With so much government attention and money flowing into defending civilisation against terrorism, it’s not surprising that there has arisen a group of “terror experts”. These people repeatedly pop up on television benefiting humanity with their sagely pronouncements on this or that terrorist group, threat or issue. One such figure is Sajjan Gohel who works for the Asia-Pacific Foundation, headed up by his dad. Gohel recently appeared on the ABC’s Lateline and made a startling claim about the Tablighi Jamaat, a group familiar to most Muslims.
He begins by raising the question as to whether the London doctors accused of terrorism might have links to the Tablighi Jamaat because a few other unconnected people involved in unrelated incidents may have had connections to the group:
Many Britons that have taken part in terrorist attacks like the 7/7 bombers, were part of the Tablighi Jamaat. Others like Richard Reid the shoe bomber, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was behind the killing of Daniel Pearl the US journalist. All of these individuals were tied to this particular group, so we know that there’s a family connection. The question is whether there is further involvement within different members of the Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed family.
“But Tablighi Jamaat is not a proscribed terrorist organisation on any list?”, asks the interviewer.
SAJJAN GOHEL: It’s not a banned group. It’s an Islamic sect that harbours a very rigid, extremist interpretation of the religion. It seeks to create the caliphate, the Islamic superstate. It’s widely active throughout Europe. It has widespread membership in fact, particularly in the UK and in France. What’s interesting is that French intelligence officials had purported that over the last few years something like 85 per cent of the people they’ve arrested in relation to terrorism events – not necessarily charged – but connected to them were members of the Tablighi Jamaat.
There are more than a few misconceptions in this statement.
Firstly, the Tablighi Jamaat is not really an “Islamic sect”. Tablighis from India believe and behave as do other Indian Muslims; and Tablighis from the Gulf tend to hold similar ideological views to other Gulf Arabs. The only unifying quality is that they believe the religion should be propogated in a certain way. There is no such thing as a Tablighi ideology and given the ideological heterogeneity of its members, it is nonsensical to describe the movement as an “Islamic sect”.
Secondly, Gohel says it is a “very rigid, extremist interpretation of the religion.” This is again incorrect. There is no such thing as a Tabligh interpretation of the religion because, as we have mentioned, the movement does not enforce a particular set of beliefs or a particular interpretation of jurisprudence or exegesis. Although all Tablighis may subscribe to a particular set of ideas about how Islam should be propagated amongst Muslims, the group does not demand that its members subscribe to a defined doctrine.
Third, he claims the Tablighi Jamaat is struggling to establish an Islamic superstate. Again, this is nonsensical. The group is one of the most apolitical groups in the Muslim community — much to the chagrin, it might be said, of other Muslim groups — and rarely address any political issue in their sermons or writings. The idea that this is their raison d’etre is completely detached from reality and one wonders whether he hasn’t somehow got his groups confused and mistaken Tablighi Jamaat for Hizb ut-Tahreer.
Fourth, he says that French intelligence — and, please, no nasty jokes about oxymorons, etc — claim that 85% of terrorists had “connections” to the Tablighi Jamaat. Assuming this is correct, then that might be because 85% of Muslim males have had some involvement with the group. This is because they are one of the most widespread, most active and appeal to a broad spectrum of Sunni Muslims. I suspect there are few practicing Muslim males who have not had some contact with the group so it is hardly surprising that terrorists are as representative as everyone else of the cohort from which they are drawn.
7 comments ↓
It comes as no surprise that some of the suicide bombers who lived in Dewsbury had connections with Tablighi – it would be impossible not to when you live in the same town as Tablighi’s European HQ (although to call it an “HQ” implies a centralization of organisation which in fact Tablighi doesn’t possess).
Mosques that actually define themselves as Tablighi abound in the county in which Dewsbury is located (my home county, West Yorkshire). However, Tablighi here is not uncommon in that is ’sectarian’ stance is generally the same as that of it’s founder, Muhammad Ilyas, which is Deobandi.
Finally, far from demanding Caliphates, most Tablighi I have met are other-wordly and conservative, berating the distractions of Dunya. Indeed, when news team asked to film in the Dewsbury madrassa, they were refused because some scholars there still denounce televisual representations. Jihadis are generally quite modernist in their attitude towards new technologies.
I couldn’t believe the inaccuracies in that episode of Dateline by this Gohel guy.
But nothing suprises anymore. They failed to note that this same Jamat has been living peacefully in Australia since the late 60’s early 70’s-well before 9/11.
The way things are reported nowadays you won’t be able to attend your local Jumah prayer because it implicates you are part of the Muslim community!
I dunno, I think tablighs have been known to bore people to death. Could this be the latest strategy in Islamic terrorism?
According to a survey I just made up 95% of Muslim terrorists have drunk Coca-Cola at some point in their lives. I think we should move to ban Coca-Cola, the real root cause of terrorism.
Amir
What do the Tablighis stand for then?
I understand that most of the Pakistani cricket team are Tablighi Muslims. Is this right?
Amir what do you expect from a “news” industry that spawned Rupert Murdoch? (And by the way, thanks for foisting him on our fair country.) Our news industry is also chock-a-block these so-called experts. It’s all about keeping the drooling masses glued to the Telly. On this side of the big blue Rupert’s other T.V. station, Fox News (or as we love to call it Faux Noise) had a bit about lesbian gang-bangers. I kid you not! Fox Noise’s “expert” ? the station’s security guard. Us progressives had a field-day holding Mr. Murdoch’s “news” channel to ridicule. Fox had to drop the story since it was made of whole cloth.
Not that Fox has learned anything. It keeps putting out the same tired NeoCon talking points, made by the same tired “experts”, spewing the same tired old lies.
This ABC expert is in the same league as Richard Perl et al. It is the same arrogant collection of know-it-alls who whispered sweet nothings into Dick Cheney’s ear. But they will get air time because they say outrageous things. That will drum up viewership. It will keep those eyes glued to the screen. That is what it is all about these days, making sure the unwashed masses don’t change the channel; got to make sure they stay tuned to watch the Vegemite commercials.
Well my dear fellow muslim brethren, it’s high time we give some serious thought about the news report.
we should never forget that inorder to deceive someone it is extremely important to be one of his most trusted.We only get deceived by those whom we trust, for it would be foolish to be deceived by open enemy. First of all, most of muslim ummah has no fundamental understanding of Islam at all, and when we donot have sound knowledge of fundamentals of Islam how can we know of unislamic ideologies hidden under guise of Islam.
There is fair bit of reality in what Gohel says. wake up oh! Muslims from slumber of misunderstandings, in world where what you see is not what it is in reality.
Or else we would be in great loss in this world and hereafter for negligence and lacking in understanding of the religion taught by Prophet Mohammed SAWS, when every fine detail of the religion was explained by prophet and is preserved forever, we donot have to be defenders of false ideologies and propagators.
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