Islam on the Move: The Tablighi Jama'at in Southeast Asia

Farish A. Noor

Paperback, 255 pages

9789089644398

This exhaustive examination of the rise and spread of the Tablighi Jama’t, arguably the world’s largest Islamic missionary movement, locates it in the larger perspective of global Islam and developments in the Muslim societies. Combining an overview of the history and current socio-political perception of the Tablighi Jama'at with a more analytical and philosophical approach to fundamental questions of identity, subject-positioning and representation, the author creates a comprehensive resource of interest to all scholars and students of Islam. Drawing on exhaustive research and records of conversion narratives of the new members of Tablighi Jama’at, cited here at length, the author creates a unique perspective on this complex phenomenon from both an internal and external viewpoints. The author locates the spiritual framework of the movement in the context of its perception in the eyes of the political and religious authorities of the countries where it has a following, as well as the Western ‘securocrat’ approach.

 Contents

Introduction: Brother Bismillah and My Introduction to the Tablighi Jama’at

1. At Home Across the Sea: The Arrival of the Tablighi Jama’at and Its Spread Across Southeast Asia

2. Learning to Be: The Foundational Literature of the Tablighi Jama’at and Its Role in Defining the Movement 

3. Learning on the March: The Portable, Reader-friendly Literature of the Tablighi Jama’at and its Role in the Self-identification and Reproduction of the Movement

4. The Stories We Tell: The Conversion Narratives of the Tablighi Jama’at and the Internalisation of the Tablighi Identity

5. Learning to be Tablighi: The Rule-Governed World of the Tablighi and the Disciplining of the Self

6. How We Look and What We Are: The Tablighi Jama’at Framed in the Eyes of Others

7. Finally, a Summing Up: The Tablighi Jama’at as the Complex Thing That It Is