The Tablighi Jama'at and Politics

Abstract

The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is the largest Islamic movement in the world today. Its founder, Muhammad Ilyas, believed that Muslims had strayed far from the teachings of Islam. Hence, he stressed that Muslims should go back to their faith, which alone, he argued, would move God to grant them 'success' in this world and in the hereafter. Ilyas's political views have been the subject of considerable debate. Most writers on the TJ tend to see it as 'apolitical', taking its aloofness from involvement in party politics as proof of this. TJ activists also insist that they have nothing to do with politics. While some scholars have questioned their claim to being apolitical, no detailed analysis of what Masud calls the TJ's 'political vision' has as yet been undertaken.