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...long as a year, functioning in small groups (jamaat) to proselytize among fellow Muslims. The TJ thrives in secular countries such as Thailand, where Muslims find themselves in a minority situation, but despite a few ethnographic studies on the subject, little is known about the interaction of TJ missionaries with ordinary villagers in Southern Thailand or Southeast Asia. The focus of this essay is on the relationship between the monotheistic religion of Islam and Thai culture, and by extension, on the absorption of TJ ideas and values into a rural Southeast Asian society. Special attention is paid to the negotiation of Islamic ritual in what is already a traditional Muslim society. By concentrating its activities on standardized ritual rather than educational text, the TJ redirects the priorities of ordinary Muslims towards Islamic piety and the religious sphere, and away from Malay spiritual and ancestor worship. A comparison is made between the massive influence of the TJ in peaceful Thai-speaking Nakhon Sri Thammarat on the east coast of Southern Thailand between the Gulf of Thailand and the Tenasserim mountain range, and in the Malay-speaking Mayo district in the restless Patani province. In both cases, Muslim villages exist as neighbours to Thai Buddhist villages. While Thai Muslims in Nakhon Sri Thammarat are a small minority, Malay Muslims form the overwhelming majority in Mayo. Mayo is characterized by high incidents of violence as well as a massive presence of the Thai military since the escalation of conflict in 2004. Because of the TJ's non-political stance and heavy focus on religious piety, the Thai government tends to turn a blind eye on its activities.
In Nakhon Sri Thammarat, a trading port with contacts to India, Sri Lanka, China, Cambodia, and the Malay world, world religions found followers through the ages, beginning with Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, then Islam, and Theravada Buddhism. Thus, Islam and Theravada Buddhism have coexisted in Nakhon Sri Thammarat at least since the Ayutthaya period.
In contemporary Southeast Asia, the TJ actively visits Muslim communities often, establishing a markaz in every province and gradually gaining influence in mosques and local Muslim publics. Despite being on the periphery of the Islamic world, Tha Sala in Nakhon Si Thammarat province has become a showcase of TJ success. In 2003, a Thai Haji of South Asian origin managed to coordinate the visit of numerous jamaat from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, to achieve an enormous meeting in the fields of Tha Sala, where a hundred thousand people from South and Southeast Asia congregated. The wide fields at Wat (temple) Nod where the meeting took place characterized how the TJ has been gaining popularity. It does not require any special infrastructure for its meetings, and any place in the Islamic world can become a new TJ enclave.
Communal leaders in Mayo have equally embraced the TJ, wearing TJ attire daily and travelling on Fridays to the big markaz in Yala.
These two districts show the massive presence that the TJ has established in a short time, beginning in the 1980s. While studying the ritual integration and disintegration of Islam and Islamic grassroots movements in Southern Thailand, I had the privilege of staying in Tha Sala and in Mayo where the TJ was already well established, but where at the same time fierce contestation was taking place on the issue of religious authority. The TJ's ideology seems to polarize the villagers, who either ardently commit themselves to the movement, or are opposed to it, and sometimes violently. In both the provinces, selected villagers have risen to leadership positions; one local intellectual from Tha Sala became a Maulana who divides his time between the local markaz, the huge markaz in Yala, and travels to China and Cambodia, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, France and the United States. This man was educated by the TJ in Pakistan and was able to cross the language and culture gap between the Indian Muslims and the Thai Muslims. Urdu, not Arabic, is widely used by TJ members around the world.
In both Tha Sala and Mayo, I worked with two well respected local male Muslim respondents, one Thai-speaking and the other Malay-speaking. My respondent in Tha Sala was a member of the TJ, who helped me for what he thought to be the sake of religion.
My second respondent was a very charismatic Malay leader who used to travel with the TJ, but stopped after becoming disillusioned with the movement. At one point in time, travelling with TJ members was commonly done by many, although some conservative religious leaders did resist the invitation, and many of these have remained strong TJ opponents.
The TJ has had great success in transcending numerous spatio-temporal levels in the actual Islamic world and redefining the nature of religion itself by tying discourses, practices, and identity to emergent transnationalism. Although keen on preserving the nostalgia of an original and authentic umat, the TJ paradoxically represents the force of modernity and rationalization. The successful mobilization of thousands of local Muslims shows that the TJ is an attractive alternative to local Islamic leadership. The high fluctuation in TJ membership also makes it possible for anyone to adorn the movement's typical outfit and present himself as a pious person. On Fridays, a sea of persons in white garments and wearing Islamic headwear and long beards is a common sight, walking or travelling on pick-ups towards the nearest markaz. Membership also provides access to a vast global network.
However, TJ members are frowned upon for leaving their mothers and children behind and for their escapist attitude. Also, traditional Imams consider TJ members to be ignorant of traditional knowledge and to be negligent of their ancestors.
On this point, recent discussions about the political character of the TJ are illuminative. (2) Although the TJ does not allow involvement in politics because its leaders realize that it can endanger the movement's expansion, the impact on the everyday life of villagers is nevertheless profound. Interestingly, TJ ideology loosely corresponds to a fundamental idea in Southern Thai culture, namely the idea of merit making (cf. Tambiah 1970). Both Muslims and Buddhists in Thailand believe that a person is obliged to accumulate as much merit as possible to ensure a place in heaven, and the best opportunity to do that is to sponsor a religious ritual. The TJ also distributes points for missionary tours, for prayers and for reading the text of TJ scholars aloud. The more points one accumulates, the more one can make up for past sins. The movement also attaches little value to this life and concentrates fully on preparing for eternal life.
The TJ is fundamentalist in its rejection of traditional values and ideas, and seeks to eradicate institutions such as traditional healing, spirit beliefs, and Hindu-Buddhist heritage. The markaz is a combination of mosque, school and market, and is the centre of Tabligh activity. Every Friday, the leadership calls local Muslims to the markaz to engage in common prayers...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
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