Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealthy Legions

by Alex Alexiev, Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2005)

Every fall, over a million almost identically dressed, bearded Muslim men from around the world descend on the small Pakistani town of Raiwind for a three-day celebration of faith. Similar gatherings take place annually outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Bhopal, India. These pilgrims are no ordinary Muslims, though; they belong to a movement called Tablighi Jamaat ("Proselytizing Group"). They are trained missionaries who have dedicated much of their lives to spreading Islam across the globe. The largest group of religious proselytizers of any faith, they are part of the reason for the explosive growth of Islamic religious fervor and conversion.

Despite its size, worldwide presence, and tremendous importance, Tablighi Jamaat remains largely unknown outside the Muslim community, even to many scholars of Islam. This is no coincidence. Tablighi Jamaat officials work to remain outside of both media and governmental notice. Tablighi Jamaat neither has formal organizational structure nor does it publish details about the scope of its activities, its membership, or its finances. By eschewing open discussion of politics and portraying itself only as a pietistic movement, Tablighi Jamaat works to project a non-threatening image. Because of the movement's secrecy, scholars often have no choice but to rely on explanations from Tablighi Jamaat acolytes.

As a result, academics tend to describe the group as an apolitical devotional movement stressing individual faith, introspection, and spiritual development. The austere and egalitarian lifestyle of Tablighi missionaries and their principled stands against social ills leads many outside observers to assume that the group has a positive influence on society. Graham Fuller, a former CIA official and expert on Islam, for example, characterized Tablighi Jamaat as a "peaceful and apolitical preaching-to-the-people movement." Barbara Metcalf, a University of California scholar of South Asian Islam, called Tablighi Jamaat "an apolitical, quietist movement of internal grassroots missionary renewal" and compares its activities to the efforts to reshape individual lives by Alcoholics Anonymous. Olivier Roy, a prominent authority on Islam at Paris's prestigious Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, described Tablighi Jamaat as "completely apolitical and law abiding." Governments normally intolerant of independent movements often make an exception for Tablighi Jamaat. The Bangladeshi prime minister and top political leadership, many of whom are Islamists, regularly attend their rallies, and Pakistani military officers, many of whom are sympathetic to militant Islam, even allow Tablighi missionaries to preach in the barracks.

Yet, the Pakistani experience strips the patina from Tablighi Jamaat's façade. Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif (1990-93; 1997-99), whose father was a prominent Tablighi member and financier, helped Tablighi members take prominent positions. For example, in 1998, Muhammad Rafique Tarar took the ceremonial presidency while, in 1990, Javed Nasir assumed the powerful director-generalship of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's chief intelligence agency. When Benazir Bhutto, less sympathetic to Islamist causes, returned to the premiership in 1993, Tablighis conspired to overthrow her government. In 1995, the Pakistani army thwarted a coup attempt by several dozen high-ranking military officers and civilians, all of whom were members of the Tablighi Jamaat and some of whom also held membership in Harakat ul-Mujahideen, a U.S. State Department-defined terrorist organization. Some of the confusion over Tablighi Jamaat's apolitical characterization derives from the fact that the movement does not consider individual states to be legitimate. They may not become actively involved in internal politics or disputes over local issues, but, from a philosophical and transnational perspective, the Tablighi Jamaat's millenarian philosophy is very political indeed. According to the French Tablighi expert Marc Gaborieau, its ultimate objective is nothing short of a "planned conquest of the world" in the spirit of jihad. 



Origins of Tablighi Jamaat

The prominent Deobandi cleric and scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi (1885-1944) launched Tablighi Jamaat in 1927 in Mewat, India, not far from Delhi. From its inception, the extremist attitudes that characterize Deobandism permeated Tablighi philosophy. Ilyas's followers were intolerant of other Muslims and especially Shi'ites, let alone adherents of other faiths. Indeed, part of Ilyas's impetus for founding Tablighi Jamaat was to counter the inroads being made by Hindu missionaries. They rejected modernity as antithetical to Islam, excluded women, and preached that Islam must subsume all other religions. The creed grew in importance after Pakistani military dictator Zia ul-Haq encouraged Deobandis to Islamize Pakistan.

The Tablighi Jamaat canon is bare-boned. Apart from the Qu'ran, the only literature Tablighis are required to read are the Tablighi Nisab, seven essays penned by a companion of Ilyas in the 1920s. Tablighi Jamaat is not a monolith: one subsection believes they should pursue jihad through conscience (jihad bin nafs) while a more radical wing advocates jihad through the sword (jihad bin saif). But, in practice, all Tablighis preach a creed that is hardly distinguishable from the radical Wahhabi-Salafi jihadist ideology that so many terrorists share.

Part of the reason why the Tablighi Jamaat leadership can maintain such strict secrecy is its dynastic flavor. All Tablighi Jamaat leaders since Ilyas have been related to him by either blood or marriage. Upon Ilyas' 1944 death, his son, Maulana Muhammad Yusuf (1917-65), assumed leadership of the movement, dramatically expanding its reach and influence. Following the partition of India, Tablighi Jamaat spread rapidly in the new Muslim nation of Pakistan. Yusuf and his successor, Inamul Hassan (1965-95), transformed Tablighi Jamaat into a truly transnational movement with a renewed emphasis targeting conversion of non-Muslims, a mission the movement continues to the present day.

While few details are known about the group's structure, at the top sits the emir who, according to some observers, presides over a shura (council), which plays an advisory role. Further down are individual country organizations. By the late 1960s, Tablighi Jamaat had not only established itself in Western Europe and North America but even claimed adherents in countries like Japan, which has no significant Muslim population.

The movement's rapid penetration into non-Muslim regions began in the 1970s and coincides with the establishment of a synergistic relationship between Saudi Wahhabis and South Asian Deobandis. While Wahhabis are dismissive of other Islamic schools, they single out Tablighi Jamaat for praise, even if they disagree with some of its practices, such as willingness to pray in mosques housing graves. The late Sheikh ‘Abd al ‘Aziz ibn Baz, perhaps the most influential Wahhabi cleric in the late twentieth century, recognized the Tablighis good work and encouraged his Wahhabi brethren to go on missions with them so that they can "guide and advise them." A practical result of this cooperation has been large-scale Saudi financing of Tablighi Jamaat. While Tablighi Jamaat in theory requires its missionaries to cover their own expenses during their trips, in practice, Saudi money subsidizes transportation costs for thousands of poor missionaries. While Tablighi Jamaat's financial activities are shrouded in secrecy, there is no doubt that some of the vast sums spent by Saudi organizations such as the World Muslim League on proselytism benefit Tablighi Jamaat. As early as 1978, the World Muslim League subsidized the building of the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, England, which has since become the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat in all of Europe. Wahhabi sources have paid Tablighi missionaries in Africa salaries higher than the European Union pays teachers in Zanzibar. In both Western Europe and the United States, Tablighis operate interchangeably out of Deobandi and Wahhabi controlled mosques and Islamic centers.

The West's misreading of Tablighi Jamaat actions and motives has serious implications for the war on terrorism. Tablighi Jamaat has always adopted an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, but in the past two decades, it has radicalized to the point where it is now a driving force of Islamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for terrorist causes worldwide. For a majority of young Muslim extremists, joining Tablighi Jamaat is the first step on the road to extremism. Perhaps 80 percent of the Islamist extremists in France come from Tablighi ranks, prompting French intelligence officers to call Tablighi Jamaat the "antechamber of fundamentalism." U.S. counterterrorism officials are increasingly adopting the same attitude. "We have a significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States," the deputy chief of the FBI's international terrorism section said in 2003, "and we have found that Al-Qaeda used them for recruiting now and in the past."

Recruitment methods for young jihadists are almost identical. After joining Tablighi Jamaat groups at a local mosque or Islamic center and doing a few local dawa (proselytism) missions, Tablighi officials invite star recruits to the Tablighi center in Raiwind, Pakistan, for four months of additional missionary training. Representatives of terrorist organizations approach the students at the Raiwind center and invite them to undertake military training. Most agree to do so.

Tablighi Jamaat has long been directly involved in the sponsorship of terrorist groups. Pakistani and Indian observers believe, for instance, that Tablighi Jamaat was instrumental in founding Harakat ul-Mujahideen. Founded at Raiwind in 1980, almost all of the Harakat ul-Mujahideen's original members were Tablighis. Famous for the December 1998 hijacking of an Air India passenger jet and the May 8, 2002 murder of a busload of French engineers in Karachi, Harakat members make no secret of their ties. "The two organizations together make up a truly international network of genuine jihadi Muslims," one senior Harakat ul-Mujahideen official said. More than 6,000 Tablighis have trained in Harakat ul-Mujahideen camps. Many fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and readily joined Al-Qaeda after the Taliban defeated Afghanistan's anti-Soviet mujahideen.

Another violent Tablighi Jamaat spin-off is the Harakat ul-Jihad-i Islami. Founded in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, this group has been active not only in the disputed Indian provinces of Jammu and Kashmir but also in the state of Gujarat, where Tablighi Jamaat extremists have taken over perhaps 80 percent of the mosques previously run by the moderate Barelvi Muslims. The Tablighi movement is also very active in northern Africa where it became one of the four groups that founded the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria. Moroccan authorities are currently prosecuting sixty members of the Moroccan Tablighi offshoot Dawa wa Tabligh in connection with the May 16, 2003 terrorist attack on a Casablanca synagogue. Dutch police are investigating links between the Moroccan cells and the November 2, 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

There are many other cases of individual Tablighis committing acts of terrorism. French Tablighi members, for example, have helped organize and execute attacks not only in Paris but also at the Hotel Asni in Marrakech in 1994. Kazakh authorities expelled a number of Tablighi missionaries because they had been organizing networks advancing "extremist propaganda and recruitment."Indian investigators suspect influential Tablighi leader, Maulana Umarji, and a group of his followers in the February 27, 2002 fire bombing of a train carrying Hindu nationalists in Gujarat, India. The incident sparked a wave of pogroms victimizing both Muslims and Hindus. More recently, 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 that claimed more than forty lives.

Tablighi Jamaat has also facilitated other terrorists' missions. The group has provided logistical support and helped procure travel documents. Many take advantage of Tablighi Jamaat's benign reputation. Moroccan authorities say that leaflets circulated by the terrorist group Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah urged their members to join Islamic organizations that operate openly, such as Tablighi Jamaat, in order "to hide their identity on the one hand and influence these groups and their policies on the other." In a similar vein, a Pakistani jihadi website commented that Tablighi Jamaat organizational structures can be easily adopted to jihad activities. The Philippine government has accused Tablighi Jamaat, which has an 11,000-member presence in the country, of serving both as a conduit of Saudi money to the Islamic terrorists in the south and as a cover for Pakistani jihad volunteers.

There is also evidence that Tablighi Jamaat directly recruits for terrorist organizations. As early as the 1980s, the movement sponsored military training for 900 recruits annually in Pakistan and Algeria while, in 1999, Uzbek authorities accused Tablighi Jamaat of sending 400 Uzbeks to terrorist training camps. The West is not immune. British counterterrorism authorities estimate that at least 2,000 British nationals had gone to Pakistan for jihad training by 1998, and the French secret services report that between 80 and 100 French nationals fought for Al-Qaeda.

A Trojan Horse for Terror in America?

Within the United States, the cases of American Taliban John Lindh, the "Lackawanna Six," and the Oregon cell that conspired to bomb a synagogue and sought to link up with Al-Qaeda, all involve Tablighi missionaries. Other indicted terrorists, such as "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, and Lyman Harris, who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, were all members of Tablighi Jamaat at one time or another. According to Robert Blitzer, head of the FBI's first Islamic counterterrorism unit, between 1,000 and 2,000 Americans left to join the jihad in the 1990s alone. Pakistani intelligence sources report that 400 American Tablighi recruits received training in Pakistani or Afghan terrorist camps since 1989.

The Tablighi Jamaat has made inroads among two very different segments of the American Muslim population. Because many American Muslims are immigrants, and a large subsection of these are from South Asia, Deobandi influences have been able to penetrate deeply. Many Tablighi Jamaat missionaries speak Urdu as a first language and so can communicate easily with American Muslims of South Asian origin. The Tablighi headquarters in the United States for the past decade appears to be in the Al-Falah mosque in Queens, New York. Its missionaries—predominantly from South Asia—regularly visit Sunni mosques and Islamic centers across the country. The willingness of Saudi-controlled front organizations and charities, such as the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), the Haramain Foundation, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and others, to spend large amounts of money to co-opt the religious establishment has helped catalyze recruitment. As a result Wahhabi and Deobandi influence dominate American Islam.

This trend is apparent in the activities of Tanzeem-e Islami. Founded by long-term Tablighi member and passionate Taliban supporter, Israr Ahmed, Tanzeem-e Islami flooded American Muslim organizations with communications accusing Israel of complicity in the 9/11 terror attacks. A frequent featured speaker at Islamic conferences and events in the United States, Ahmed engages in incendiary rhetoric urging his audiences to prepare for "the final showdown between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which has been captured by the Jews." Unfortunately, his conspiracy theories have begun to take hold among growing segments of the American Muslim community. For example, Siraj Wahhaj, among the best known African-American Muslim converts and the first Muslim cleric to lead prayers in the U.S. Congress, is also on record accusing the FBI and the CIA of being the "real terrorists." He has expressed his support for the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and advocating the demise of American democracy.

Tablighi Jamaat has appealed to African American Muslims for other reasons. Founded by Elijah Mohammed in the early 1930s, the Nation of Islam was essentially a charismatic African American separatist organization which had little to do with normative Islam. Many Nation of Islam members found attractive both the Tablighi Jamaat's anti-state separatist message and its description of American society as racist, decadent, and oppressive. Seeing such fertile ground, Tablighi and Wahhabi missionaries targeted the African American community with great success. One Tablighi sympathizer explained,

Not only foreign Tablighis but also the movement's sympathizers within the United States enunciate this goal. The president of the Islamic Research Foundation in Louisville, Kentucky, a strong advocate of Tablighi missionary work, for instance, insists that "if all the Afro-American brothers and sisters become Muslims, we can change the political landscape of America" and "make U.S. foreign policy pro-Islamic and Muslim friendly."As a result of Tablighi and Wahhabi proselytizing, African Americans comprise between 30 and 40 percent of the American Muslim community, and perhaps 85 percent of all American Muslim converts. Much of this success is due to a successful proselytizing drive in the penitentiary system. Prison officials say that by the mid-1990s, between 10 and 20 percent of the nation's 1.5 million inmates identified themselves as Muslims. Some 30,000 African Americans convert to Islam in prison every year.

The American political system tolerates all views so long as they adhere to the rule of law. Unfortunately, Tablighi Jamaat missionaries may be encouraging African American recruits to break the law. Harkat ul-Mujahideen has boasted of training dozens of African American jihadists in its military camps. There is evidence that African American jihadists have died in both Afghanistan and Kashmir.

*  The TJ has been able to establish contacts and centres throughout the Muslim world. (Comment: By "Muslim world" he does not only mean Islamic countries, but all countries where there is a sizable Muslim community)

*  It has thousands of dedicated and disciplined workers who never question any order from the high-ups. What has helped the TJ to expand (without creating alarm in the security agencies) is its policy of a deliberate black-out of its activities. It does not interact with the media and does not issue any statements or communiques. It believes in human communication through word of mouth. (Comment: It does not bring out any journals or other propaganda organs to explain its policies and objectives. All explanations to its workers and potential recruits are given orally).

*  During its training classes, it claims to have frustrated the efforts of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to penetrate it and succeeded in converting the CIA agents to Islam.

*  The TJ claims that it never accepts money from anybody and that all its workers who volunteer to go on preaching mission have to spend their own money.

*  Even though the TJ claims to be apolitical and disinterested in political or administrative influence, many of its active members have come to occupy important positions. Examples are Lt.Gen. (retd) Javed Nasir, who was the DG of the ISI during Mr.Nawaz Sharif's first tenure as the Prime Minister, and Mr.Mohammad Rafique Tarar, the President of Pakistan, who has been an active worker of the TJ for many years.

*  "Those who are close to the inner circles believe that the Tablighis were the brain who bailed out Nawaz Sharif from the constitutional crisis. Tarar is believed to be the brain behind the Shariat Bill (which could not be passed by the Senate) and the concept of speedy justice through military courts (the military courts were declared unconstitutional by the Pakistan Supreme Court). However, the contacts of the Tablighis had always been with Mr.Mohammad Sharif (father of Mr.Nawaz Sharif) and not with the son. Mr. Nawaz is well aware of the "tariquah" (the path advocated by the TJ). He has been with the Tabligh for a fairly long time. He takes part in their meetings on a regular basis. He donates money to their welfare projects. As usual, the Tablighis never publicise the donors or the projects or the beneficiaries. All are committed to remain silent."

The Tablighi Jamaat, a conservative Islamic missionary group founded in India 75 years ago, has come under the scrutiny of US investigators, a media report said on Monday.

"We have a significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States, and we have found that Al Qaeda used them for recruiting, now and in the past," Michael J Heimbach, the deputy chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's international terrorism section, was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

The Tablighi Jamaat, which describes itself as a non-political, non-violent group interested only in 'proselytising and bringing wayward Muslims back to Islam', attracted US investigators' interest following the September 11, 2001, attacks. Another senior law enforcement official described the group as 'a natural entree, a way of gathering people together with a common interest in Islam'.

"Then extremists use that as an assessment tool to evaluate individuals with particular zealousness and interest in going beyond what's offered," he said.

According to officials, the group has been 'caught up' in terrorist cases because of its global reach and reputation for rejecting such worldly activities as politics, precisely the qualities that are exploited by terror groups like Al Qaeda. The leaders of the Tablighi Jamaat said the scrutiny is 'unwanted and grossly unfair' as their beliefs are against everything espoused by Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda. "It is a very great accusation, a total lie," said Abdul Rahman Khan, a leader of the group's North American council.

Khan, involved with the group for 36 years, said the Tablighi Jamaat's refusal to discuss politics means that people with 'militant views' quickly move on. "If someone starts even one word, we cut him off. So he's going to go somewhere where he can get an audience.

"We don't prevent anyone from coming, but obviously we don't know the nature of the individual who is coming and we don't check. There's no way we can."

Neither the group nor its activists have been accused of committing any crime or of supporting terrorism. Still, the authorities remain alert to what they see as the organisation's 'susceptibility to infiltration and manipulation', the report said.

Tablighi Jamaat in Arabic means a 'group that propagates the Faith', and its members visit mosques and college campuses in small bands, preaching a return to purist Islamic values.

According to the report, the Tablighi Jamaat, is less a formal organisation than a network of part-time preachers. It now has bases and schools in Pakistan, Britain and Canada and its annual gatherings in India and Pakistan draw thousands of people.

UK: Giant Mosque Planned By Extremists For London Olympics Site

The Sunday Times reports that a proposal has been put forward to erect a giant mosque next to the Olympic site, which should be open in time for the London Olympics of 2012.

The mosque has been suggested by Tablighi Jamaat ("proselytising group") an international Islamic missionary group. The mosque is intended by this group to house 40,000 people, with room for another 30,000 in adjacent buildings. The complex is seen as the "Muslim quarter" at the upcoming games.

The proposed complex will be called the London Markaz, and will be built on the site of an existing mosque. The new mosque will have three storeys, and will echo in its design the look of tents, according to Ali Mangera, the architect currently designing the edifice.

Newham council, who are responsible for the area, have said that they are considering approving the mosque proposal, and said "The application will be finalised over the next year."

The cost of the construction is said to be more than 100 million pounds, ($180 million) and it is expected to be financed from donations sought in the UK and abroad.

According to the Middle East Quarterly, Tablighi Jamaat was founded by a Deobandi cleric and scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi (1885 - 1944), in 1927, in Mewat, India. The organisation, being Deobandi in origin, is Sunni, and its founding members were intolerant of other Muslims, and especially Shi'ites. In Pakistan, its proselytisers are currently allowed to preach in the army's barracks.

No wonder they want to erect a giant mosque and Islamic complex at the Olympic Games 2012.

And the multiculturalist appeasers in Newham council, assisted by the appeasing fools in Blair's government, will probably be jumping for joy to prove that Britain is tolerant of Islam by encouraging the construction of this proposed temple of terrorist ideology.

GORDON Brown is under pressure to block a £75million “mega mosque”, amid claims one of the suspected Glasgow Airport bombers belongs to the radical Islamic group behind it. More than 200,000 people have signed a Downing Street petition calling on the Prime Minister to tervene over plans for the mosque near the Olympics site in east London.

It is being funded by the fundamentalist Tablighi Jamaat sect. One member of the sect is said to be Kafeel Ahmed, who was engulfed in flames when a Jeep laden with gas canisters crashed into a Glasgow Airport building two weeks ago. The 27-year-old from Bangalore is fighting for his life in hospital after suffering 90 per cent burns.

He is said to have taken up the teachings of Tablighi Jamaat after he was asked to leave his local mosque which he had tried to convert to what he called a purer form of Islam.

The 7/7 suicide bombers Moham­med Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer attended the European headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat at Dews­bury, West Yorkshire. The sect’s plans for a huge mosque just a mile from the main Olympics stadium have caused much concern. Local Tory councillor Alan Craig said: “It will be a horrendous security nightmare if they are allowed to build this large mosque so close to the Olympics.

“They have a growing and ominous track record as further young men follow Tablighi teaching about Islam and then go on to plan horrendous atrocities.”
The Newham councillor accused the sect of radicalising and dehumanising young Muslims and said: “The dangerous truth about Tablighi Jamaat is coming out.

For Immediate Release

Olympics mega-mosque linked to London and Glasgow car bomb plots

Arrested suspects radicalised by mosque promoters Tablighi Jamaat -"Government must ban construction of mega-mosque" says Cllr Alan Craig. Newham councillor Alan Craig today called on the government to formally ban the construction of a massive mosque on a site less than a mile from the main 2012 Olympic stadium at Stratford, east London.

Reports that Tablighi Jamaat – the fundamentalist Islamic sect who propose to build the mosque as their international headquarters – are directly responsible for radicalising two of the London and Glasgow car bomb suspects has added to suspicions that the sect are not the peaceable group they claim to be.

"The dangerous truth about Tablighi Jamaat is coming out. We must watch the gap between what they say and what they do," said Cllr Craig, leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance group on Newham Council, who lives with his young family a mile from the mosque site. "It will be a horrendous security nightmare if they are allowed to build this large mosque so close to the Olympics."

In the last few days friends and neighbours of Kafeel and Saheel Ahmed in Bangalore, India, have told how the brothers changed dramatically a few years ago when they joined Tablighi Jamaat. They were reportedly barred from the local mosque because they insisted on praying in the prescribed Tablighi manner. Kafeel is now in a critical condition in Glasgow Royal Infirmary with 92% burns following the failed attempt to blow up a flaming Jeep at Glasgow Airport last Saturday. Saheel remains under arrest in Paddington Green police station.

Furthermore it is also significant that a number of suspects arrested in connection with last August’s Atlantic airline terror plot too were followers of Tablighi Jammat. Friends and families of Assad Sarwar and Waheed Zuman have spoken publicly about how Tablighi Jamaat changed the two men and radicalised their religious commitment prior to their alleged involvement in the planned atrocity.

7/7 suicide bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer are reckoned to have attended Tablighi Jamaat’s European headquarters mosque in Dewsbury, west Yorkshire, where Tanweer also attended Tabligh’s madrassa or Islamic school. And Richard "Shoe bomber" Reid worshipped at a Tablighi mosque.

"Tablighi Jamaat radicalises and dehumanises Muslim young men," said Alan Craig. "They have a growing and ominous track record as further young men follow Tabligh teaching about Islam and then go on to plan horrendous atrocities."

Cllr Craig also demonstrated the radicalising effect of Tablighi Jamaat by pointing to a Muslim publication that highlights the dramatic impact of Tablighi teaching on individuals and families. See Islamic Research Foundation International webpage:                                                    http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_151_200/miseries_of_a_tableeghi.htm

The Observer reports that the planned mega-mosque at Newham in east London is now encountering opposition from local Muslims. Previously, Christian groups had opposed the development of the mosque.

The mosque is expected to house any amount from 30,000 to 70,000, depending on planning permission. When the plans were first unveiled last November, it was announced that the mega-mosque would be open in time for the London Olympics in 2012.

Since then, it has been revealed that the London Olympics will take place at the same time as Ramadan, and this news has upset those who are backing the mosque construction. The group which intends to construct the mosque are Tablighi Jamaat, and they are associated with global terrorism and the moves to force women to wear both the Muslim headscarf (hijab) and the face-veil (niqab).

Tablighi Jamaat every year sponsors hundreds of British Muslims to travel to Pakistan, where they attend extremist madrassas.

The group's name means "missionary group", and their headquarters is the Markazi mosque in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. This mosque, based in Savile Town, was funded by Saudi money, and is the largest purpose-built mosque in Europe. It was opened in 1980. Adjoining the Markazi is a school, the Jaamia Talimul Islam, which is also run by Tablighi Jamaat. Here 300 students from around the world take a seven-year course in Arabic, and are indoctrinated into Tablighi's narrow and orthodox version of Islam.

A measure of how socially unhealthy both the TablighiJamaat and its Dewsbury Markaz are can be seen by the people who frequented the Savile Town mosque. Among its congregation of 5,000 mostly Pakistani Muslims, two are no longer with us. Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammed SIdique Khan took the extreme ideology of Islam to its logical conclusion, and last year they blew themselves up on London Underground trains. Tanweer killed 17 people near Aldgate, and Khan murdered 6 on a train near Edgware Road station. With their two co-religionists, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain, Tanweer and Khan managed to kill 52 people and injure hundreds on July 7, 2005.

The Daily Mail revealed last month that Aishah Azmi, the trouble-making teacher who worked at Headfield Church of England Junior School in Dewsbury, also attends the Savile Town Markazi.

Azmi attended the job interview while not wearing a veil, but once employed insisted that she had a "right" to wear the niqab. Even though children had complained that they could not understand her, Azmi was more concerned with getting attention for her political "cause" than the educational needs of her subjects.

After Jack Straw, former foreign secretary, wrote on October 5 that the face-veil hindered communication, Aishah Azmi took advantage of the situation to push herself into the limelight. She was challenging the decision of the school to suspend her, and appeared on BBC TV on numerous occasions, stating that her rights to wear the veil were more fundamental. Phil Woolas, the Race and Faith Minister, her MP Shahid Malik, and even the prime minister said that Azmi should be sacked.

The Daily Mail revealed that Azmi's father Dr Mohammed Mulk had until recently headed the secondary school attached to the Tabighi Jamaat school in Savile Town, Dewsbury. This school was criticized by UK government schools inspectors as less a place of learning and more of a "madrassa". The report by Ofsted claimed that the school's "over-emphasis" on religion meant secular studies were neglected. It wrote: "Teachers showed limited understanding of pupils aptitudes, needs and prior attainments."

Azmi's father had responded to the Ofsted report by saying: "Parents send their children here for an Islamic education. They don't want their sons to take exams."

Last weekend, the Sunday Times reported that Aisha Azmi was obeying a fatwa which had been made by Mufti Yusuf Sacha, a West Yorkshire Muslim cleric. Azmi had claimed that she was following her personal beliefs, and had not been influenced by anyone.

Azmi's lawyer, Nick Whittingham, confirmed that she had consulted Sacha before starting the job at Headfield Church of England Junior School. She had asked Sacha if a woman had a choice to wear the niqab. He had said it was obligatory. Sacha is a follower of Tablighi Jamaat.

Aishah Azmi was an irritant, in more ways than one. She is not, however, associated with terrorism. But the Tablighi Jamaat, despite its claims to be "peaceful" is associated with terrorism and political activity. As well as Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammed Sidique Khan, another British terrorist attended Tablighi-run mosques. Richard Reid attended such institutions, before he decided to try blowing himself up on a Miami-bound plane using a bomb concealed in his shoe.

The recent terror plot, which was revealed on August 10, involving liquid explosives on board transatlantic planes, also involved Tablighi Jamaat. One of the suspects, 26-year old Assad Sarwar had only become radicalized after coming into contact with Tablighi Jamaat. Another suspect, Waheed Zaman, was a Tablighi Jamaat member.

Tablighi Jamaat was founded in 1927 in Mewat, India, by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi (1885 - 1944). An article in the Middle East Quarterly by Alex Alexiev states:

In France, the group is treated with mistrust. Reports by the Renseignement Generaux, the internal intelligence agency, have noted that the Tablighi is instrumental in the radicalization of Muslims in prisons, and has been doing so since 1972.

Marc Gaborieau, head of the School of Indian and South Asian Studies in Paris, states that Tablighi Jamaat's aim is "the conquest of the world". He states: "It is extremely secretive and suspicious of outsiders and no one at the centre of its activities has been fully identified or has spoken about how it operates. We know that it does not recognise national borders and that, despite its claim to be apolitical, it does have ties with politicians and branches of the military, particularly in Pakistan and Bangladesh."

In Waziristan in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, the Taliban who took control of the region announced a temporary cease-fire from May 1 to May 11 this year. This was because the Tablighi Jamaat were holding a national conference in the area. Such is the level of respect accorded to the group by terrorists.

Tablighi has been linked with extremism, but its links to terrorism are the most worrying. Jose Padilla, Lyman Harris, (who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge), and the "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh all had Tablighi connections.

Two French members of Tablighi Jamaat, states Alexiev, were among gunmen who carried out the attack upon the Atlas Asni Hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco on August 24, 1999. Two Spanish tourists were killed.

In Morocco, Ilamado Yusef Fikri was sentenced to death on July 12, 2003. He was a member of Tablighi Jamaat, but also headed a terror group called Salafia Jihadia or At-Takfir wal-Hijrah. In letters to local press, he confessed to killing two people for being "against Islam". His terror group was linked with the Casablanca bombings of May 16, 2003, which killed 45 people.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, who already supports individuals like Yusuf al-Qaradawi (spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who approves of terrorism against Israeli civilians) has openly supported the construction of the Newham mega-mosque. The London Development Agency has recently been involved in talks about the construction.

The mosque design, which also aims to be the centerpiece of an "Islamic village", is the handiwork of architect Ali Maghera, who states: "We've tried to develop a concept mosque that's inclusive. It will be not just for Muslims but for non-Muslims. In the present political climate it's important to create dialogue between different groups. This will be a radical new approach. Islamic architecture, philosophy, maths and science have been at the forefront of ideas and we're trying to go back to that idea."

"The funding will come from a variety of sources....some from the UK, some from abroad.....If Tablighi Jamaat was anything like some people say they are, they wouldn't go for a building like this: it wouldn't make sense," he claims.

Previously, the opposition to the construction of the giant Markaz has been led by Dr Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund, a Christian who had been born into a Muslim family on Guyana. He said: "I think, at the very least, we need to know much more about Tablighi Jamaat. Who runs it and what it is up to? And I think we need to ask whether we want an unequivocally 'Islamic Village' in London....and there ought to be some serious debate about it."

Last month, one Muslim member of the London Assembly criticized the Tablighi's plans to transform the brownfield site. Murad Qureshi said: "I would be concerned if the financing all came from Saudi Arabia because of the strong Wahhabist influence that comes from there. As for the planning application itself, l would like to see 50 per cent of the floor space given to women who normally don't get a look-in at mosques, let alone facilities."

Tablighi Jamaat treats women as second-class citizens. Its "religious" reasoning for women to be encouraged to wear the face-veil is not backed up by any religious texts. It stems from the belief that women are inferior. In Pakistan they tried to overthrow the government of Benazir Bhutto because she was a woman.

Today, the Observer reveals that the Christians who object to the construction of the Newham mega-mosque have been joined by local Muslims. 2,500 Muslims living in the Newham area have signed a petition, objecting to the construction of the mosque. Asif Shakor, chairman of a group calling itself Sunni Friends of Newham said of Tablighi Jamaat: "It is radicalising the younger generation. We have to make a stand."

Additionally, the mosque is now threatened by issues of planning permission. There are temporary buildings standing on the site where the mega-mosque is planned to stand, which serve as a temporary mosque. Tablighi Jamaat bought the Abbey Mill site in Newham more than a decade ago.

Last week on October 31, the planning permission for the temporary mosque at Abbey Mill expired. This was the date that Tablighi Jamaat had agreed to submit its plans for the mega-mosque for approval by local authorities. A representative of Newham Council said that Tablighi Jamaat had breached planning laws.

Hopefully, Newham Council will see sense and veto plans for the giant mosque. If 2,500 members of the local Muslim community are objecting to its construction, the council must acknowledge this. Tablighi Jamaat exists as a political group, and is not representative of many Muslims in Britain. It has too many links to extremism and terrorism to be allowed to proselytize on such a grand scale. The headquarters in Raiwind, Punjab province, would make a far more appropriate location for the giant mosque.

source

The Muslim YMCA : by Robert VerBruggen

12.01.2006

Tabligh Jamaat is far from a household name, but the reach and nature of the worldwide evangelical Muslim organization poses complex challenges to U.S. counter-terrorism officials, The Nixon Center’s Alexis Debat and the Middle East Institute’s Marvin G. Weinbaum argued Thursday.

The organization is present in more than 80 countries, and about 99.9 percent of its activities are legitimate, peaceful and apolitical, Debat said. “It’s dedicated to improving society through individual development”, said Debat, who returned from a trip to Pakistan two weeks ago. “They claim it’s not a political goal, but I’d argue that trying to change a society’s values is a political project, philosophically speaking.”

The central goal is Muslim withdrawal from Western society.

“Their main activity is sending preachers—for four days, ten days, forty days, four months—to preach their brand of Islam in another community”, Debat said. They also hold gatherings in Bangladesh and Pakistan. The group’s structure is both chaotic and organized. Members come from all ethnic and national Muslim groups, and it is easy to form a “Jamaat” unit with 10 or more people.

Yet there is a central hierarchy, with each unit led by an “emir.” The top-tier leadership has stayed in one family since the group’s founding in the mid-to-late 1920s.

Tabligh Jamaat’s activities are incredibly secretive, Weinbaum added.

However benign most of the group’s activities may be, they offer many opportunities for terrorists. “It’s a vehicle for moving money, moving people and organizing travel and recruiting”, Debat said.

While in Pakistan, Debat was able to attend a massive Muslim gathering (an “ijtima”) after a guard let him in upon learning he is French, though afterwards the expert was followed by about six different individuals, and questioned about his intentions in Pakistan by about 40 people. “It’s a series of flat fields, with 1.8 million people in tents praying, and there’s a mosque and a compound”, Debat said. “I was told that, in the compound, Al-Qaeda came to raise money from Arab sheikhs and recruit foreign Muslims.”

Dozens of shops sold nothing but Osama bin Laden posters.

Much of the problem lies in the fact that leaders cannot attack Tabligh Jamaat. Weinbaum said that would be akin to “cracking down on the YMCA” in Muslims’ eyes. In addition, terrorists can pose as Tabligh Jamaat evangelists to access other countries. “It’s been hijacked by elements that realize the opportunity it presents”, Weinbaum said. “It’s not unlike the mosque or the madrassa—this is fertile ground, where terrorists can create a mindset among people who are susceptible. They can send the message that if you really want to act on your faith, there are places you can go.”

As with mosques and madrassas, though, Weinbaum cautioned against assuming the organization causes terrorism in itself.

“If a terrorist has ties to Tabligh Jamaat, that doesn’t mean that’s where he learned his trade”, he said. “It just shows it’s becoming universal, a rite of passage for everyone.”

Dealing with the organization’s terrorism connections could prove difficult for U.S. officials.

“The question is how to root out the 0.1 percent that are terrorists without antagonizing the rest of the community”, Debat said. “It can let terrorists paint the issue as the West versus Islam, and that serves their purposes.” Weinbaum said political change in Pakistan is a prerequisite to addressing the threat. “Pervez Musharraf could put more pressure on them, by bringing up how they’ve been abused by the terrorist element”, he said. “Essentially, we want to keep them from being hijacked.”

SOURCE
Robert VerBruggen is an apprentice editor at The National Interest. His e-mail is rverbruggen@nationalinterest.org

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Tabligh Jamaat is far from a household name, but the reach and nature of the worldwide evangelical Muslim organization poses complex challenges to U.S. counter-terrorism officials, The Nixon Center’s Alexis Debat and the Middle East Institute’s Marvin G. Weinbaum argued Thursday.

The organization is present in more than 80 countries, and about 99.9 percent of its activities are legitimate, peaceful and apolitical, Debat said. “It’s dedicated to improving society through individual development”, said Debat, who returned from a trip to Pakistan two weeks ago. “They claim it’s not a