Seeking sanctuary in ‘the age of disorder’: women in contemporary Tablighi Jamā‘at

Abstract

This article addresses the novel phenomenon of the attachment of women from privileged backgrounds to the Tablighi Jamā'at movement in Indonesia. How to understand the involvement of these urban wealthy women who eventually give up their high-class lifestyles for the sake of their new understanding of Islam? The common stereotype of Tablighi Jamā'at women is that they are oppressed, cannot exercise agency, and do not contribute to the development of the movement. However, based on an ethnographic study of middle and upper-class Tablighi Jamā'at women, I found that their passion to return to the true path of Islam and the commitments it embodies have made them aware of their capacity to exercise agency within the movement's structuring conditions. The women's privileged social background has enabled them to embrace the meaning of being active in a religious group. The most notable contribution of these women is their effort in undertaking recruitment and sustaining this religious network of shared meaning with their colleagues. Within these activities they are social agents, not just tools of the movement's men.

Structures of Organisation and Loci of Authority in a Glocal Islamic Movement: The Tablighi Jama’at in Britain

“…4 While this development is yet to be captured in the academic literature, it has been widely reported in South Asian media and the subject of much animated discussion within Muslim communities (see, for instance, Iqbal (2018) or Ghazali (2018)). segregation that govern the movement (Amrullah 2011). Taken together, my fieldnotes and interview transcripts produced a dataset in excess of 800,000 words which I meticulously checked and thematically coded using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo.…”

Marriage and Divorce for the Sake of Religion: The Marital Life of Cadari in Indonesia 1

“…Following Darul Arqam, Indonesian women of Tablighi Jamā'at, an Islamic transnational reform movement founded in the 1920s and officially established in 1927 in Delhi ( Janson, 2010;Amrullah, 2011), started to wear the cadar in early 1987. 7 The Tablighi Jamā'at came to Indonesia in 1952 (Aziz, 2004;Razak, 2008;Amrullah, 2011). Since the 2000s onwards, wearing the cadar has been popularised by women from other revivalist movement like Salafi movement.…”

“…Many of the staunch supporters of wearing the cadar and members of these purist groups are university students studying science-based degrees at well-known non-Islamic state universities; however, these movements are not popular in Islamic state universities (Nisa, 2012a(Nisa, , 2012b. Brenner and Smith-Hefner noted that 'new veiling' or wearing the jilbab (tight veil) was still a new trend in Indonesia in the late 1970s (Brenner, 1996:692;Smith-Hefner, 2007:389); this practice has become widespread and normalised now (see C. Jones, 2007;Amrullah, 2008). However, wearing the cadar is still a new and growing phenomenon.…”

“…It is extremely difficult for the ardent followers of the Tablighi to maintain their religious practice without the support of women who understand and accept the Tablighi doctrines. Female Tablighi are also required to perform da'wa actively with their maḥ ram (see Amrullah, 2011). This means that the devoted female Tablighi must find a husband who can also accept the Tablighi teaching.…”

“…For the discussion of the doctrines of the Tablighi Jamā'at, seeHaq (1972),Masud (2000),Metcalf (1998), Amrullah (2011.27 However, there is no strict niṣ āb for women. If they want to perform khurūj (mastura khurūj) then it is recommended to follow these divisions: three days in a month, 15 days in a year, and 40 days in their lifetime (in Indonesia), and two months in their lifetime to IPB (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh).…”