Tablighi Jamaat in Mewat-2: Maulana Ismail and the Meos, the Makatib Experiment and the Method of Tabligh
By Yoginder Sikand
Even though the
Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) as we know it today took off in Mewat only in the
late 1920s under Maulana Ilyas, it was actually the Maulana's father,
Maulana Muhammad Ismail (d.1898), who first made contact with the Meos.
Ismail came from a family of Siddiqui Shaikhs of Jhanjhana in the
Muzaffarnagar district of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). This
family, which claimed descent from Abu Bakr, the first Khalifa, of the
Sunnis, had for generations been renowned for its piety. Ismail is said
to have been a very learned and pious Islamic scholar. So deeply
engrossed in his spiritual quest was he that it is reported that he
would often go for days on end without any food, forgetting that as a
result his own little children had to remain hungry (Ferozepuri
n.d.c:6). In Tablighi hagiography he is even credited with having
possessed certain miraculous mystical powers, besides having been
vehemently opposed to the British for having dispossessed the Muslims of
political power (Baliyavi n.d.:38-39).
Ismail is said to have
been the heir to a vast estate in Jhanjhana. According to one source,
besides 4,000 Bighas of agricultural land, he owned over 400 houses, all
of which he had given out on rent. However, he is said to have
completely renounced his wealth and taken up residence in a
semi-abandoned mosque, the Bangle Wali Masjid in Delhi's Basti
Nizamuddin, which today serves as the global headquarters of the TJ. It
is said that when Ismail first got to Basti Nizamuddin, he found to his
consternation that he had no one else to join him in a jama'at for
congregational prayers. He did not give up hope, however, and went out
onto the main road, hoping to find some fellow-Muslims. Just then, a
small group of people, who, from their external appearance, seemed to be
non-Muslims, passed by. Seeing them, Ismail called out to them, asking
them who they were. In reply, they said they were Muslim Meos from
Gurgaon, and that, owing to a severe famine in their part of the
country, they were heading towards Delhi in search of work.
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