Tablighi Jamaat in Mewat-5: Succession Disputes, the Tablighi Jamaat in Mewat Today and Objections of Youth
By Yoginder Sikand
Succession Disputes
When Yusuf died of a
heart attack at Lahore in 1965, a dispute of sorts seems to have arisen
within the Tablighi Jamaat leadership as to who should succeed him as
Amir. According to one source, a certain Maulana Rahmatullah was felt by
many to be the best qualified for this post, being among the
senior-most Tablighi leaders after Yusuf. However, he was sidelined in
favour of Enam-ul Hassan, a grandson of Ilyas' sister, and like Yusuf, a
son-in-law of the chief ideologue of the Tablighi Jamaat, Muhammad
Zakariyya. This was done despite the fact that, according to a Meo
'Alim, his relations with Yusuf were far from cordial daring the
latter's lifetime (Bajhotavi 1987:3). This 'Alim maintains that Enam-ul
Hassan had been chosen to serve as Amir of the Tablighi Jamaat only for a
certain limited period, though he went on to hold the post right till
his death (ibid.:5)
While the Tablighi
Jamaat continued to expand under Enam-ul Hassan's leadership elsewhere
in India and abroad, it seems to have run into certain difficulties in
Mewat itself. Many Meos, including local Tablighi authorities
themselves, testify that since at least the 1980s, there has been a
visible slackening of the movement in Mewat. This partly has to do with
Enam-ul Hassan himself. Owing to his engagement with other matters and
to his general reserve, he is said to have been unaware of the power
conflicts that were being fought out within the top Tablighi leadership
after Yusuf s death. He is accused of having removed certain very active
and dedicated old-time and senior Tablighi leaders, including some
Meos, from the movement's global headquarters, allegedly finding them a
major challenge to his authority (ibid.:3).
It was also under
Enam-ul Hassan's Amirship that the Meo presence in the top-level
Tablighi leadership at the headquarters began to decline significantly,
with the Meos and Muslims from Uttar Pradesh being gradually replaced by
others, in particular, by Gujarati 'Ulema such as Ahmad Lath, Sulaiman
Jhanjhi, Ahmad Godhra and Umar Palanpuri. Abdullah Tariq has an
interesting explanation for this development. As the Tablighi Jamaat
began to expand across the world, he says, money and wealth became a
matter of increasing significance. Only rich Muslims, and not
impoverished Meo peasants, could afford to travel to far off countries
on long Tablighi tours or help organise massive Tablighi rallies. Even
though the movement had started to grow outside India in Yusuf s time,
Yusuf, says Tariq, 'made the rich his companions but did not let them
ride over him'. Under Enam-ul Hassan, however, Tariq claims, Yusuf s
strict principles were gradually relaxed and 'wealth began receiving
greater importance than ever before'. This, he says, worked to favour
the new, relatively wealthier Gujaratis from merchant families with
their worldwide business contacts, who were now seeking to make their
way into the central leadership of the Tablighi Jamaat, thereby leading
to a growing marginalisation of the old-time leaders from Mewat and
Uttar Pradesh. Isa Ferozepuri, a Meo disciple of Ilyas and author of
several Tablighi-type books, who was later eased out of the movement in
Enam-ul Hassan's time, also makes the same point, albeit obliquely
(Ferozepuri n.d.a: 174-76).
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