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| India-Pakistan |
| Background of Tablighi Jamaat |
| 2003-09-08 |
| This paper deals with the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), which is the mother of all the Pakistan-based jehadi organisations active not only in the CARs, Chechnya and Dagestan, but also in other parts of the world. In an investigative report carried by the "News" (February 13,1995), Mr. Kamran Khan, the well-known Pakistani journalist, brought to light for the first time the nexus between the TJ and the HUM and their role in supporting Islamic extremist movements in different countries. He quoted unidentified office-bearers of the HUM as saying as follows: "Ours is basically a Sunni organisation close to the Deobandi school of thought. Our people are mostly impressed by the TJ. Most of our workers do come from the TJ. We regularly go to its annual meeting at Raiwind. Ours is a truly international network of genuine jehadi Muslims. We believe frontiers can never divide Muslims. They are one nation. They will remain a single entity. We try to go wherever our Muslim brothers are terrorised, without any monetary consideration. Our colleagues went and fought against oppressors in Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Burma, the Philippines and, of course, India. Although Pakistani members are not participating directly in anti-Government armed resistance in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Jordan, many of the fighters in those Arab States had remained our colleagues during the Afghan war and we know one another very well. We are doing whatever we can to help them install Islamic governments in those States." The February 1998, issue of the "Newsline", a monthly of Pakistan, quoted workers of the TJ as saying that the TJ had many offices in the US, Russia, the Central Asian Republics, South Africa, Australia and France and that many members of the Chechen Cabinet, including the Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya, were workers of the TJ and participated in its proselytising activities. One of them, merely identified as Khalil, said: "It is possible that France may become a Muslim state within my lifetime, due to the great momentum of Tablighi activity there." Dr.Jassim Taqui, an Islamic scholar, wrote in the "Frontier Post" of Peshawar of January 15, 1999, as follows: * The TJ has been able to establish contacts and centres throughout the Muslim world. * It has thousands of dedicated and disciplined workers who never question any order from the high-ups. What has helped the TJ to expand (without creating alarm in the security agencies) is its policy of a deliberate black-out of its activities. It does not interact with the media and does not issue any statements or communiques. It believes in human communication through word of mouth. * During its training classes, it claims to have frustrated the efforts of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to penetrate it and succeeded in converting the CIA agents to Islam. * The TJ claims that it never accepts money from anybody and that all its workers who volunteer to go on preaching mission have to spend their own money. * Even though the TJ claims to be apolitical and disinterested in political or administrative influence, many of its active members have come to occupy important positions. Examples are Lt.Gen. (retd) Javed Nasir, who was the DG of the ISI during Mr.Nawaz Sharif’s first tenure as the Prime Minister, and Mr.Mohammad Rafique Tarar, the former President of Pakistan, who has been an active worker of the TJ for many years. In September-October, 1995, the Pakistani army, acting on a tip-off from the then Maj.Gen.Ali Quli Khan Khattak, who was then the Director-General of Military Intelligence and who was subsequently superseded by Mr.Sharif in October, 1998, and forced into retirement, arrested a group of 36 army officers and 20 civilians led by Maj.Gen. Zaheerul Islam Abbasi on a charge of plotting, in association with the TJ and the HUM, to have Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, the then Prime Minister, and senior army officers killed and proclaim the formation of an Islamic state. Amongst the organisations in the USA with which the TJ is closely associated are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA).The President of the ISNA is Sheikh Abdullah Idris Ali, an American immigrant of Sudanese origin, who is also the Pesh Imam and Khatib of a mosque in New York. The annual convention of the ISNA held at Columbus, Ohio, from September 11, 1995, was addressed, amongst others, by Mr.Hamza Yusuf, an American citizen of Greek origin, who, after embracing Islam, had lived for six years in Mauritania to study Islam and then work as a TJ preacher, Mr. Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, the famous pop singer, who embraced Islam after coming into contact with the TJ in Pakistan, Dr.Saghir of Algeria, and Dr.Israr Ahmed, the Amir of the Tanzeem Islami of Pakistan and a worker of the TJ. Addressing the convention, Dr. Israr Ahmed said: "The process of the revival of Islam in different parts of the world is real. A final show-down between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which has been captured by the Jews, would soon take place. The Gulf war was just a rehearsal for the coming conflict." He appealed to the Muslims of the world, including those in the USA, to prepare themselves for the coming conflict. In its preachings to the Pakistani immigrants in the US, the TJ has been stressing the importance of cultivating the African-American Muslims in order to counter the lobbying power of the Hindus and the Jewish people. The HUM, which works in tandem with the TJ, has been training African-American Muslims from the US in its training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Writing in the "Dawn" of January 12,1996, Mr. Ghani Eirabie said: " The Ummah must remember that winning over the black Muslims is not only a religious obligation, but also a selfish necessity. The votes of the black Muslims can give the immigrant Muslims the political clout they need at every stage to protect their vital interests. Likewise, outside Muslim states like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Pakistan need to mobilise their effort, money and missionary skills to expand and consolidate the black Muslim community in the USA, not only for religious reasons, but also as a far-sighted investment in the black Muslims’ immense potential as a credible lobby for Muslim causes, such as Palestine, Bosnia or Kashmir--offsetting, at least partially, the venal influence of the powerful India-Israel lobby." Since Pakistani Government service conduct rules do not prohibit serving Government servants from participating in the activities of the TJ, after his appointment by Mr.Sharif as the DG of the ISI, Lt.Gen.Nasir continued to function simultaneously as Adviser to the TJ and, after his removal from the ISI under US pressure in 1993, he took over as the full-time leader of the TJ. It was during his tenure as the DG of the ISI that Lt.Gen.Nasir, in his capacity as Adviser to TJ, drew up the plans for the revival of Islam in the CARs, Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia and Xinjiang in China with the help of the TJ workers and funds from Saudi Arabia. A large number of Pakistani, Saudi and Jordanian workers of the TJ were sent on preaching and proselytising missions to these countries and recruits for clerical posts in these countries were brought to Pakistan for training in Islamic religious practices. Simultaneously, they were also given arms training in the camps of the HUM and the Lashkar in Pakistan and Afghanistan. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #1 I wonder how prevalent these guys are throughout the ISI and even the Nation of Islam. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-8 7:54:12 AM |