Congregation of Tablighi Jama’at During the Pandemic COVID-19 and Its Agenda in India and Indonesia

Abstract

Recently, the national and international media have cast Tablighi Jama’at (TJ)’s image and its members as the potential vectors for spreading the COVID-19 coronavirus globally. The media coverage also became significant as the TJ cast off the government’s advice to adjourn the congregation organized during the initial stage of spreading the virus in India, Indonesia and Malaysia and instead decried the government for interfering in its religious meetings and practices. The article discusses its ideological roots in various Islamic revivalist movements and activities inspired by pan-Islamic trends. TJ and its dogmatic ideological base are responsible for re-Islamizing a large section of lower and lower-middle-class Muslims. TJ calls for fellow Muslims to follow the puritanical form of Islamic practices to establish an Islamic state based on Sharia. The article also highlights that TJ’s conscious racial ghettoization efforts have resulted in an anomalous society, jeopardizing social harmony.