TABLIGHI JAMAAT

What is the Tablighi Jamaat?

"There is a culture of secretism in the organization, which develops suspicion," once said Ajit Doval, current NSA. "The movement was never viewed adversely by the government."

The Tablighi Jama'at was founded in 1926 in Mewat, India, by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, an Islamic scholar and teacher. The movement began as an effort to counteract the activities of Hindu revivalists in India, who at the time were attempting to convert Muslims to Hinduism. 

The historic centre of JT is still located in the heart of Nizamuddin in the traditional quarter of Delhi, and continues to receive Tablighis from around the world. For decades the movement remained apolitical and pacifist movement, which helped the group expand its membership beyond the Indian subcontinent to the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere. While most Tablighis still live in Muslim-majority countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, the group also has a significant presence in parts of Western Europe, particularly the U.K., France and Spain. Its European membership has been estimated at about 150,000 or more.  In 2016, U.S. officials estimated that the group has some 50,000 followers in mosques in the U.S. According to analysts, it has around 25 million members proselytizing around the globe.  Several central Asian countries Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan—banned i

Theologically, the Tablighi Jama'at movement is closely tied to the scriptural, conservative Deobandi school of Sunni Islam, which emphasizes strict adherence to religious orthodoxy.  While most followers of the Tablighi Jama'at are primarily interested in matters of personal piety and spiritual self-renewal, some have been accused of having ties to radical networks.  Scholar Eva Borreguero claims that there is no evidence thus far that the group as a whole is involved with militant groups, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, while acknowledging the potential role that individual Tablighis may have played in them. Contrarily, Shireen Khan Burki, an independent scholar believes that although the Tablighi Jama'at stress proselytism as their sole objective, they have also provided cover, a conduit and a fertile recruiting ground for jihadi organizations such as Al Qaeda and Lashkar-i-Taiba. 

For the past few years, an ISIS funder in Britain namely Md. Shahid Uddin Khan and members of his family are regularly providing donations to Tablighi Jamaat and jihadist activities. Khan's organization named 'Astha' [faith] has reportedly earned an endorsement from Anjem Choudary (former head of a notorious organization named Al Mujajiroun (ALM) network, a leading group in the United Kingdom that supports an extreme interpretation of Islam) for its ideology of establishing Sharia rule by ousting democracy throughout the world. Followers of Anjem Choudary have started using Tablighi Jamaat as the most suitable vessel for radicalizing Muslims as well as attracting them towards jihad. Tablighi Jamaat. 

Shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who in 2001 tried to set off a bomb on a commercial aircraft, and John Walker Lindh, the American citizen captured by U.S. forces with Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001, both spent time in Tablighi circles. French Tablighi members, for example, have allegedly helped organize and execute attacks not only in Paris but also at the Hotel Asni in Marrakech in 1994. Indian investigators suspect influential Tablighi leader, Maulana Umarji, and a group of his followers in the February 27, 2002 firebombing of a train carrying Hindu nationalists in Gujarat, India. Moroccan authorities sentenced Yusef Fikri, a Tablighi member and leader of the Moroccan terrorist organization At-Takfir wal-Hijrah, to death for his role in masterminding the May 2003 Casablanca terrorist bombings. Moroccan terrorist group Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah urged their members to join Islamic organizations that operate openly, such as Tablighi Jamaat. 

In Britain, France, and the United States, the Tablighi Jamaat has appeared on the fringes of several terrorism investigations, leading some to speculate that its apolitical stance simply masks "fertile ground for breeding terrorism." Pakistani and Indian observers believe, for instance, that Tablighi Jamaat was instrumental in founding Harakat ul-Mujahideen. Another allegedly Tablighi Jamaat spin-off is the Harakat ul-Jihad-i Islami. A Wikileaks document released in 2011 suggested that al-Qaeda operatives used the Tablighi Jamaat's headquarters at Nizamuddin in New Delhi as a cover to obtain travel documents and shelter. Kafeel Ahmed, one of the suspects from India arrested for the failed attack on Glasgow airport, happened to be associated with the movement. The Sudanese member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hamir Mohammad, had tried to secure for himself a visa into Pakistan as a Tablighi member; the Somalian Muhammad Sulayman Barre had likewise tried to enter Pakistan from India by adopting the same guise, Abu Zubair al Haili, commander of the Mujahedeen Battalion of al Qaeda in Bosnia Herzegovina, travelled from Bosnia to Pakistan under the guise of being a Tablighi while Saudi national Abdul Bukhary who was on the watch list of numerous countries had managed to get himself into the Tablighi markaz in Nizamuddin, Delhi, while claiming to be a Tablighi too,"

For more on the Tablighi Jama'at, see:

Masud, Muhammad Khalid, editor.  Travellers in Faith: Studies of the Tablighi Jama'at as a Transnational Movement for Faith Renewal. Brill, 2000.

Sikand, Yoginder. Origins and Development of the Tablighi Jama'at (1920-2000): A Cross-Country Comparative Study. Sangam Books, 2002.

Farish Noor. Islam on the Move,  2012.