Arsalan Khan is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Arsalan Khan comes on The Pakistan Experience to discuss his book on the Tablighi Jamaat of PAkistan, "The Promise of Piety".
On this week's episode we discuss Colonialism, Religion, The Tablighi Jamaat, Maulana Tariq Jameel, TLP, Taliban, Revivalist Movements and the importance of rituals.
In The Promise of Piety, Arsalan Khan examines the zealous commitment to a distinct form of face-to-face preaching (dawat) among Pakistani Tablighis, practitioners of the transnational Islamic piety movement the Tablighi Jamaat. This group says that Muslims have abandoned their religious duties for worldly pursuits, creating a state of moral chaos apparent in the breakdown of relationships in the family, nation, and global Islamic community. Tablighis insist that this dire situation can only be remedied by drawing Muslims back to Islam through dawat, which they regard as the sacred means for spreading Islamic virtue. In a country founded in the name of Muslim identity and where Islam is ubiquitous in public life, the Tablighi claim that Pakistani Muslims have abandoned Islam is particularly striking.
The Promise of Piety shows how Tablighis constitute a distinct form of pious relationality in the ritual processes and everyday practices of dawat and how pious relationality serves as a basis for transforming domestic and public life. Khan explores both the promise and limits of the Tablighi project of creating an Islamic moral order that can transcend the political fragmentation and violence of life in postcolonial Pakistan.
The Pakistan Experience is an independently produced podcast looking to tell stories about Pakistan through conversations.
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The podcast is hosted by comedian and writer, Shehzad Ghias Shaikh. Shehzad is a Fulbright scholar with a Masters in Theatre from Brooklyn College. He is also one of the foremost Stand-up comedians in Pakistan and frequently writes for numerous publications.
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:20 Use of Blasphemy Law in Pakistan
4:51 Colonialism, Religion and 'Evolution of Thought'
13:00 Tablighi Jamaat; Sense of Order, Ethics and Masculinity
21:30 Maulana Tariq Jameel and Hierarchies
26:00 Bidat, Islamic Reform Movement and Revivalist Movements
42:00 Is Hindutva a Revuvakust movement
43:55 Otherization and Inviting people
48:00 Ritual. Dawat and Personal Relationships
54:00 Raiwand, Building Connections and Ego
1:02:00 Deobandi School of Thought, TTP and TLP
1:14:30 Religious Populism, PTI and Imran Khan
1:25:45 Audience Questions
