Islam, Youth, and Modernity in the Gambia
The Tablighi Jama'at

This monograph explores the expansion of the Tablighi Jama'at, a transnational Islamic missionary movement that originated in India in the mid-nineteenth century.

Marloes Janson (Author)

9781107040571, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 October 2013

320 pages, 11 b/w illus. 1 map
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.57 kg

'Marloes Janson has written a particularly rich and thought-provoking ethnography of the Tablighi Movement in Gambia.' R. Launay, Contemporary Islam

This monograph deals with the sweeping emergence of the Tablighi Jama'at - a transnational Islamic missionary movement that has its origins in the reformist tradition that emerged in India in the mid-nineteenth century - in the Gambia in the past decade. It explores how a movement that originated in South Asia could appeal to the local Muslim population - youth and women in particular - in a West African setting. By recording the biographical narratives of five Gambian Tablighis, the book provides an understanding of the ambiguities and contradictions young people are confronted with in their (re)negotiation of Muslim identity. Together these narratives form a picture of how Gambian youth go about their lives within the framework of neoliberal reforms and renegotiated parameters informed by the Tablighi model of how to be a 'true' Muslim, which is interpreted as a believer who is able to reconcile his or her faith with a modern lifestyle.

1. 'Life is a test, the hereafter is the best'
2. 'Welcome to the smiling coast': Muslim politics in the Gambia
3. The global meeting the local: the Tablighi Jama'at contextualized
4. Back to the ghetto
5. A jihad for purity
6. Learning to be a good Muslim woman
7. Male wives and female husbands
8. Hungry for knowledge
9. 'Muslims are sleeping and we have to wake them up'.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Gender studies, gender groups [JFSJ], Islam [HRH]