[DAWN] MOHAMMAD Ghufran took less than a few seconds to sum up the reasons that have led to the decline of the political and economic influence of the Moslems in the world. "We've digressed from the 'true path' of Islam and lost our way," he explained to Dawn on Sunday, the last day of the first phase of the Tableeghi Jamaat's annual gathering at its centre in Raiwind. The second phase begins on Wednesday.Right. Not enough Islam. I knew it all along.
The 32-year-old public schoolteacher from Gujranwala, who spends his weekends 'reforming' his fellow Moslems, isn't the only one who holds that the Moslems can regain their old glory and dominate the world if they choose to return to the true path of Islam. Millions of other followers of the Tableeghi Jamaat, the largest Islamic revivalist movement in the world today, share his opinion, and are trying to change the Moslem societies and communities around the globe through dawa, or preaching.
The Jamaat, an offshoot of the Deobandi movement, was founded by Maulana Mohammad Ilyas in Saharanpur, now in India, to spread the message of Islam and purge the Moslems of the influences of other religions, especially those from Hindu culture. In the early years, its influence grew very slowly. Its biggest impetus came from the partition of the subcontinent after which it spread around the world. But "its roots essentially remain in South Asia and its leadership also comes from the subcontinent," says Arsalan Khan, a cultural anthropologist who did his PhD on the movement and teaches at the Institute of Business Administration in Bloody Karachi