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CROSSROADS ASIA

Conflict · · Development

The localisation of the transnational Tablighi Jama’at

in Kyrgyzstan: structures, concepts, practices

and metaphors

17

I S S N 2 1 9 2 - 6 0 3 4 Bonn, March 2014

i

Crossroads Asia Working Papers

Competence Network Crossroads Asia: Conflict – Migration – Development

Editors: Ingeborg Baldauf, Stephan Conermann, Anna-Katharina Hornidge, Hermann Kreutzmann,

Shahnaz Nadjmabadi, Dietrich Reetz, Conrad Schetter and Martin Sökefeld.

How to cite this paper: Toktogulova, Mukaram (2014): The localisation of the transnational Tablighi

Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan: structures, concepts, practices and metaphors. In: Crossroads Asia Working

Paper Series, No. 17.

Partners of the Network:

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ii

The localisation of the transnational Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan:

structures, concepts, practices and metaphors

Mukaram Toktogulova

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ iii

Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. iv

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Brief history of the Tablighi Jama’at and its universal principles ................................................... 4

3. The localisation of the transnational Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan ............................................. 5

“Our grandfathers never wore T-shirts”: appearance and clothing style of the dawatchys .......... 5

Introducing Tablighi Concepts: linguistic and socio-cultural adaptation ........................................ 9

“A woman is like a madrasa in the house”: learning a new role for Tablighi women

in Kyrgyzstan ................................................................................................................................ 11

“‘Tablighi Jama’at’ is an incorrect name”: stressing universal revivalist goals ............................. 15

4. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 17

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 19

Information on the competence network Crossroads Asia .................................................................. 21

iii

Acknowledgements

This research project would not have been possible without the support and active interest of many

people. First I would like to acknowledge the generosity of the Crossroads Asia Network, financed by

the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), which made possible my research at ZMO,

in Berlin, between June and August, 2013. During that period, I was able to use the library, meet

researchers, visit other institutions, present my research and participate in the “Mobilizing Religion”

conference organised by Crossroads Asia during July 2013 in Bonn. I am grateful to the Central Asia

Research Institute (CASI) at the American University of Central Asia who supported my fieldwork

among the Tablighi Jama’at1 in Kyrgyzstan and India in 2012.

I would particularly like to thank Dr. Dietrich Reetz for his generous support and deep interest in my

work. Working with him was a true learning experience. I am grateful as well to Dr. Antia Mato Bouzas,

Aksana Ismailbekova, Iris Schultz, Beutel Saboura and Christian Kübler for reading and commenting

on the draft and for their generous support and cooperation in both academic and everyday matters.

1 Islamic missionary movement, lit. preaching movement (Urdu)

iv

Abstract

The transnational Tablighi Jama’at (TJ), which emerged and expanded outward from India and

Pakistan in the early and mid-twentieth century, started to extend its missionary activities into Central

Asia in the course of the 1990s. Its aim was to revive religious practice amongst post-Soviet Muslims

by travelling and spreading its message through lay missionary groups which pursued a dawat

(preaching) programme, the local term for da’wa, namely an invitation to prayer. The TJ focused on

an ‘internal mission’, striving to bring Muslims back to their own faith by reconnecting them with

Islamic rituals, practices and beliefs. Although, with the exception of Kyrgyzstan, the Tablighi Jama’at

is currently banned in four Central Asian countries and Russia, the movement has gradually increased

its impact throughout the Central Asian region and has contributed significantly to the emergence of

‘alternate globalities’ (Reetz 2010b).

The paper discusses the modes, concepts and consequences of the localisation of the transnational

Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan, where it is shaped by socio-cultural and political conditions in response

to local needs. Furthermore, it explores Islamic ideas, sources and images, all of which are promoted

through the Tablighi Jama’at network in Kyrgyzstan and beyond. Based on local field research, the

paper focuses mainly on two groups, namely male Tablighi preachers, dawatchys,2 and their female

Tablighi companions, masturat,3 by analysing their practices, stories, narratives and metaphors and

discussing how Islamic and traditional cultural practices are being recovered and reconsidered in a

new way.

2 Kyrgyz: local term for someone who is engaged in the Tablighi practice. 3 Ar.: pure, protected and covered. In Kyrgyzstan, dawatchys use masturat (pl.) to refer to female Tablighi activists. During the interview, many dawatchys referred to their wives as “my masturat.”

1

1. Introduction

I was travelling in a car with five Tablighi activists in July, 2012. I was driving from Karakol, a small town

in the Issyk Kul region of Kyrgyzstan, to Talap village. In the car, there were two young Kyrgyz men,

two young women and a 5-year old girl, who sat beside me. The two women sitting on the back seats

were dressed in a way which would be deemed uncommon according to local custom – they were

clothed in long black dresses and wore a hijab head cover as well as a black cloth to cover their face4.

The girl was wearing a white dress and a white hijab, which covered her head and neck. One of the

women in the car was Fatima,5 whom I had met the day before in Karakol, where I had come to carry

out fieldwork on the Tablighi Jama’at. During our car journey, and to my surprise, Fatima completely

ignored my attempts to communicate with her, turning her face away from me and looking straight

ahead. Both women looked straight ahead, in fact, maintaining a silence that was broken only rarely

by the girl. Sometimes she would pose a question to her mother, upon which the other woman would

whisper the answer into the girl’s ear so that the female voices could not be heard in the car.

The two men were also dressed in an unusual way for Kyrgyzstan. First, there was Abdullah, a 32-year-

old Kyrgyz man, who drove the car and wore long grey Pakistani-style wide-cut trousers and a shirt,

accompanied by a skullcap on his head. Another man, Suleiman, 26, was dressed the same way but in

white. Both of them were sporting long beards. Suleiman was listening to a recording of a religious

talk (bayan) on his mobile, in which the speaker talked about how the Prophet suffered in the struggle

for faith. I all listened to that talk, and every time when the Prophet’s name was mentioned, everyone

except me and the small girl would repeat the prayer (kalima): “Peace be upon him” (Salla Allohu

‘alayhi wa sallam).

Families like these are known in Kyrgyzstan as dawatchy, or missionaries, derived in local parlance

from dawat, which means ‘mission’. They were on their way to one of the villages in the Jeti Oguz

province of Issyl Kul to welcome a group of Dungan dawatchys from another town, Tokmok, who were

conducting a family preaching tour, called Tablighis masturat dawat6. For them this was a specific form

of Tablighi activism – a welcome tour – which they called zeyārat in analogy to visits to pious pilgrimage

sites. I was invited to join the Tablighi journey by one of the dawatchys, whom I had met at the mosque

the day before and introduced my research. He wanted me to learn about their experience by

observing the preaching tours and to gain a ‘realistic’ picture of Tablighi activities; he was particularly

earnest in this respect, as he was unhappy about how the local media misinterpreted their practices,

very often connecting them with extremist groups.

On our way – when I approached one of the bazaars – Abdullah asked his wife what foods they would

like to buy for the female preachers, whilst turning his face in another direction to avoid eye contact

with the women. This practice is known among Tablighi activists as ‘lowering the gaze before women’,

4 Ar./Urdu: purdah: gender segregation, also cloth covering the face. 5 Names have been changed. 6 A preaching tour conducted jointly by male and female preachers.

2

in local parlance közdü saktoo. Fatima wrote her suggestions on a piece of paper and gave the list to

her husband. Then the two men left the car to buy food for the Tokmok preachers.

After they had left, Fatima looked at me and asked if I was ok with such a long trip. It was the first

time she had looked at or talked to me for hours. I asked why they had been silent on the way. She

answered: “This is a rule (tartip) – women are not allowed to talk in the presence of other men, except

her husband and her close male relatives such as a brother, a father or a son”. The woman’s voice

should also be hidden (aurat), because it is soft and beautiful, and that is why it can attract a man,

leading him to bad thoughts and actions. For instance, only four men could talk to and see our Fatima

mother (ene): her father, husband and two sons. Men also follow the tartip rule, avoiding eye contact

and face-to-face communication with other women. These rules help them to deal with ego (nafs),

which in turn lead men to take bad actions. Instead, a man should concentrate his thoughts by

repeating the prayer (kalima) or listening to the bayan whilst focusing on its content. This is the way

in which men control the nafs, by avoiding talking about worldly matters (dünüiönün sözü) which

attract people’s attention to worldly matters and the material elements of life, and disturbs them in

their faith”. That is why, Fatima explained, “on the way our husbands did not talk very much and

[instead] concentrated on the bayan”7. When the men came back from the bazaar with bread, melon

and vegetables, I continued on our journey in silence.

Abdulla and Suleiman are familiar examples of Muslim preachers in Kyrgyzstan. Everyone can see

them leaving the central mosque after Friday prayer in small groups for their dawat preaching tours,

or when they arrive at one’s house, knocking at the door and asking to recite the kalima prayer. Often,

they invite fellow adult Muslims to the mosque to listen to an inspirational religious talk (bayan).

According to the report of the Dawat Department of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims

(Muftiyat), in 2011, a total of 8,813 dawatchys conducted 40 days of preaching tours in Kyrgyzstan,8

which is only one of many formats and durations of Tablighi tours. The number of Tablighi activists

would increase significantly if I were to include those dawatchy who conduct international tours to

other countries, attend annual congregations at national Tablighi centres (markaz) in India,

Bangladesh and Pakistan and facilitate three-day, 15-day or four-month preaching and welcoming

tours inside the country. This would also be the case if I included the numbers of female Tablighi

activists, who comprise a significant part of the TJ in Kyrgyzstan. Masturat are involved actively in TJ

preaching activities through weekly female teaching sessions (ta’lim) and masturat preaching tours

conducted by women in the company of a husband or a male relative, which usually last three, 15 or

40 days.

Dawatchys in Kyrgyzstan are part of the global Tablighi Jama’at which reached Central Asia, including

Kyrgyzstan, in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The movement plays a substantial

role in re-engaging Kyrgyzstani post-Soviet Muslims in religious practices, most of who were distanced

from Islam as a result of the influence of ‘scientific atheism’ under the Soviets (Shahrani, 1994).

Tablighi activists contribute to a ‘re-Islamization’ process, in which different local and international

actors and the state are involved. By the term ‘re-Islamization’, I refer here to the practice of

reintroducing religious practices being facilitated by different local and international actors, including

7 Author’s field notes – Karakol, July 2012. 8 Interview with Eratov R., October 2012.

3

the Tablighi Jama’at missionary movement that introduces new practices to society and teaches new

ways of leading a pious life. The Tablighi way of practicing Islam has been labelled by scholars as

‘Sunnaization’ (Gugler 2013, 69; Metcalf 1996a). Learning about and focusing on the Prophet’s

tradition (sunnah), Tablighi activists in Kyrgyzstan contribute to the shift from ‘traditional’ Islam – here

meaning the Soviet-era mixture of Islamic and cultural traditional customs – to its orthodox form,

which appears to be the main tendency of the re-Islamization process in Kyrgyzstan today.

In using the term ‘re-Islamization’, I am also aware of problematic aspects involved there with, which

may misleadingly suggest that Islam in the Soviet Union had been lost, or what existed was not actually

Islam. By ‘re-Islamization’ I refer to both recovering former Islamic practices among Muslims in the

country, i.e. previously familiar Islamic practices that were ‘domesticated’, and new practices

introduced by global Islamic movements, without labelling them ‘correct/incorrect’ or ‘Islamic/un-

Islamic’. Instead, the paper discusses the localisation of the TJ in Kyrgyzstan and how universal

features of the network have been adapted to the local socio-cultural and political contexts.

Localisation is always a significant part of any form of globalization. In our case, even ‘alternative

globalization’ (Reetz, 2010.b), which already signifies distinctive features in opposition to western

globalisation, requires different levels of adaptation in every new context whilst modifying its

universal features to local demands. The need for localisation is dictated by major socio-cultural,

religious and historical differences between the local culture and what global TJ activists bring to that

culture. The differences between these two elements create difficulties in the integration of local

Muslims into global networks. The ‘alien look’, an ‘alien style of communication’ and ‘alien behaviour

or practices’ was central issues in the discourse9 around the TJ in Kyrgyzstan. To overcome these

difficulties, TJ activists developed linguistic, socio-cultural and religious adaptive strategies that

enabled the global TJ movement to be localised in Kyrgyzstan. Applying the Crossroads approach

“which doesn’t depict a region but a research paradigm focusing on the interplay of the dynamic and

the static, the flows (mobilities) and the blockades (borders)” (Mielke and Hornidge, 2014, 19) I will

look at those adaptive strategies as processes of negotiation of borders which extend beyond the

existing ethnic, socio-cultural and geographical boundaries in Kyrgyzstan.

The ethnographic material collected by the author in Kyrgyzstan provides a detailed picture of global

and local features relevant to Tablighi practices and formats of activity in the country, such as the

dawat preaching tour, religious talks (bayan), visits (zeyārat) and learning sessions (ta‘lim). Other

information collected in the field includes personal stories and Tablighi-specific narratives, metaphors

and symbols, to provide insights into the reflexivity of Tablighi actors and illustrate the personalisation

of religious practices among Kyrgyzstani Muslims. This paper will present female Tablighi practices

not covered in recent publications on the TJ in Kyrgyzstan, i.e. Balchi (2010) and Nasritdinov and

Ismailbekova (2012), but which nevertheless form a significant part of the TJ and play a key role in

9 Nurmatov E. Osh: kooptondurgan davatchy ayaldar, on www.azattyk.kg,16.05.2012; Baktybaev Z., Talash

jaratkan davatchylar, on www.azattyk.kg, 29.06.2011; Bakytbaev z. Jaz jaryshta jandangan davatchylar, on

www.azattyk.kg, 09.04.2012; Olkodogu dinij opurtalduu kyrdaalga chara rorunuzdor. Kok asaba geziti.

13.03.13, Ermekov K., Ne skrytaia ugroza mirnyh propovedei. 07.03.2013, on

http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1362632880.

4

networking processes of the Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan, where female preachers contribute

greatly to bringing Islam to society by preaching to women, children and families. The paper also

discusses the relationship between the state and the Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan, which attests to

the complex interconnectedness of globalisation, politics and socio-economic and cultural aspects.

Before moving on to the analysis of adaptive strategies, I will briefly discuss the history of the

movement and the universal faith principles followed by TJ activists in Kyrgyzstan.

2. Brief history of the Tablighi Jama’at and its universal principles

The TJ originated as a missionary movement in India in 1926 under the leadership of the Islamic scholar

Maulana Muhammad IIyas Kandehlavi (1885-1944) as “a direct response to the rise of Hindu

proselytizing movements” (Reetz 2009, 293). Over time, a number of Muslims in India stopped

observing the obligatory Islamic rituals, and many of them even changed their religion, converting to

Hinduism. While this process started long before the advent of British colonial rule, the process

expanded further with its rise. When mosques and Islamic teachers were unable to change the

situation, Maulana Ilyas Kandehlavi called on Muslims to create small groups and recover religion

through ‘door-to-door’ preaching. He told them not to wait for other Muslims to come to the mosque

in order to learn about Islam, but to go to their houses and carry the faith to them, asking them to

recite the kalima, and invite them to prayer in the local mosque. The main goal of the movement was

to revive religious practice among Muslims, in order to make them better Muslims.

Today, the Tablighi Jama’at has become one of the most widely spread global Muslim movements,

and it is estimated to have followers numbering between at least 12 and 15 million (Reetz 2009, 293).

Annual congregations (ijtima) in Delhi, Dhaka and Raiwind bear witness to the gathering of millions of

Muslims from different countries. In the meantime, the TJ, as part of the Muslim mainstream, has

developed a more bureaucratic and hierarchical administration (Reetz 2008, 2009), represented by a

council (shura/mashvara) at local, regional, national and global levels. It is termed a ‘vertical structure’

by Nasritdinov and Ismailbekova (2012), through which Tablighi networks from different countries are

connected globally.

The Tablighi movement aims at achieving its mission based on six main principles that lead to the

‘Sunnaization of Islam’ (Metcalf 1996a) and bring the Prophet’s Sunnah (his sayings and deeds) to

Muslims’ everyday life. The first the prayer Shahada, which every Muslim must be able to recite

correctly: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger.” The first request Tablighi

preachers ask of their fellow Muslims is to recite the kalima. The second is to learn to pray correctly

(salat). The third is remembrance of God (zikr), which every Muslim must perform regularly while

improving his religious knowledge (‘ilm). Fourth is showing respect to fellow Muslims (ikram). Fifth is

sincere intention (niyat) (Tablighis must be sincere to perform their religious duties) and sixth is

practicing missionary work (dawat) – the call to Islam.

The preaching tour, named dawat by Kyrgyz Tablighi activists, plays a major role in the implementation

of these six principles, referred to as the six syfat by the dawatchys in Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz TJ actors

perform preaching tours by moving both internationally and within the country, following all rules

concerning the length of travel, organisational structure and expected outcomes of the tour. Leaving

5

for three-, 15-and 40-day as well as four-month tours, lay Muslims are instructed to adhere to four

actions in order to increase their faith – dawat, zikr, ta’lim and kyzmat, controlling nafs which include

avoiding worldly things by eating less, sleeping less, talking less about worldly matters and incurring

less unnecessary expenses. Following the above mentioned six principles, Tablighi activists are

expected to achieve self-reformation and strengthen their faith.

3. The localisation of the transnational Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan

“Our grandfathers never wore T-shirts”: appearance and clothing style of the dawatchys

‘Re-Islamisation’ in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan occurred in the context of nation-building whereby the

revival of ethnic history, ethnic symbols and ethnic language became the leading trend of the process.

Such a revivalist context increased visibility of the Tablighi’s ‘alien’ features as seen through local eyes.

The majority of dawatchys wear long Pakistani-style clothing and extensively use Urdu and Arabic

words, Islamic greeting styles and Quranic terminology. Also, many dawatchys change their Kyrgyz

names to ‘Islamic’ names – from Almaz to Abdullo, Suiun to Suleiman, Ruslan to Abdurahim, etc.

These changes in culture, allegedly brought about by the Tablighis, are seen by ethnic nationalists as

the result of a new form of ‘colonisation’ of the region, which they term ‘Arabisation’, or

‘Pakistanisation’. From their viewpoint, dawatchys as the main actors in this process do not simply

change their appearance and clothing style but introduce new ways of practicing Islam, which in turn

has a deeply destructive influence on the traditional culture of the Kyrgyz people10. Involving ordinary

Muslims in preaching tours, and teaching them to reconstruct their way of life according to the

Prophet’s sunnah, the Tablighis’ reformist activities are directed at folk customs and traditions which

Kyrgyz people have observed for many years; for example, it has been suggested that some traditional

cultural elements of funeral traditions should be removed. Kyrgyz funeral traditions involve a mixture

of Islamic ceremonies and traditional cultural customs. One of the required elements of the Kyrgyz

funeral is lamentation by women (koshok) and by men (okuruk). Today, koshok is widely criticised by

dawatchys. Tablighis interpret koshok as an action against the power of Allah: “One is supposed to

accept the will of God, and so he or she should not grieve deeply and strongly,”11 say Tablighis, who

interpret the meaning of koshok as being contradictory to Islam. According to ethnic nationalists,12

Tablighis’ ideas of being ‘good Muslims’ requires complete ignorance and destruction of Kyrgyz

customs and traditions, which will lead to the death of Kyrgyz culture.

However, others see religious revival through the promotion of religious rituals and symbols as

complementary components in nation-building. In this context the Islamic identity marker – as one of

the markers of ethnic identity – has gained more importance for this element of public opinion. Islamic

intellectuals and different international and local religious actors following this argument have started

to interpret Islamic practices in Kyrgyzstan as part of ethnic symbolism.

10 Baktybaev Z. Talash jaratkan davatchylar.www.azattyk.kg.29.06.2011. 11 Interview, Bashy, 2012. 12 Olkodogu dinij opurtalduu kyrdaalga chara korunuzdor. Kok asaba geziti, 13.03.13.

6

In the Islam Madanyaty newspaper of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (Muftiyat), the meaning

of hijab has been discussed several times in relation to ethno-national features. The hijab has been

compared with the Kyrgyz ethnic head dress (elechek) for women. The religious meaning of the hijab

that refers to piety and modesty has also been reinterpreted in relation to concepts such as

independence, ethnic nationalism and cultural tradition. This way of reinterpreting the meaning of the

hijab by the Spiritual Administration of Muslims stresses the ‘similarities’ between traditional ethnic

and Islamic clothing style.

As a continuation and part of this discourse, the Tablighi Jama’at would present its clothing style and

appearance as the ‘restoration’ of the cultural tradition of Kyrgyz people that was allegedly broken by

the Soviets.

“Our grandparents never wore T-shirts, Western style shirts and ties; our ethnic clothing for

men was long, and all our ethnic heroes (baatyr) including Manas13 wore a long coat (chapan).

Can you find at least a picture of one baatyr who wore a short dress? No. Our tribal rulers and

heroes had a long beard and wore a long dress, which shows the high moral behaviour of

those people. The meaning of the beard is the same in our Tablighi practice – when I wear a

beard I can’t do bad things, for instance, steal something or go to a disco (discoteka). It

protects me from immoral behaviour”.14

Here, the dawatchy’s long dress and beard are reinterpreted as traditional. References to Manas,

tribal leaders and respected old people (aksakals), are confronted with the culture of discotheques,

which are associated with a Western lifestyle. Dawatchys, in response to critiques of their ‘alien’

image, search for similarities between their sunnah clothing and Kyrgyz traditional clothing, in order

to legitimize their own practices.

On another occasion, in a Tablighi bayan talk delivered for women in one of the ta’lim learning

sessions observed by the author, the meaning of the hijab and its similarity with the traditional head

dress was discussed in relation to the image of one of the key female figures in the history of

Kyrgyzstan – Kurmanjan Datka (1811-1907), the strong-willed former ruler of Kyrgyz southern regions.

“Our Kurmanjan ene15 was a modest woman. She was a leader of the nation and a pious

woman, who obeyed her husband, prayed five times and wore the Kyrgyz ethnic head dress

elechek, covering her head in the same style as hijab” (male speaker who came to the female

ta`lim session to perform the monthly bayan talk from behind a curtain).

During that inspirational talk, Kurmanjan’s name appeared several times, together with Khadija,

Fatima and Aisha, as an exemplary modest Muslim woman who led a pious life; all of them were

referred to as ‘Mother’ (ene). In the talk, Kurmanjan was regarded as the mother of the nation, who

had very strong faith. Two oppositional binaries were created: on the one hand, there were the layers

of ‘ethnic’, ‘ Muslim’, ‘traditional’ and ‘heroic’ references; on the other hand, the ‘Western’, ‘Russian’,

‘Soviet’ and ‘atheistic’ layers. This demonstrates how ‘Sunnaisation’ is presented by dawatchys in

13 Manas is the name of an epic hero from the epic Kyrgyz poem ‘Manas.’ 14 Interview with a dawatchy, August 2012, Osh. 15 Female tribal leader in 19th-century Kyrgyzstan, who is considered as a hero and mother of the nation.

7

opposition to Western globalisation, which supposedly destroys the traditional lifestyle of Kyrgyz

people, and where the Tablighis’ innovative practices are interpreted as the restoration of tradition.

Public engagement with the ‘alien’ appearance of dawatchys, because of their long beards, is

expressed in nicknames that are used to refer to them. A frequently used reference is sakalchandar –

the one who wears a long beard – and it has negative connotations. Not many people reflect deeply

upon and analyse the consequences of the reformist ideas and practices of the dawatchys as much as

the ethnic nationalists do. The latter highlight aspects of the dawatchys’ activities which make them

appear dangerous for society. Insinuations of doubt and fear have strong resonance because of the

new, unusual and unfamiliar features of their appearance. Reflections of people about those

unfamiliar, unusual features reveal the underlying Soviet discourse on ‘traditional Islam’ that

preferred to depict the religion as part of cultural tradition, where it seemed less dangerous for Soviet

power rather than as religiosity, which was considered problematic. This discourse is still alive in

society and impacts on the perceptions and attitudes of the Soviet generation towards global Islamic

movements.

One of the veteran Tablighi activists, Abjapar, who was the first chairman of the Dawat department in

the Spiritual Administration of Muslims in Kyrgyzstan, described in an interview with the author how

he met the first TJ group from Pakistan when it visited Bishkek in the 1990s:

“I and my friends met a Jama’at from Pakistan in 1992, during Friday prayer in the central

mosque in Bishkek. After prayer they introduced themselves as preachers from Pakistan and

then asked if we could help them find a place to do dawat. We didn’t understand their ideas

about preaching tours (khuruj) and dawat. We led them to the Muftiyat to consult with Mufti

Kimsanabay ajy, but he also couldn’t understand them. Then we found a young Muslim

practitioner who had graduated from a madrasa in Pakistan to help with the translation, and

he was the only person who understood the meaning of the preaching tour khuruj and

explained it to us, saying that khuruj is a missionary preaching tour widely practiced in

Pakistan, where he spent several years being a student in one of the madrasas and where he

used to join such preaching tours. That guy was from Balykchy, the northern Issyk Kul region

of Kyrgyzstan, and he took them to his village to conduct dawat there. Two to three young

people joined them, while others stayed in Bishkek expressing suspicions about the Pakistani

Jama’at’s visit to Kyrgyzstan and worrying about our decision to allow foreigners to preach

Islam in our country. Later I learned from that Kyrgyz guy, who hosted the Pakistani Tablighis

in Balykchy, that local people were very hostile toward them, which is why it was impossible

to conduct the missionary walk in the neighbourhood (gasht);16 instead, they stayed in the

house and delivered an inspirational religious bayan talk to a small group of young people

invited by the hosting person.”17

Abjapar can laugh now, remembering how they were afraid of those Pakistani Tablighis only because

they were from another Muslim country, their ideas on Islam were different and they sported long

beards and long dresses – all of which made them look dangerous. He explains the great fear they had

16 Tablighi practice that refers to the visits of dawatchys to the neighbourhood, who knock on each door and invite Muslims to the mosque to join in prayer. 17 Author interview with Abjapar, Bishkek, September 2012.

8

about ‘Pakistani Islam’ not fitting with ‘Soviet traditional Islam’. Even after witnessing their sincere

behaviour, they could not stop worrying about and suspecting them; however, according to Abjapar,

the young people who joined the Pakistani Jama’at’s tour to Balykchy were impressed by those

Tablighis’ sincere behaviour and their level of religious knowledge. It was the first time they had

listened to inspirational speeches about religion, seen how a man cried, asking God to send faith

(yiman) to his Kyrgyz Muslim brothers who were drunk, and entered a single mosque in Balykchy which

was empty during Friday prayer time. Nothing dangerous was to be found by the host in the ‘Pakistani’

way of preaching – they did not call for the Caliphate but concentrated on the individual’s spiritual

experience. The story shows that the younger generation was more open to Tablighis and interested

in the way Islam was practiced, while the older generation was not greatly focused on the content of

preaching or on the level of their knowledge but rather on the ‘foreign’ features of the preachers.

The author heard this story from many dawatchys in Yssyk Kul, who narrated it to stress the changes

that had taken place since the Tablighis’ ‘positive’ influence on Balykchy – comparing how it was once

a town with a high criminal rate and a single mosque, which was always locked. The town used to be

home to young men addicted to alcohol, but now it was possible to ‘imagine’ Balykchy with a new

outlook through a decreasing crime rate and young men who had stopped drinking and were now

involved in dawat, by regularly attending the mosque. More than 20 mosques were built in Balykchy,

and all of them are now full during Friday prayer. Some Tablighis recounted this story in order to

express pride in their town, Balykchy, being the birthplace of the Tablighi Jama’at, at least in the

northern part of Kyrgyzstan. The ways of retelling the same story by different dawatchys also depicts

the complexities of local people’s perceptions of the first group of Tablighi practitioners, namely their

fear of an ‘alien,’ ‘foreign’ Islam that did not fit what was called “traditional Islam” during Soviet times,

and also their doubts and questions about the consequences of changes in religious practices

introduced by global movements. Abjapar was now a Tablighi veteran, eager to share with us the

benefits he had gained from joining the TJ. He had even written poetic verses, in which he calls on

people to join this movement. As an active dawatchy he performed the 40-day dawat tour to Pakistan,

together with his wife Aisha, and regularly makes monthly and annual dawat tours within the country.

Over 20 years have passed since Pakistani missionaries first introduced Tablighi practices to Kyrgyzstan

and made great efforts to overcome the suspicious and hostile attitudes of local Muslims towards

early Tablighi Jama’ats. In the 1990s, dawat was introduced mostly by foreign Jama’ats from Pakistan,

but now the main actors in the Tablighi network in Kyrgyzstan are Kyrgyz Tablighis, who are connected

to transnational TJ networks not only through the markaz in Raiwind, and Tablighi madrasas in

Pakistan, but also through the two other major South Asian markaz in India and Bangladesh.

Nasritdinov and Ismailbekova (2012) reported in their paper that doors to Markaz centres in those

countries for Kyrgyz Tablighis were opened at different times, and the many differences in timing and

location had separate consequences in their own way. Every new door opened to Kyrgyz followers led

to a new phase in the evolution of the TJ movement in Kyrgyzstan, and the characteristics of every

phase correlated with the specific character of the TJ movement in those three nations.

Despite the active expansion of the Tablighi Jama’at network and its practices, perceptions and

attitudes toward Tablighi missionaries and its discourses remain contested in Kyrgyzstan.18

18 Bayzbekov Adyl, “ Tablighi jama’at – nachalo halifata v kyrgyzstane.”

http://www.paruskg.info/2011/08/01/47516, 30.11.2013.

9

Introducing Tablighi Concepts: linguistic and socio-cultural adaptation

Linguistic tools have played a significant role in introducing the main Tablighi concepts to Kyrgyz

Muslims. Translation, interpretation, phonetic adaptation and the borrowing of different Arabic and

Urdu terms are used by dawatchys to express the meaning of faith concepts and core Tablighi

practices. Tablighi activists in Kyrgyzstan use metaphorical language with extensive references to

Kyrgyz words, proverbs, metaphors or even the rhythmical Kyrgyz style of phrases so that the Tablighi

narratives appear close to the style of Kyrgyz oral traditions.

The name of the core Tablighi format of missionary tours or walks, around which the movement is

built, is derived from going out or taking a walk – gasht (Urdu) or khuruj (Arabic). To popularise the

format in Kyrgyzstan, local followers make special reference to its philosophical meaning as practicing

isolation from worldly matters while being on a pious preaching tour. This connection is expressed by

translating the idea of walking or ‘getting away from worldly matters’ – dünüiödön üzülüü (Kyrg.). In

addition, other new metaphors using the word ‘world’ (Kyrg. dünüiö) have been created to intensify

the same meaning. Detachment from worldly matters refers not only to physical isolation but also to

the spiritual side of life, increasing one’s spiritual reflections and immersing oneself deeply in a

spiritual experience in order to achieve self-reformation. There are other metaphors used by Tablighis

to refer to their preference for turning away from worldly matters, namely ‘get away from worldly

duties’ (Kyrg. dünüiönün ishinen üzül) or ‘avoid worldly talks’ (Kyrg. dünüiönün sözün süilöbö). This

advice is directed at preachers who are on missionary tours, or to female Tablighi activists involved in

ta’lim sessions, to achieve a deep spiritual experience. In this context, worldly life (düiünöö) refers to

a situation where people are very much attached to material values and lead a ‘Westernized’ lifestyle,

whereas, conversely, Tablighi missionaries on khuruj are supposed to be physically detached from

worldly life and have to develop skills to move into spiritual isolation as well.

While on a missionary tour, all rules push dawatchys to distance themselves from worldly matters; for

example, my respondents reported that a cell phone cannot be used. When doing the local missionary

walk gasht, it is suggested to walk on the left side of the street and not to look at women. Also, when

knocking at the doors of houses, preachers should not look through holes in walls and gates, in order

to avoid jealousy and greed by comparing the wealth of people living in the house. In addition, dawat

members should sit in the mosque and not leave it for unnecessary reasons.

A Tablighi activist, who went on a three-day dawat tour for the first time, reflected on his experience:

“One’s thoughts and reflections really turn towards the spiritual side, and one starts to look

at one’s life differently. Now I see how much people’s lives are attached to material values

which make them blind to the spiritual side in their everyday competition for material wealth.” 19

Tablighis strive to avoid these worldly effects, not only during the preaching tour, to fully immerse

themselves into spiritual learning, but also in their everyday life. One of the female informants, 35-

year-old Bermet (name is changed), who had participated in the family masturat dawat tour six times

for three days, told the author in an interview how such avoidance helped her to keep her spirit clean

in her everyday life. She was working as an electricity engineer at the airport, where she shared an

19 Author interview, Bishkek, September 2012.

10

office with other female colleagues who talked a lot about fashion, furniture, cosmetics and money.

In order not to be involved in the conversation she would repeat the kalima and do inner zikr silently.

She knew that such worldly things would lead people to bad actions (jealousy, corruption and

consumerism) and completely fill one’s thoughts, with no room remaining for moral and spiritual

values. The personal stories of Tablighis heard by the author during interviews were deeply reflexive

and structured, with clear boundaries along two lines: between the spiritual and the material, the

pious and the ignorant, the moral and the immoral, etc. Such reflexive experiences became a primary

condition for the Tablighis to reconsider critically their previous lifestyle and to change it according to

TJ principles, in what Metcalf termed ‘Sunnaization’ (1996a).

In Bermet’s case, ‘Sunnaisation’ is seen as a reflexive reconsideration of her own life and a

reconstruction thereof in a new way. She removed modern furniture from her flat – sofas, a table and

chairs – and instead added Islamic decorations, putting up a picture of Mecca and verses from the

Quran on the wall. Apart from observing her obligatory religious rituals – five daily prayers, fasting,

etc. – she would find time to attend the weekly lectures delivered by former mufti Chubak ajy, weekly

ta’lims and bayans organised for women by Tablighis in Bishkek, listen to recorded bayans at home

from CDs and read from the main book of the TJ, the collection of pious traditions (hadith), 'Faza’il-e

A‘mal’ (The Virtues of Good Deeds)20 to her 5-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.

At the same time, modernity is not completely ignored by Tablighis, as some modern achievements,

which they might consider ‘minor’ or ‘harmless’, are used on certain conditions according to TJ

philosophy. Bermet selectively watches some TV shows, but these are limited to news and popular

scientific programmes. She understands the importance of modern education and sends her daughter

to an expensive private school, a dawha, where scientific subjects are taught very well, while the

basics of Islam are also covered. She wishes for her daughter to gain both types of knowledge, religious

and secular, in order not to turn her into an ‘educated Satan’ (Kyrg. bilimdüü shaitan), a metaphor

used by many Tablighis to refer to Muslims who are educated but do not practice Islam. Bermet always

tries to balance both sides of her daughter’s life, who wears the hijab, prays, reads from the Faza’il-e

A‘mal with her mother and attends an Arabic language course.

The concept of the world (dünüiö) in Tablighi practices is broad but does not reject worldly life

completely; instead, it teaches one to lead a worldly life appropriately. According to dawatchys, only

by distancing themselves from a worldly life can they see how it is constructed and how it must be

reconstructed. Our field data show that distancing oneself from a worldly life amounts to a worldly

occupation in itself, as it makes a person learn very practical worldly elements that help them to

survive while on a tour. It also involves teaching and even training dawatchys through khuruj how and

what to talk about, how to spend money, how to treat their husband or wife, parents and family

members etc., in this life.

Another term used to interpret the meaning of the khuruj for Kyrghyz Muslims is meenet, meaning

hard-working. According to TJ activists, life is given so that one may build faith (yiman), which requires

hard work (meenet, Urdu: mehnat) to overcome one’s nafs and external difficulties with society. One

should have strong faith in order to achieve this goal. The hard work involved in meenet is understood

20 Faza’il-I A’mal. The book covers the virtues of prayer (salat), remembrance of God (zikr), charity, pilgrimage

(hajj), ritual salutation to the Prophet and the Quran. See, for more information, Reetz (2008, 2009). In

Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz and Russian translations are used in reading sessions (ta’lim).

11

by activists as another description of their missionary work, which they view as a global task. The

Tablighis would say in their religious bayan talk in Kyrgyzstan that “hard working is going on in every

part of the world now” (Kyrg. meenet but dunuiodo jurup jatat), thereby referring to Tablighi activities

as a form of hard work. With reference to Kyrgyzstan, meenet, as understood by the Tablighis, relates

as much to their hard labour against Western influence as it does against Soviet atheistic influence

and to their efforts against difficulties created by local nationalists against Tablighi attempts to ‘purify

Islam.’

The Tablighis do not always encourage a translation of their key terms into the Kyrgyz language. In

some cases, it is important for Tablighis to keep Urdu or Arabic terms or names. During the missionary

dawat tour, group members take different positions and fulfil different functions that change every

day according to the council’s decision (mashvara), except for the leader (amir). Mashvara council

sessions are conducted every day in the morning after the first prayer. Even when a Kyrgyz equivalent

is available, dawatchys prefer to use Arabic or Urdu words to denote functions performed during the

preaching tour. However, often, Urdu/Arabic/Turkic terms for the format are also used to identify the

person performing the task: elon for an announcer, ta’lim for the person who leads the reading of

Faza’il-e A‘mal, dalil for the person usually recruited from the local cohort, who guides the group

during the gasht, mutakalim for a speaker and kyzmat for those who cook and clean for the preachers.

Using Arabic and Urdu words among dawatchys reflects not only how Urdu became the lingua franca

of the movement, but it also shows how this linguistic style is important for enacting their religious

identity by belonging to the transnational TJ network and manifesting their connections to the global

Muslim community (ummah). Despite the suggestion of the highest Tablighi mashvara in Kyrgyzstan

to introduce and use Kyrgyz terms supported by the Dawat department, dawatchys in Kyrgyzstan

extensively use the Tablighis’ terminology in Arabic and Urdu to express their connections with the

global network.

In some cases, Tablighis invent local metaphors, taken from the local language, which convey the

meaning of Tablighi concepts and activities. In these cases, it is not the translation but similarly

sounding metaphors in the native language which are used. For instance, ijtima refers to Tablighi

gatherings which discuss Tablighi ‘work’. When the term is used without translation, local Tablighis

refer to the Kyrgyz metaphor ishtin maijy, where ish in Kyrgyz means job and mai means buttermilk,

thus forming the metaphorical meaning of ‘outcomes of the job’. Such linguistic adaptations fit well

with the style of the Tablighi language discussed above.

The linguistic strategies adapted by the Tablighis in Kyrgyzstan creatively reproduce the metaphorical

language of the TJ in a mixed idiom of local and foreign terms. For this purpose they combine their

native language with Arabic and Urdu. This approach is an important tool for the introduction of

Tablighi faith concepts and practices in the local environment. To some extent, I can say that the rich

narrative practices of the TJ in Kyrgyzstan change and shape the current ‘faith language’ in Kyrgyz,

which has a very distinctive linguistic and performative style.

“A woman is like a madrasa in the house”: learning a new role for Tablighi women in Kyrgyzstan

Female Tablighis play a significant role in the localisation of transnational TJ practices and the

networking of its activists. Tablighi women wear a hidjab and a long dress in dark colours. Some of

them cover their face fully, strictly following the purdah principle of gender segregation in order to

achieve certainty in faith (yaqin).

12

Muslim women in Kyrgyzstan, as with other Central Asian Muslim women, were traditionally involved

in home-based religious rituals with cultural connotations through healing and worshipping at shrines,

graves (mazar) and other holy sites, as well as performing lifecycle rituals. They remained far from

preaching Islam. Fathi (1997), who studied religious practices among Central Asian Muslim women,

and Tett (1994), who highlighted the importance of home-based ritualistic female practices in

preserving Islam in Soviet Central Asia, noted the deep mixture of cultural traditional and Islamic

elements in those practices. Nowadays, however, through the involvement in the global TJ network,

Muslim women in Kyrgyzstan are learning to perform new roles, namely preaching and teaching Islam

at home. The scrupulous reading of Tablighi textbooks makes Tablighi women more oriented towards

Islamic orthodoxy in the sense of rules, and it creates discourse about the meaning of what constitutes

a ‘good Muslim’ in the Tablighi way. This in turn distances Tablighi women from shrine worship,

healing and lifecycle rituals. Tablighi women are acquiring and presenting those new roles in different

ways: by attending weekly ta’lim sessions, joining a husband or male relative on a masturat dawat

preaching tour or zeyārat welcome tour, teaching the basics of Islam at home and reading Faza’il-e

A‘mal every day to children.

The weekly ta’lim reading session is an open event that lasts only for an hour and focuses on reading

Faza’il-e A‘mal. It is led by experienced female Tablighis who open and close the t’alim with a prayer

(du’a). Between six and 32 women participate in the ta’lim which the author attended in different

neighbourhoods in Bishkek, Karakol and Bashy. In all the houses or flats where the ta‘lim was

conducted, the author saw a du’a written in Arabic on a piece of paper and put on the entrance door,

along with some Islamic objects arranged in the room: pictures of Mecca, rosaries, Faza’il-e A‘mal

textbooks on the shelf, CDs of bayan recordings, etc. In the town settings, the ta’lim reading sessions

were usually conducted in the guest rooms of the flats, which had been refurnished according to the

Muslim lifestyle, by removing Western-style furniture such as sofas, chairs, tables and sometimes even

TV sets – all of which were associated with a Western lifestyle by the dawatchys. One could see

mattresses laid on the floor and carpets strewn over the room, where the women would sit to listen

to female Tablighi elders lead the sessions while sitting in the middle, together with an appointed

reader of the Faza’il-e A‘mal, to whom other attendees would listen whilst repeating ritualistic

phrases. The chapters of the Faza’il-e A‘mal for every ta’lim session were assigned by the Tablighi

Jama’at in the mosque and would usually cover one extract from each of the chapters. After reading,

the participants would pray, by performing du’a, and then go home.

Once every month, the ta’lim session for women would also include a bayan talk, given by an

experienced male Tablighi activist from the local mosque. For this purpose, the room in the house

would be usually divided into two parts. The corner where the bayan was delivered would be closed

with a curtain. The bayan would discuss the importance of the role of female Tablighi masturat

members in building faith (yimandy kuruu) within the community. This is how one preacher began his

bayan in one of the ta’lim sessions:

“It was because of the strong adherence of masturat to the faith that it [faith] increased during

the time of the Prophet. His main supporters were our Kadicha ene, Fatima ene and Aisha

ene. Many masturats suffered in their struggle for faith, but they never gave up their faith.

Women are like a madrasa in the house – they inspire their husbands to go on dawat

13

preaching tours and they teach Islam to their children and to other fellow Muslim women.

They found complete happiness in the faith…”21

The talk lasted 30 minutes and was concluded by calling on masturat women to keep their faith strong

and to carry the message to other fellow Muslims, such as family members, relatives and friends. After

the ta’lim session was finished, the women were asked to repeat in pairs what they had learned. Then

the invitation ritual (tashkil) followed, in which the participants were asked to sign up for the next

joint preaching tour with their male family members, making one list of those ready to go (nak) and

another one listing those intending to go (niyat). The women wrote down on the lists their contact

details and asked the 6-year-old daughter of the host family to hand the list to the speaker of the

night’s talk, who then delivered it to the Tablighi elders at the mosque.

The ta’lim sessions follow a certain protocol. The hosting duty rotates from house to house every

month, according to the decision of the Tablighi elders operating from a particular mosque in the

town, village or neighbourhood. In the mosque, serving as a local headquarters for the TJ, local elders

make a list of families who want to host a ta’lim session. The family must fulfil the following hosting

requirements. The hosting couples have to be practicing, pious Muslims who observe all obligatory

religious rituals. It is even better if the husband is part of the Tablighi network. The house should be

clean, with a big room available in which to conduct teaching sessions. Tablighis believe that a house

or flat that hosts a ta’lim should receive the metaphorical spiritual light (noor) as a sign of blessing, to

the extent that it will also cover 20 neighbouring houses on all four sides. One of the female

respondents eager to host a ta’lim session invited her brother-in-law to live in her house for a month

so that she could meet one of the hosting requirements, according to which a man should be present

in the family while the ta’lim session is hosted. Her husband had died several years previously and she

had three daughters but no son.

According to Tablighi rules (Metcalf, 2000: 54), women should be accompanied by their husband or a

male relative when attending a ta’lim session. In Kyrgyzstan, women most usually attend the ta’lim

sessions alone or with a female friend. Another demand which was expressed by the speaker during

the learning session in the Uchkun micro district, in Bishkek on 20 May 2012, was that women should

go directly home after the ta’lim session, in order to bring back the spiritual benefit to their homes

immediately after the ta’lim, thus keeping in their heart all inspiration they received from the session.

On the way back home they should not be involved in worldly conversations, nor visit their friends or

get involved in other worldly activities that might distract a person from their faith. They are not even

allowed to discuss the content of the ta’lim session. If a woman has questions on the subject, she

should send them to the imam of the mosque through her husband, and the husband will then bring

back answers from the imam and give them to his wife. Women have no right to ask or to answer

questions directly. Another key requirement for women attending the ta’lim session is that they

should come with the sincere intention of learning about Islam. Women are recommended to leave

everything associated with their worldly life at home, including feelings and thoughts about worldly

duties. In one of the ta’lim sessions, which the author attended in Uchkun, one of Bishkek’s micro

districts, the speaker of the bayan talk advised that it was not good for them to bring small children

to the ta’lim session, because they may interrupt the women and put them off learning, because their

attention would be divided between the two factors. In order to meet this requirement, male Tablighis

21 Bishkek.Uchkun microdistrict. May 20th 2013.

14

have to look after the children when women attend ta’lim sessions, as this is a way of encouraging

their wives to seek religious knowledge.

Besides providing religious interpretations of their distinctive moral values and practices, the Tablighis

also respond to local needs. In Kyrgyzstan, many families have been separated because of migration.

In the context of the separation of spouses, parents and children, the Tablighi idea of a ‘cooperative

family’ (Metcalf, 1996b) for many such families can be seen as an alternative whereby spouses and

children, despite the strains involved in doing so, still live harmoniously. They achieve this by

maintaining the common goal of leading a pious life through the involvement of Tablighi practices of

reclaiming religion, where the man is a spiritual leader, the woman is his supporter and the children

are followers of the parents. On welcoming visits to other travelling Tablighi groups, obligatory

religious bayan talks can be attended together by all family members, where children act as mediators

between men and women, who are not allowed to talk to each other face to face. Men and women

are dependent on each other when deciding on Tabligh activities: Tablighi women can also make

decisions for men to go on preaching tours in the female ta’lim sessions during the call for participation

in the next dawat, by signing up to confirm the participation or the intention of their husbands or male

relatives to join the next missionary tour. As mentioned above, the women leave their husbands’

contact details for them to be invited for the next dawat tour. In addition, it is argued that a man’s

dawat participation doesn’t count too much if his wife is not involved in TJ practices. TJ networking is

based predominantly on such cooperative families, in which some traditional gender roles are

‘reconfigured,’ using Metcalf’s term, thereby challenging certain aspects of hierarchical family

structures by assigning selective gender duties to the opposite side.

Some personal stories which were recounted by the respondents to this author demonstrate the

reflexive and critical views of female Tablighi practitioners regarding traditional cultural customs of

Kyrgyz people, which affect relationships not only between spouses but also all family members. The

case of Bermet, a key respondent, who found a new meaning in life by joining the TJ, illustrates how

she distanced herself from certain cultural customs that affected her position as a daughter-in-law in

traditional Kyrgyz society:

“As a daughter-in-law (kelin) I experienced all of the unjust attitudes towards daughters-in-

law according to traditional Kyrgyz custom. I was a servant to all my in-laws – cleaning, cooking

for the whole family. I had to treat my parents-in-law as if they were God, bowing to them

every day in the morning; I had no rights in my husband’s family. Islam gives me equal rights.

Islam teaches that ‘a wife is a special gift (amanat) that requires a strong responsibility from

the receiver to God by man. He has great responsibility for her’. A woman is not the servant

of people, but she is a servant of God as well as men. I have to only bow to God”.22

In this example Bermet reflects on those cultural customs that hierarchise the relationship between

daughters-in-law and their husbands’ family members. As in the Indian case described by Metcalf

(1996b), Bermet ‘finds less hierarchical familial structure and means for resisting social hierarchies’ in

Islam through Tablighi practices.

22 Author’s interview with Tablighi women. Bishkek, May 2012.

15

During the ta’lim sessions, where the author was an observer, the ta’lim leader made a comment

about the greeting style of local woman, who came to listen to the bayan talk and greeted the others

by bowing to show respect in a traditional way:

“One should only bow to God; I commit shirk [associating God with other people] when I bow

down to them. We are just human beings, so we have to greet each other by saying Salaam

Aleikum.”

In both examples, traditional cultural customs are seen as unjust rules causing inequality, whereas

Islamic and Tablighi practices provide more egalitarian alternatives.

Tablighis see themselves as not rejecting but ‘restoring’ the traditional position of Muslim women by

recommending that they keep their privacy, remain in the house, rear children according to Islam and

treat their husbands as the leader in everyday life as well as in the religious sphere. They aim primarily

at inspiring, supporting and encouraging women to gain Islamic knowledge and perform Tablighi

duties. Masturat TJ followers are allowed to perform public duties during the ta’lim session and dawat

activities, if they strictly follow the principles of gender segregation embodied in purdah by covering

themselves and being accompanied by a mahram, a male relative. Nonetheless, Tablighi women in

Kyrgyzstan apply these rules selectively, as they combine their professional work in diverse secular

settings with Tablighi duties, by attending the ta’lim sessions without a mahram. For the same reason,

the majority opt for wearing the hijab headscarf instead of the full body cover nikab.

“‘Tablighi Jama’at’ is an incorrect name”: stressing universal revivalist goals

All over Central Asia the relationship between the state and the TJ is complex and ambiguous, ranging

from manipulation to degrees of freedom and from attempts to control and prohibit the TJ to

cooperation. Except for Kyrgyzstan, the TJ is formally banned in all Central Asian Republics and Russia.

Only in Kyrgyzstan is there no formal prohibition, but this does not mean that the state trusts the

Tablighis or grants them full freedom. The TJ in Kyrgyzstan is partly and indirectly institutionalised

through the state organisation in charge of administering religious activities in the country, namely

the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (Muftiyat), a body inherited from the Soviet era when it

represented so-called ‘official’ Islam. This administration has a department in charge of regulating

missionary activities for Islam in the country, the Dawat department. While the department is

supposed to control Tablighi activities, the Tablighis have established a working relationship with the

department.

According to Jumabaev, head of the State Commission on Religious Affairs under the President of the

Kyrgyz Republic:

“The TJ is now sitting on the shoulders of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims, because the

main function of the Muftiyat is [de facto] fulfilled by the TJ. The official task of the Muftiyat

is to lead religious propagation in the country, explaining to society the main principles of

Islam and the ways how to practice it; but they are very passive, which is why religious

propagation is conducted by Tablighis, according to the Tablighi Jama’at’s principles.”23

23 Author’s interview with Jumabaev. Bishkek, September 2012.

16

The full name of the Dawat department in the Muftiyat is the “Dawat and Propagation Department”

(Dawat jana ugut nasyiat bolumu). It is led by Eratov, who graduated from the madrasa in Raiwind

(Pakistan), which is associated with the national TJ centre there. He is also the administrator of a

madrasa in the Archa beshik settlement, in Bishkek, where students are actively involved in Tablighi

preaching. Eratov always stresses the very universalistic functions of his department, stating that

Davat is not specific to the TJ and started from Prophet Muhammad. The aim of the department is not

to expand the TJ but to contribute to recovering religious practices where the state and many different

groups participate. The same statements were made by Tablighi activists in an interview with the

author, although the dawatchys expressed more universalistic goals shared with other groups in

reviving Islam in Kyrgyzstan.

I can observe that to some extent the Dawat department has become a mediator between the state

and the TJ in Kyrgyzstan. On the one hand, the Head of the Department (HoD) reports on TJ activities

to the State Commission for Religious Affairs under the President of KR24. The department collects

statistical data on Tablighi preaching tours within and outside of the country, by conducting meetings

with Tablighi activists in the region and preparing reports on those meetings. It issues regulative

papers and rules, and it also responds to local complaints concerning some Tablighis’ ‘alien’ practices.

In addition, they draft rules for preaching tours etc., in order to adapt and make TJ practices acceptable

to Muslims in Kyrgyzstan. In doing so, the HoD plays a key role in the regulation of TJ practices and

assists the state in controlling TJ activities. On the other hand, Eratov, as the Head of the Dawat

Department and as a Tablighi practitioner, is actively involved in fulfilling the TJ mission, translating

its main book Faza’il-e A’mal into Kyrgyz, establishing the first Tablighi madrasa in Bishkek and

participating in Tablighi activities. He actively contributed to adapting Tablighi practices to the local

context, issuing rules in the name of the Muftiyat, concerning the Tablighi clothing style that suggested

shortening Tablighi clothes, and adding Kyrgyz ornaments to make them un-‘alien’ for Kyrgyz people.

He also helped to draft rules for Tablighi preaching tours, making it mandatory to have official written

authority from the local mosque, the police and the family to go on a dawat tour. It was a response to

the hostile attitudes of people to dawatchys, although the dawatchys did not always accept new

requirements for conducting dawat: “Dawat is not selective about participants [dawat adamdy

tandabait],” said one of the dawatchys in an interview. “If a person, who was involved in criminal

activities before, expresses his will to join dawat preaching, I must allow him to do so. His intention to

change his lifestyle is very positive, and why would I create an obstacle for him in his motivation to

strengthen his faith?” The Tablighis operate a control commission, called kavaib jama’at, which is used

to discuss the conditions of every person who plans to do dawat preaching with regard to the

conditions of his family and his finances. The commission also individually assesses his intentions to

study Islam and to strengthen his faith.

Eratov stressed in an interview with the author that the Tablighi Jama’at is not the correct term to use

when referring to actors who are involved in TJ preaching. He maintained that ordinary people

invented this term, but the founder of the TJ, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, rejected it, saying “I would

call its objective ‘recovering faith or strengthening faith’” (Yimandy jandandyruu, kyimyldatuu).”

According to Reetz (2006, 161), Ilyas preferred to call it a ‘faith movement’ (tahrik-i iman). However,

Eratov was eager to present the more universalistic features of TJ, and he avoided talking openly about

24The State Commission for Religious Affairs under the President of KR (Russ.: Gosudarstvennaya Komissia po delam religij pri Prezidente Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki).

17

its particularist features. In contrast, Jumabaev pointed out that “The Dawat department of the

Muftiyat makes a da’wa call for Islam in a very specific Tablighi way, by involving Muslims in preaching

tours.” For Jumabaev, it is not preferable to have one dominant group in the context of the re-

Islamisation process:

“Such official institutions as the Spiritual Board of Muslims, and the Board of Ulama (Ulamalar

Keneshi) should be free of any group influence. But now the Spiritual Administration of

Muslims is under the strong influence of the TJ. Tablighi leaders say that they are not

interested in politics – officially at least – but now that they are entering such structures as

the Muftiyat, the Board of Ulama, they are gaining high positions for their members [and

therefore] contradicting their declared non-political orientation”25.

Jumabaev, at the end of the interview, stressed that his commission does not work with unregistered

religious organisations: “The TJ is not officially registered, that’s why the commission doesn’t collect

information about them. Without registration our state can’t prohibit it.” He did not indicate in this

interview what strategies other Central Asian countries apply to the TJ. He only mentioned the

Agreement of the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (Russ.:

Organisatsia Dogovora o Collectivnoi Bezopasnosti), signed in 2010 by The Security Committees of all

member countries, including Kyrgyzstan, where the TJ was included in a list of terrorist organisations.

After Kazakhstan banned the TJ on 29 February 2013, some deputies and local activists raised the

question about its presence in Kyrgyzstan, suggesting it should also be prohibited in this country.

Tablighi Jama’at activists reacted publicly to this notion by using the media, among other sources, to

express their views26. Some of them wrote that instead of prohibiting this apolitical movement, it

would be beneficial for society to involve Tablighis in solving problems such as ethnic conflicts or

political protests that are frequent in Kyrgyzstan. According to dawatchys, as the main idea of the

Tablighis is to call on Muslims to distance themselves from politics and to unite by rejecting

discrimination based on ethnic belonging, this could be utilised in a positive way by the government.

The presence of Tablighi activists in official structures reflects new discourses on the meaning and role

of inherited structures such as the Spiritual Administration of Muslims and The State Commission for

Religious Affairs, both of which were established in Soviet times to control Islam and to propagate a

so-called ‘traditional Islam’, in order to make Muslims more homogenous. The previous forms and

functions of those structures have been challenged by the entrance of activists from global

movements into these structures, through which they contribute to a shift from ‘traditional’ to

‘orthodox’ Islam.

4. Conclusion

The Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan has developed as part of a transnational network resulting from

the involvement of Kyrgyzstani Tablighis in global religious movements, a move which is seen by

scholars as the contribution of religion to globalisation. Roy, in his book ‘Globalized Islam: The Search

for a New Ummah’ (2004), points out that in a modern globalised world, ‘religions live beyond the

cultures.’ The ‘Mobility’ paradigm (Sheller and Urry, 2006) suggests looking at global movements

25 Author’s Interview with Jumabaev. Bishkek, September 2012. 26 Neskol’ko veruiushih musul’man trebuiut ot dvuh chinovnikov “po-mujski” uiti s doljnosti za priravnivanie chlenov soobshestva Tablig k terroristam. On news.namba.kg/read.php?id=1480301, 30.11.2013.

18

together with ‘mobile actors’ who cross geographical, socio-cultural, national and ethnic boundaries,

bringing with them new objects, sources, ideas and practices and creating networks based on existing

social and new symbolic ties. Stressing the connections between mobility, actors and networking

structures in an understanding of religious global movements, the ‘mobility’ paradigm addresses not

only what global practices, ideas and structures emerge in different multilocalities, but also how local

cultures are influenced by global mobilities. Reetz (2010b, 294), in his paper ‘‘Alternate Globalities?’

On the Cultures and Formats of Transnational Muslim Networks from South Asia,’ argues that religious

globalisation has different forms, one of which emerged through the mobility of Muslim preachers,

particularly the Tablighi Jama’at, who create ‘alternative globalities’ in contrast to Western

globalisation. The impact of this alternative globalisation on local societies, Reetz (2013, 1) continues,

is ‘multifaceted and shaped by social, cultural experiences of local society and driven by its needs,

rather than by a transnational agenda.’

This paper understood the localisation of the Tablighi Jama’at in Kyrgyzstan as a movement where

mobile Tablighi actors ‘communicatively construct’ (Mielke and Hornidge, 2014, 18 ) a space which

stretches existing sociocultural, religious and linguistic boundaries. The presented field data did not

confirm the separation of religion from culture, allowing religions to live ‘beyond … culture,’ as Roy

put it (2004, 269), but pointed to the localisation of the TJ as a global movement which requires

reconsideration of both, religion and culture, in a new way. Tablighi activists in Kyrgyzstan are ‘not

passive receivers of alternative globalization’ but active agents who creatively transform TJ principles

and practices in response to religious and socio-cultural and political-economic challenges in society:

“Far from being objects or victims of globalization, they form ‘alternate globalities’ in their own right

who self-consciously shape their own modernity”(Reetz 2013, 14). Tablighi actors in Kyrgyzstan

introduced the movement’s global faith principles, concepts and structures to the local context

creatively adapting and reinterpreting them through local socio-historical, cultural and linguistic

sources.

The localisation of the Tablighi Jama’at also draws attention to the TJ’s ‘purist’ ideas, where new

images and practices pursued by its followers challenge local cultures and societies, thus stirring

debates among different groups in which religious actors, the state and common people are involved.

These debates show how, under the influence of a transnational religious movement, local cultures

are reconsidered in accordance with universalistic Islamic values. Muslims in Kyrgyzstan, rethinking

both local cultural traditions and Islamic practices under the influence of Tablighis, have at their

disposal many ways to shift from ‘traditional’ to ‘orthodox’ Islam. In this context, some groups, for

instance female Muslims, learn new roles relating to preaching and teaching Islam.

As the collected field data demonstrate, the TJ as an emergent global movement does not produce a

shift from traditional schools of Islam, such as Hanafi Islam, towards ‘fundamentalist’ Islam or

Salafism. Instead, the Tablighi Jama’at contributes to the personalisation and individualisation of

Islamic practices amongst Muslims, which in turn leads to a diversification of Islamic practices, not

only in society (Akiner, 2003) but also within the family (Borbieva, 2009).

19

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Information on the competence network Crossroads Asia

The competence network Crossroads Asia derives its name from the geographical area extending from eastern Iran to western China and from the Aral Sea to Northern India. The scholars collaborating in the competence network pursue a novel, ‘post-area studies’ approach, making thematic figurations and mobility the overarching perspectives of their research in Crossroads Asia. The concept of figuration implies that changes, minor or major, within one element of a constellation always affect the constellation as a whole; the network will test the value of this concept for understanding the complex structures framed by the cultural, political and socio-economic contexts in Crossroads Asia. Mobility is the other key concept for studying Crossroads Asia, which has always been a space of entangled interaction and communication, with human beings, ideas and commodities on the move across and beyond cultural, social and political borders. Figurations and mobility thus form the analytical frame of all three main thematic foci of our research: conflict, migration, and development.

 Five sub-projects in the working group “Conflict” will focus upon specific localized conflict- figurations and their relation to structural changes, from the interplay of global politics, the erosion of statehood, and globalization effects from above and below, to local struggles for autonomy, urban-rural dynamics and phenomena of diaspora. To gain a deeper understanding of the rationales and dynamics of conflict in Crossroads Asia, the sub-projects aim to analyze the logics of the genesis and transformation of conflictual figurations, and to investigate autochthonous conceptions of, and modes of dealing with conflicts. Particular attention will be given to the interdependence of conflict(s) and mobility.

 Six sub-projects in the working group “Migration” aim to map out trans-local figurations (networks and flows) within Crossroads Asia as well as figurations extending into both neighboring and distant areas (Arabian Peninsula, Russia, Europe, Australia, America). The main research question addresses how basic organizational and functional networks are structured, and how these structures affect what is on the move (people, commodities, ideas etc.). Conceptualizing empirical methods for mapping mobility and complex connectivities in trans-local spaces is a genuine desideratum. The aim of the working group is to refine the method of qualitative network analysis, which includes flows as well as their structures of operation, and to map mobility and explain mobility patterns.

 In the “Development”-working group four sub-projects are focusing on the effects of spatial movements (flows) and interwoven networks at the micro level with regard to processes of long-term social change, and with a special focus on locally perceived livelihood opportunities and their potential for implementation. The four sub-projects focus on two fundamental aspects: first, on structural changes in processes of transformation of patterns of allocation and distribution of resources, which are contested both at the household level and between individual and government agents; secondly, on forms of social mobility, which may create new opportunities, but may also cause the persistence of social inequality.

The competence network aims to mediate between the academic study of Crossroads Asia and efforts

to meet the high demand for information on this area in politics and the public. Findings of the project

will feed back into academic teaching, research outside the limits of the competence network, and

public relations efforts. Further information on Crossroads Asia is available at

www.crossroads-asia.de.

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Publications in the Crossroads Asia Workin g Paper Series  Marsden, Magnus (2011): Mobile Life on the Frontiers of Crossroads Asia. In: Crossroads Asia

Working Paper Series, No. 1.

 Schetter, Conrad (2012): Translocal Lives. Patterns of Migration in Afghanistan. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 2.

 Hill, Joe (2012): A Post-Area Studies Approach to the Study of Hill Irrigation across the Alai – Pamir – Karakoram – Himalaya. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 3.

 Ismailbekova, Aksana (2012): Coping Strategies: Public Avoidance, Migration, and Marriage in the Aftermath of the Osh Conflict, Fergana Valley. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 4.

 Ibrahimi, Niamatullah (2012): Shift and Drift in Hazara Ethnic Consciousness. The Impact of Conflict and Migration. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 5.

 Jamali, Hafeez (2013): The Anxiety of Development: Megaprojects and the Politics of Place in Gwadar, Pakistan. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 6.

 Kreutzmann, Hermann (2013): The Significance of Geopolitical Issues for Internal Development and Intervention in Mountainous Areas of Crossroads Asia. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 7.

 Tiller, Petra & Hiltrud Herbers (2013): „Der Entwicklungsprozess des Islams in Tadschikistan nach dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion“ als Figuration nach Norbert Elias? Eine erste Annäherung. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 8.

 Behal, Rana (2013): Coolies, Recruiters and Planters: Migration of Indian Labour to the Southeast Asian and Assam Plantations during Colonial Rule. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 9.

 Wenzel, Christoph (2013): Being a Muhajir in Present-Day Afghanistan – Views on Flight and Migration from Inside. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 10.

 Benz, Andreas (2013): How Migrants Made Their Way: The Role of Pioneering Migrants and Solidarity Networks of the Wakhi of Gojal (Northern Pakistan) in Shaping the Dynamics of Eural-Urban Migration. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 11.

 Ismailbekova, Aksana (2013): Migration and Patrilineal Descent: the Effects of Spatial Male Mobility on Social Female Mobility in Rural Kyrgyzstan. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 12.

 Boboyorov, Hafiz (2013): The Ontological Sources of Political Stability and Economy: Mahalla Mediation in the Rural Communities of Southern Tajikistan. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 13.

 Spooner, Brian (2013): Investment and Translocality. Recontextualizing the Baloch in Islamic and Global History. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 14.

 Mielke, Katja & Anna-Katharina Hornidge (2014): Crossroads Studies: From Spatial Containers to Interactions in Differentiated Spatialities. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 15.

 Hill, Joe (2014): Irrigation practices, irrigation development interventions, and local politics: Re-thinking the role of place over time in a village in Baltistan, in the central Karakorum. In: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series, No. 16.

C r ossr oads Asi a C o nc e pt Pap er s

 Working Group Conflict (2012): Conflict Research on Crossroads Asia – A Conceptual Approach. In: Crossroads Asia Concept Paper Series, No. 1.

 Working Group Development (2012): Development at the Crossroads. Development Research on Crossroads Asia – A Conceptual Approach. In: Crossroads Asia Concept Paper Series, No. 2.

 Working Group Migration (2012): Crossroads Asia through the Lens of Mobility and Migration – A Conceptual Approach. In: Crossroads Asia Concept Paper Series, No. 3.