peasantry'.35 Yet, over the years British Muslim society has beenwitnessing a perceptible process of class differentiation, if not polarization, with thegradual emergence of a small elite and a not too insignificant educated middle class.Few individuals from among these classes, however, seem to be very active in the TJ.
Lewis says that its 'unsophisticated, anti-intellectual, yet activist ethos', makes the TJparticularly attractive to semi-educated people from small towns and cities. The avenueof upward social mobility through Islamization that the TJ opens up to lower-middleclass families aspiring for higher status within the traditional hierarchy, a phenomenonthat has also been observed in South Asia, seems to be at work in Britain, too. The TJ'sstress on taqwa (piety)and the strict observance of ibadah, as against wealth or educa-tional attainment, as criteria for distinction in the eyes of God, would seem to hold aparticularly strong appeal for educationally and economically less privileged individuals.Thus, Arshullah, an unemployed Pathan TJ activist from a working-class family inManchester, says, reflecting this appeal of the movement for people like him, that,'Tabligh teaches that we are all equal. None of 'em high class-low class stuff aroundhere! We all eat together sitting on the floor. In Dewsbury there ain't no knocking ondoors before they let you in—that's upper-class snobbery—you just walk straight in.'
Interestingly, though the rank and file of the TJ in Britain is largely lower-middleclass, a number of local tablighi leaders (zimmedaran) come from educated, middle-classbackgrounds, their wider access to knowledge, contacts and other resources probably
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facilitating their acquisition of these positions of authority. Thus, at the London tablighimarkaz, the amir, a Pakistani Punjabi, is a businessman, and members of the managingcommittee {shura) include accountants and lawyers. The amir of the TJ in Glasgow isa surgeon, while at the Dewsbury markaz members of the shura include doctors and ateacher as well as a retired nuclear physicist.
Age Groups
A visit to any tablighi mosque in Britain would reveal two interesting facts about the sortof people who, at any time, can be found therein, engrossed in prayer or zikr orlistening to the impassioned appeal of a mullah or tablighi activist. Firstly, a greatlydisproportionate number of those present would be older generation Muslims, mostlywith white beards. Secondly, the relatively younger Muslims present would generallyseem to belong to lower and lower-middle class families, still deeply steeped in SouthAsian tradition, many involved in petty trade (besides some relatively affluentGujaratis), and, by and large, with low to medium levels of educational attainment. Itis the first fact—of the far more visible presence of older generation Muslims—thatconcerns us here.
The strong South Asian 'flavour' of the TJ in Britain—a fact already dealt with—makes the TJ culturally familiar and acceptable to many first-generation British SouthAsian Muslims. Farid Kassim, the official spokesman of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Britainand a keen observer of the British Muslim scene, has an interesting explanation for therelatively stronger presence of the older generation in the TJ. He says that the TJ is verymuch centred around mosques and that today, 'mosques are the second home for theretired—old men with nothing to keep them occupied spend the whole day there.' 'Thecloser they get to their graves', he says, 'the more do they think about the akhirah(hereafter) and of earning sawab to get a place for themselves in heaven.'36 The TJ, withits constant references to the akhirah, contrasting it with the ephemeral dunya, and withits offer of earning for one great sawab through following even the most simple of thelaws and rituals of Islam, thus eminently fits in with the concerns of the elderly Muslimsthat Kassim talks about. Amir, a young Punjabi Muslim of Bradford, who was at onetime involved in the TJ but is now no longer so, makes the same point when he saysthat, 'The mentality of the Tablighi Jamaat resembles remarkably that of a retirementclub. Joining it is like buying your ticket to heaven just before you leave for yourdestination—the akhirah, or so many of its activists believe.'
The Younger Generation and the Future of the Tablighi Jamaat in Britain
The future of Islam itself in Britain depends on how successful the older generationare in transmitting it to the generations that will succeed them. This, says Joly, is themain concern of British Muslim leaders.37 Haji Ebrahim Yoosuf Bawa Rangooni, aGloucester-based tablighi activist, stresses this same point more forcefully when hewrites that 'The greatest jihad of the time is that the iman of the younger generationshould be protected.'38
To assert that the TJ has a considerably stronger presence among the older gener-ation, first-generation British Muslims, than among the youth, and that even among thelatter, barring perhaps a considerable number of Gujaratis, a great many are poorlyeducated and come from humble backgrounds, would suggest that as the younger,
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British-born generation Muslims take over and as they increasingly go in for higherformal and modern education, as the statistics actually reveal is indeed the case, thesupport base of the TJ among Britain's Muslims will slowly begin to narrow down. Thisis what actually seems to be taking place today, in fact. Fewer and fewer younger-generation British Muslims seem to be going in for the TJ, preferring, instead, to goeither the secular way or else to join other, more activist, Islamic groups, such as theSalafiyya, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Young Muslims instead.
One reason for this development seems to be the general tablighi attitude towardsWestern education, especially in institutions run by non-Muslims, such as are mostschools and colleges in Britain. As increasing numbers of young British Muslimsgraduate from British schools and go in for higher education in colleges and universi-ties, they would probably find the culturally separatist milieu that the TJ seeks tocultivate a major stumbling block to their enthusiasm for acquiring higher education inWestern institutions. For, as it is, as Lewis rightly observes, 'British Muslims are heirsto a fragmented Islamic tradition, with most of the ulama and university graduatesinhabiting separate intellectual worlds, with little meeting, still less creative interactionbetween them.'39
It is not possible to state precisely what the definitive official stand of the TJ is on theissue of secular education in general, and on its pursuit in non-Islamic and non-Musliminstitutions in particular. This is because the TJ itself has no official publications of itsown in which such a stand could be explicitly spelled out, and because matters such aseducation, being among the dunyavi masa 'il, are strictly beyond the immediate purviewof tablighi focus. There are, no doubt, some medical doctors, engineers and otherprofessionals active in the TJ in Britain and a special ijtema is said to be held for them,as also for foreign students, every year at the Dewsbury markaz. Moreover, tablighiactivists never tire of asserting that they are not explicitly prevented by tablighiauthorities from going in for higher education. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note,neither are they actively encouraged to do so.
The considerable amount of literature published by the Idara Isha'at-i-Islam, aGloucester-based publishing house, provides a good illustration of how in one strongstrand in British tablighi opinion the issue of Muslim children studying in Western,non-Muslim institutions is perceived. The founder of the Idara and the author ofalmost all its publications, Haji Ibrahim Yoosuf Bawa Rangooni, has been deeplyinvolved in tablighi work for over three decades, first in Burma and then in Britain afterhis arrival there in 1972. He claims to have close contacts with TJ leaders in Britain,including with the TJ amir for Britain, Hafiz Patel, as well as some ulama at theDeoband madrasa, some of whom have visited and toured Britain, addressing Muslimgatherings, at his invitation. He relentlessly espouses the tablighi cause in his writings,and says that in his eyes, 'There is no other work more necessary and essential thanparticipation (in the work of the TJ).'40
In a pamphlet entitled, The Importance of Islamic Education and Training, aimedspecially at a British Muslim readership, Rangooni spells out his approach to the issueof Muslim children studying in Western, non-Muslim educational institutions, andthen lays out his own strategy as an alternative. Rangooni's case against educatingMuslim students in non-Muslim schools and colleges is built upon the 'dangers' oflearning from the 'enemies of Allah' and the fearful consequences of Muslim childrenbefriending non-Muslim classmates at such schools. 'Save your progeny from theeducation of school and college', Rangooni gravely warns British Muslim parents, 'inthe same way as you (would) save them from a lion or a wolf.' 'To send them in the
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atmosphere of college', he adds, 'is as dangerous as throw(ing) them into hell with yourown hands.' This is because, 'it is almost impossible for the children to save theirreligion in the atmosphere of college'.41
In many places in Britain where sizeable numbers of Muslims live, Muslim parentshave worked out a pragmatic arrangement whereby they send their children to regularschool to study and send them after school hours to Islamic makatib for basic religiousinstruction. Rangooni is of the view that such part-time religious institutions 'areneither proving beneficial... and nor is there any hope of good from them', presumablybecause under the present arrangement Muslim children still spend a greater part of theday in the company of non-Muslim teachers and class-mates in an 'un-Islamic'environment.42 The only way out, says Rangooni, is for British Muslims to establishseparate full-time schools of their own wherein both religious and secular disciplineswould be taught. Thus, he says,
If we sincerely wish our children to remain faithful to our dear religion, Islam,there is no other choice (but to) ... send our children (to) a full-time Islamicschool wherever it is established or (else to) sacrifice everything in ... (our)possession to establish one such school in every area where Muslims are living.
The sort of full-time educational institutions for Muslims that Rangooni has in mindwould be similar, he suggests, to the madrasas that have been established under TJinspiration at Dewsbury and Bury, about which we shall speak later in the course of thispaper, where arrangements have been made for limited teaching of secular disciplinesas well. Rangooni envisages a vast chain of such schools for Muslims to be set upwherever sizeable numbers of Muslims live, to serve the community as an idealalternative to the existing system. Thus, he says,
After having met with me on a couple of occasions, Hafiz Saheb (Hafiz Patel)gave me the good news that a full-time Dar-ul-Ulum was going to beestablished at Dewsbury. I congratulated him but said that it is of no usesetting up just one such Dar-ul-Ulum. A call should be made to all Muslims,on an individual as well as communal level, that wherever Muslims live theyshould set up (such) institutions in accordance with their population.43
Given the fact that not many younger-generation British Muslims, most of whomstudy in precisely the sort of non-Islamic schools that the Haji comes down upon soheavily, would probably find the environment, as well as the standards, of institutionslike the Dewsbury and Bury madrasas referred to above very satisfying, Rangooni'sscheme would, it appears, find few takers. Considering Rangooni's approach towardsWestern education, which is a reflection of a strong strand in tablighi thinking on thesubject, it is not surprising that, as Farid Kassim notes, 'The Tablighi Jamaat has verylittle presence among Muslim students in British schools and colleges.'
Generally speaking, if a movement is to sustain its appeal to individuals and groupsit must directly or otherwise reflect their everyday concerns and offer a means to handlethem. This is true for even the most idealistic or spiritual movements. Men cannot liveon dreams of a grand Utopia somewhere in the indefinite future or the afterlife for toolong, and after a while such movements have either to come to terms with the harshrealities of actual day-to-day existence and pragmatically deal with them, or else risk theprospect of extinction, owing to disillusionment on the part of their activists andsupporters. True, as the Bible says, Man does not live by bread alone, but, then, neithercan he live without it.
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The younger generation of Muslims in Britain has increasingly to deal with amultitude of challenges on various fronts, such as racial harassment, inter-generationalconflict and the struggle to fashion a harmonious balance between South Asian andWestern value systems and ways of life. It would seem that if Islamic groups are to finda receptive constituency among the emerging generation of British Muslim youth, theycannot afford to turn a blind eye to these matters of crucial concern to the youth, andmust incorporate them, at some level or other, in their agendas. As Ansari says, 'If theMuslim youth in Britain would at all be attracted to any Islamic group it would reallydepend on how far that group would serve, or at least reflect, their interests, which, inturn, are moulded largely by their own experiences of racism and discrimination.'Likewise, Qari Muhammad Hanif, head-teacher at die Madrasa Talim-ul-Islam in EastLondon, a taWj^/zi-oriented Islamic school, referring to the increasing popularity ofradical and 'modernist' Islamic groups among increasing numbers of Muslim youth inBritain today, laments, 'The Muslim youth in this country are looking for the sort ofIslam that would suit their own needs.'44
Given this, the prospects for the TJ among British Muslim youth may, it appears, notseem to be very bright. For one thing, most tablighi ulama in Britain are not bilingual,at least in the crucial sense of having a mastery of English and, widi it, an informedunderstanding of British culture. Thus, for instance, Hafiz Patel, the amir of the TJ inBritain, who has been resident in the country for a quarter of a century or so, is saidnot to be able to speak English. As a result of this linguistic barrier, the traditionalulama apparently 'find it difficult to understand, still less engage widi, the world andconcerns of young British Muslims', increasing numbers of whom are fluent only inEnglish.45 Their cognitive worlds may also be seen as separate and distinct. Thus, manyyoung Muslims tend to dismiss stories in die Fazail-i-Amal as fanciful tales which die'half-educated' generations of their fadiers may have believed but which do not addresstheir own concerns. Lewis also opines that instead of encouraging a serious engagementand dialogue widi the world outside, die TJ merely seeks to create a separate, imaginaryworld of its own and diat diis itself would make it unattractive for growing numbers ofBritish Muslim youth. Furthermore, as we have seen, die TJ studiously avoids allreference to die masa'il and the dunyavi m'amilat (worldly affairs). Thus, any talk ofmundane matters diat concern ordinary Muslims in dieir day-to-day lives is dismissedas dunyavi, which should in no way be allowed to distract one from die single-mindedpursuit of die din (religion). 'We talk only about die skies above and the grave below',is a popular expression which many tablighi activists employ widi great pride, as if totalk about worldly affairs were some sort of sin. This attitude, however, invariablybrings disillusionment in its trail for many young Muslims who see die tablighi focus,style and edios as too narrow and restricted for their liking, and as largely irrelevant todieir own needs, being excessively concerned widi ritualistic minutiae to die neglect ofissues of practical concern for today's Muslim youdi in die West, issues such asunemployment, drugs, racism, growing anti-Muslim feelings in the West, etc. Onerespondent, for instance, a Mirpuri from Bradford, said diat he decided to leave die TJ,in which he had earlier been quite active, after he was reprimanded by a Maulana forreading a newspaper in a tablighi mosque. The Maulana told him diat it was a sin tobring dunyavi affairs into the House of God. The respondent argued with the Maulana,saying diat even in die days of die Prophet die Muslims would sit in die mosque anddiscuss politics and warfare, but die Maulana refused to listen. 'I dien diought tomyself, he says, 'diat diese people are just too narrow-minded and diat is why I leftdiem.' This respondent speaks for a number of odier British Muslims of his generation
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when he says that, 'By turning a complete blind eye to the real-world concerns ofBritish Muslims, movements like the Tablighi Jatnaat are bound to lose their appeal inthe years to come.'
Efforts to link tabligh work with issues of practical concern on the part of youngMuslims seem to have met with little success. One respondent spoke about how hisefforts to start a co-operative interest-free lending society in his mosque were opposedby tablighi activists who controlled the mosque, on the grounds that this could possiblyprove to become a source of dissension and, therefore, of fitna (schism). Likewise,Farid Kassim of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir tried to introduce radical political ideas in a tablighimosque in London but was stiffly opposed. In his words:
If you go to any tablighi mosque you'll find that after the evening prayer whatthey do is to read out from the Fazail-i-Amal all those stories about the sahaba(Companions of the Prophet), but they make them out to be like some fancifulfairy tale, all about things which Muslims today would think it impossible todo. But the sahaba are not just to be admired. They have to be emulated.Islam, surely, did not come simply to regale us with all those good storiesabout the sahaba. Islam must be related to our real world, life's pressingproblems and that's what the sahaba did, challenging the oppression of thekuffar (unbelievers), for instance.
He then continues:
I thought that this point must be put across, so one day, when I had gone toa tablighi mosque, after the prayer was over I began reading out from theFazail-i-Amal to a group of people who had assembled there. The chapter wasabout the sahaba and their wars against the kuffar. But I did not read out thestory just like that. I wanted to relate it to the problems that the Muslimummah faces today. So, after reading out the story, I said, 'SubhanallaMSubhanallaM See, the sahaba had a real army! Islam says we should follow thesahaba, so we, too, should have a real army of our own! And just as the sahabafought against the kafir oppressors of their time, we, too, should fight theoppressors today—Israel, for instance, or the Indians in Kashmir or the Serbsin Bosnia.' However, when the mosque authorities heard of this they forcedme out of the mosque, saying that politics had no place in the house of Allah.46
Kassim claims that a major challenge to the TJ in Britain today comes from activistgroups like his own Hizb-ut-Tahrir, with many young British Muslims, whose fatherswould have readily identified with quietistic groups like the TJ, now flocking to suchgroups instead. The growth of anti-Muslim sentiment in the West in the wake of theIranian Revolution and the Satanic Verses controversy, the Gulf War and Westernconnivance at the massacre of Bosnian Muslims at the hands of the Christian Serbs,have, he says, all had the consequence of radicalizing the Muslim youth in the West,and no longer are they prepared to remain passive spectators as they see the TJexhorting them to be. Kassim believes that, increasingly, youngsters just do not seemto find the TJ relevant to their existential concerns.
You need more than just the Fazail-i-Amal and the stories about the sahabato face British society. In the play-grounds of the schools here children aren'tdiscussing about the Great Caliphs or arguing about how many fingers ofwhich hand to eat from—stuff that the Tablighi Jamaat talks about—they aretalking about girlfriends and which drug to inject into your veins. So, unless
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the Fazail-i-Amal is contextualized and related to the actual problems ofMuslim youth in Britain—which is something the Tablighi Jamaat is certainlynot doing—I am convinced that in this country the Tablighi Jamaat shallsooner or later fade away.
The TJ, British Muslim Youth and South Asian Culture
Interestingly, and rather ironically, while the decidedly South Asian 'flavour' of the TJplayed no insignificant role in attracting older-generation Muslims to its fold, thiscultural rootedness of the movement would actually seem to be one cause of its growingfailure to attract the younger, British-born generation. Several scholars have noted thatas their links with South Asia become increasingly tenuous, more and more youngBritish Muslims are identifying themselves as Muslims first and foremost and then asBritish, rather than as South Asian Punjabi or Mirpuri, Gujarati or Bengali. Accordingto Faisal Badi, news editor of Q-News International, a popular British Muslim weekly,many young British Muslims now do not think of themselves as Asians at all, but simplyas Muslims, believing that they have more in common with a black or white convert toIslam than with a Hindu whose family came to Britain from the same part of SouthAsia as theirs.47 With successive generations of British-born Muslims increasinglycoming to see themselves as, at least in part, British by culture, the assertion that, 'amajor aim of tabligh is to rescue the ummah from the culture and civilization of the Jews,Christians and (other) enemies of Islam and to create such hatred for their ways ashuman beings have for urine (peshab) and excreta (paykhanq)'4* naturally finds littlefavour with many.
Fozia Bora of Q-News International remarks that by conflating South Asian culturaltraditions with Islam, 'the older generation ... have created an image of Islam ... whichis easy for young people to reject.'49 Consider, for instance, the question of dress andexternal appearance. While on tabligh, and as far as possible at all other times as well,tablighi activists are expected to wear 'Muslim' dress and to 'look Muslim'. As amiddle-aged Gujarati from London says, 'It is not enough to be a Muslim at heart.From your physical appearance itself it should be clear to others that you are a Muslim.'Thus, there is in Britain, as in South Asia and elsewhere, something like a tablighiuniform. Besides, the moustache is generally shaved off and great stress is given togrowing a beard, the ideal recommended length of which is at least 'one fist full' (ekmuthi bhaf). South Asian and Arab dress and the beard with the moustache shaved off,then, is seen as somehow 'Islamic'. On the other hand, Western-style shirts andtrousers are generally seen as somehow 'un-Islamic'.
With the younger generation of Muslims, not only in Britain but in India as well,increasingly taking to Western dress, the general tablighi attitude to dress begins to beseen, quite naturally, as yet another reflection of the peculiarly South Asian characterof the movement, and as yet another reason for its rejection. 'I would feel like a clownif I were to wear those flowing robes', says a young Mirpuri man from Bradford aboutthe dress that tablighi activists almost invariably wear. He adds that most of hisassociates of his generation would also feel the same way. Not surprisingly, then, onefinds that in Islamic groups other than the TJ, such as the Young Muslims or theHizb-ut-Tahrir, whose membership consists almost entirely of young people, Westerndress, provided it is within what is seen as the limits of Islamic modesty, is not an issueat all. Indeed, it is rare to see male activists of these groups in anything but shirts andtrousers or suits and ties.
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This growing rejection by British Muslim youth of varieties of traditional Islam thatare distinctly South Asian in character—and this would include the TJ as well—owesas much to the gradual shedding by the youth of a South Asian identity in favour of anew, British Muslim one as to inter-generational conflict of values and expectations, inwhich new, assertive and aggressive forms of Islam, increasingly popular among theyouth, that seek to by-pass centuries of fossilized tradition and go straight to the Qur'anand Sunna, can be seen as actually challenging the traditional quietism of their parents'generation. The tablighi ethos that is hostile to the exercise of reason (aql) and enjoinsstrict, unthinking and unquestioning obedience of the buzurgs, is, says Farid Kassim,today seen by many young British Muslims as reflecting the general authoritarian ethosof South Asian culture and not in keeping with what they feel is the true spirit of Islam.
Rejection of South Asian traditions in the guise of Islam is not the only reason whygrowing numbers of young Muslims are going in for more activist and explicitlypolitical Islamic groups, in place of older and more traditional groups such as the TJ.According to several young Muslim respondents, their parents' generation did notreally concern themselves with broader social and political issues relating to thecommunity, .since they viewed their stay in Britain as purely temporary, as a result ofwhich all that they wanted was to be able to go ahead and make as much money as theycould. That is why they tended to favour quietistic Islamic groups such as the TJ, if theygave much importance at all to religious matters at that time. However, the situation foryoung Muslims today is viewed as vastly different. Britain is seen as their own country,with none other to call their own. This is what makes many of them realize the needto take an active role in furthering community interests and struggling for their rights.This naturally, they say, makes Islamic groups that actually engage with society,whether it be in the form of political involvement or community development work, farmore relevant for them than quietistic and socially disengaged groups like the TJ. Inthis context, some even go so far as to see the TJ as part of a grand Western conspiracyto enfeeble the Muslims, by directing their attention away from questions of power to'politically safe' and 'non-threatening' spiritual delusion.
Yet, it would be erroneous to contend that it is simply the radical anti-Westernrhetoric of groups like the Hizb-ut-Tahrir or, to some extent, the Young Muslims, thatis attracting increasing numbers of British Muslim youth to their camp. What is equally,if not more, attractive is the fact that in many ways the leaders in these groups appearas suitable role-models for the Muslim youth of today to emulate. Thus, according toLewis,
Few British Muslim youth would probably find in the average tablighiMaulana, who hardly knows any English, dressed in his shalwar-kamiz orlungi, shunning all contact with the outside world, a role model to follow. Onthe other hand, you have the smart English-speaking professionals—doctors,lawyers and so on—in Islamic groups such as the Young Muslims or theHizb-ut-Tahrir, debating with Europeans and championing the cause of Islam.These are the sort of people young Muslims in Britain would now look up tofor inspiration.50
Conclusion
We have seen how the TJ managed to secure for itself a firm foothold in Britain in theyears following the influx of large numbers of Muslim workers and their families from
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South Asia into Britain. While it seems to have found substantial support amongfirst-generation immigrants, especially among certain social groups, its appeal seems tohave been somewhat limited in terms of geographical spread and ethnic affiliation. Itsattraction for recently-arrived migrants from South Asia, particularly Gujaratis fromIndia and east Africa, seems to have lain in its rootedness in the South Asian'Deobandi' cultural tradition and its political quiescence that enabled its followers toadjust themselves to the new and often hostile situation in which they found themselvesin their host country. However, it appears today that, although the TJ still continues toinclude a number of young Muslim activists in its ranks, particularly from lower andlower-middle class backgrounds, increasing numbers of young British Muslims seem tofind that it fails to address their own concerns, as a result of which recent years havewitnessed a growing popularity of more activist, including militant, Islamic groupsamong sections of British Muslim youth. The TJ, with its rootedness in South Asiancultural tradition and its aversion to any modification or adaptation to what it claims isthe nabavi tariqa, seems unable, indeed unwilling, to take into account these majorchallenges. That this has important implications for the very survival of the movementin Britain, and in the West more generally, is obvious.
NOTES
1. M. M. Ally, History of Muslims in Britain: 1850-1980 (unpublished MA research thesis, Universityof Birmingham, Faculty of Arts, 1987).
2. J. Nielsen, Muslims in Britain: searching for an identity? New Community, Vol. xiii, No. 3, Spring1987, 387.
3. P. Lewis, Islamic Britain: religion, politics and identity among British Muslims—Bradford in the 1990s(London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 1994), 50.
4. Nielson, op. cit., 387.5. K. Siddiqui, The Muslim Parliament of Great Britain: political innovation and adaptation (London,
The Muslim Parliament, 1992), 12.6. This term refers to traditional Muslims who believe in the intercessionary powers of the Prophet
and the Sufi saints and the cults centred around their graves or dargahs.7. The term refers to the so-called gayr muqallidin or those Muslims who deny the need for the taqlid
(imitation) of any of the four schools of SunnI jurisprudence.8. Lewis, op. cit., 56.9. M. Gaborieau, 'The transformation of the Tablighi Jamaat into an international movement
(according to some Urdu sources): 1944-1965' unpublished paper, 3.10. Ibid., 7.11. M. Sani Hasni, Sawaneh-i-Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Yusuf Kandhlawi Rahmatullah Aleih
(Lucknow, Department of Publications and Dissemination, Nadwat-ul-Ulama, 1989), 257.12. Ibid., 258.13. Ibid., 517.14. Ibid.15. Ibid., 518.16. Ibid., 517.17. Ibid., 519.18. Ibid., 521.19. Ibid., 522.20. The Islamic creed La ilaha il allah Muhammadu rasul allah (There is no God but Allah and
Muhammad is His Prophet).21. Sani Hasni, op cit. 523.22. Ibid., 522-523.23. Ibid., 523-524.24. Referring to the annual ijtema at the central Indian town of Bhopal attended by hundreds of
thousands of Muslims from all over India and beyond.25. Sani Hasni, op cit. 525-526.
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26. Ibid., 525.27. The term is used here to refer to those South Asian Muslim men, born in South Asia itself, who
arrived in Britain in the years soon after the Second World War and were only later joined by theirfamilies.
28. Interview, Bradford, 15 December 1995.29. See, for further details, J. King, Tablighi Jamaat and the Deobandi Mosques in Britain, unpub-
lished paper, presented at the Conference on New Islamic and Related Movements in the West,11 December 1993, at the Centre for New Religious Movements, Kings College, London.
30. Ally, op. cit., 141.31. Interview, 15 December 1995.32. Interview with Humayun Ansari, Centre for Minority Studies, Royal Holloway, Egham, 12
November 1995.33. Interview with Tazeen Murshid, lecturer in South Asian Studies, University of North London, 16
November 1995.34. King, op. cit., 12.35. Lewis, op. cit, 77.36. Interview with Farid Kassim, London, 2 November 1995.37. D. Joly, Britannia's Crescent: making a place for Muslims in British society (Ashgate, Avebury, 1995),
35.38. H.E.Y.B. Rangooni, The Importance of Islamic Education and Training (Gloucester, Idara Isha'at
al-Islam, 1995), 20.39. Lewis, op. cit., 189.40. H.E.Y.B. Rangooni, Al Islam Bartanniya: Alulad via Nasl Nambar (Gloucester, Idara Isha'at
19.44. Interview with Qari Muhammad Hanif, London, 3 November 1995.45. Lewis, op. cit., 205.46. Interview with Farid Kassim, London, 2 November 1995.47. P. Vallely & A. Brown, British Islam: a new generation awakes, The Independent (Supplement), 6
December 1995, 2.48. Rangooni, Al Islam Bartanniya Vol. 2, No. 1, April 1996 (Gloucester, Idara Isha'at al-Islam),
24-25.49. Quoted in Vallely & Brown, p. 2.50. Interview, 15 November 1995.
