Why was the Londoner, Richard Reid (alias “Abdel Rahim”) on board the American Airlines flight N° 63 from Paris to Miami, in December, 2003, ready to set off the explosive fuses hidden in his shoes? And still again, why was it that Mohammed Aouzar, a former Moroccan plumber, grown-up in the Turin hinterland , ended up in Cuba, in the special goal of Guantanamo, after a “passage” through the “usual” Mazar-i-Sharif?
The answers are various.
We can imagine that “ Taliban Johnny”, Catholic by birth, with a Buddhist mother, pursues in Islam, “the rediscovery of the sacred”, a choice of an alternative way of life, or we might say, the radical-chic way of life, preferring to football, the biography of Malcolm X (the American leader of the black people, turned Moslem) and the travels to Yemen, Pakistan and, as a last stop, Afghanistan.
Why was the Londoner, Richard Reid (alias “Abdel Rahim”) on board the American Airlines flight N° 63 from Paris to Miami, in December, 2003, ready to set off the explosive fuses hidden in his shoes? And still again, why was it that Mohammed Aouzar, a former Moroccan plumber, grown-up in the Turin hinterland , ended up in Cuba, in the special goal of Guantanamo, after a “passage” through the “usual” Mazar-i-Sharif?
The answers are various.
We can imagine that “ Taliban Johnny”, Catholic by birth, with a Buddhist mother, pursues in Islam, “the rediscovery of the sacred”, a choice of an alternative way of life, or we might say, the radical-chic way of life, preferring to football, the biography of Malcolm X (the American leader of the black people, turned Moslem) and the travels to Yemen, Pakistan and, as a last stop, Afghanistan.
We can also suppose that Richard Reid started to take interest in Islam in the London Feltham reformatory to ‘redeem’ himself for a life of robbery and petty crime; and finally, that the Moroccan from Turin, Mohammed, desired to return to the past, in search of that ‘true’ Islamic identity, which tends to be suffocated when one leaves a country of origin.
Yet, in these stories, with such different cultural and social backgrounds, there is something in common, the weight of which had not been marginal in the choice of these three young people to become Islamic, or in the case of the Moroccan, to go back to Islam. In other words, to be ‘born again’, at whatever cost; to break with their past, with their families and embrace Islamic radicalism in the context, or as a consequence, of a religious rebirth.
This ‘something’ which is adaptable to all situations, from the American campuses, the reformatories to the city suburbs, is called Tabligh Eddawa and it is a world-wide network of itinerant missionaries, dedicated to convert non-believers or re-convert ‘fallen’ Moslems, to the Islamic faith. These were the people with whom John, Richard and Mohammed entered into contact.
To understand the importance of Tabligh Eddawa, an Islamic movement which professes to be “non political”, we will have to go back three quarters of a century.
At the end of the 20’s, during the period of maximum expansion of the colonial empires, on the ashes of the Ottoman empire , by the side of the parties that claim independence, two ‘born again’ religious movements are formed; both with the firm intention of bringing back to the righteous path, those Moslems who have been corrupted by secularity, western materialism, together with the process of cultural suffocation under European domination.
The Moslem Brothers Association (Gam’iyyat-al-ikhwan al muslimin), founded in Egypt in 1928, believed that this target could be reached by means of a “re-Islamization from above”, gaining political power in one way or another, according to a line of thought which has been inherited and is even more radicalized by the present day Islamic extremist groups, which put the “jihad” as a first priority and the overthrow of apostate Moslem governments.
On the contrary, the Tabligh Eddawa association – or more exactly, Tablighi Jama’at (Propaganda Society) – formed in British India one year before, believed that the healthy restoration of the society should pass through a moral and religious reformation of individuals, by a process or “ re-Islamization from below”, destined to involve the masses at all levels.
Turning towards the poorer and illiterate classes, (i.e. the ‘alaf’, meaning ’grass’ as a synonym for ‘modest creature’) – without excluding the cultured and intellectual classes, (i.e. the ‘ashraf’, meaning the ‘nobles’) – the movement manages to effectively synthesize and export the influence of two Indo-Pakistan currents of the middle 19th century which, up to the present day, have marked the evolution of Islam: the Barelwi, of a mystic and folk character, and the Deobandi – which became better known to us, after the 11th of September, as the doctrine inspired by the Afghan Taliban – dogmatic and puritanical, committed to codify in the Koran schools (madras), the authentic Islamic behaviour
Strong in their declared non-political stance, the Tabligh profile is more discreet compared to that of the Moslem Brothers, but the intention, based on a sort of ‘philosophical religious propaganda’ of a more authentic Islam, is of those who look and arrive far into time and space, who truly pursue a revolution of conscience, slowly and without noise, making the jihad part of their inner being.
The first steps, of what will become the greatest Islamic trans-regional and trans-national network, are made by the Tabligh founder, Mawlana Muhammed Ilyas, a mystic Moslem scholar. Through the call and style of a ritual life, characterized by meditation and the teachings of Mohammed, he intended to restore enthusiasm to the Moslem faith of the Indian sub-continent, which had been weakened by British domination, and further, by the demographic weight of the hindù majority and by the strong push of the Jesuit and protestant missionary groups. Against the polytheism of the Bedouins, the ‘Byzantine’ mentality of the Christian religion and the scarce equalitarian nature of the Zoroastrian belief, diffused in the near Persia, the message of Tabligh, simple and intense, seemed to work.
In the period between the two wars, the missionary activity (da’wa) starts to put down roots, to expand, progressively, into the Moslem countries in the 1940’s and between the 50’s and 60’s into the more industrialized countries (the United States, Canada and Japan) to reach, through the many paths of emigration, Europe (including Italy), where it is having now a phase of accentuated dynamic activity.
From Mosque to Mosque, from one ‘Moslem’ district to another, in the metropolitan suburbs, using the ‘door to door’ system – like the ‘Jehovah’s witnesses’ – the Tabligh missionaries explain that the original nationality or the ethnic culture does not establish who is, or who is not, a Muslim, while it is the daily ritual of prayers and rules of behaviour which define the Islamic identity and preserves it from the temptations of the western society and from the contamination of ‘non-Islam’.
It was not by chance that, in France, - where the main European missionary centre has its headquarters, at the Parisian ‘al Rahama’ Mosque of Seine-Saint-Denis – the movement was officially registered as ‘Foi et Pratique’ (Faith and Practice).
We can easily recognize the ‘Allah’s witnesses’ by their aspect and their ‘Taliban-like’ clothes. They move, periodically, in small mixed groups (with a high percentage of Moroccans), according to a schedule and with targets prefixed by the management and guided by elements indoctrinated at the world missionary centre ‘Nisam Eddin’ of Reiwand, in Pakistan. On their pilgrimages, the missionaries carry with them a book of sayings (‘Ahadith’) by the Prophet, written by Imam Nawawi in the 7th century and entitled “THE GARDEN OF THE PIOUS BELIEVERS”, which constitutes a sort of ‘instruction manual’ of Tabligh orthodoxy.

This book contains indications of how the ‘pious believer’ should dress, nourish himself, behave in this or that situation, to imitate Mohammed to a perfection which borders on mimicry, keeping the beard to a given length and wearing, in the manner of the Prophet, the white cap and the jallabah or gandouras, a floating robe which shall not reach the ankles, because the Prophet said that to allow clothes to touch the ground is a sign of arrogance.
The core of the Tabligh preachings is to offer to the new proselytes – Moslems or converts who question their faith or identity – an anchor of salvation from delinquency, racism, social exclusion and even alcoholism and a way to regain their lost dignity through a gradual path of affiliation which coincides with the metamorphosis of the individual.
From a life of disorder with no points of reference, the aspiring Tabligh acquires a progressive devoutness which transforms him into a religious convict or a ‘praying machine’. In this crucial moment, he talks only of Allah, Paradise and Hell. His beard gets longer according to the detachment that he feels towards the world that surrounds him, while he devotes himself to fasts and alternates spiritual retreats with the pilgrimages around the world, wherever the missionary network will take him - from the United States to China, from South Africa to Bangladesh where the annual festivities of ‘Biswa Ijtema’ - draws masses of the faithful from every nationality.

Naturally, the swing towards terrorism by some militants is not automatic with the Tabligh affiliation and, to avoid any ambiguity, the leaders of the movement do not miss an occasion to declare themselves foreign to the use of violence. To the contrary, the radical Islamic formations of the salafite matrix (the etymology of ‘al-salaf al salih’ means: pious ancestor) aspire to a return to the original Islam and to the foundation of an Islamic state on the model of Caliphates, also through an armed struggle.
However, the sect character of the Tabligh, with the continuous brain washing on the necessity to trace a rigid line between the true religion (‘din’) and impiety (‘kufr’), can generate, within the immigrated communities, an attitude of closure towards the host countries and can slow down the process of integration. It is a form of communitarian neo-fundamentalism which adapts itself well to the needs of a globalized Umma, leaving aside the individual reality.
Nevertheless, the major risk is that the refusal of any western ‘contamination’, for both ethical-religious reasons, and the sense of the ‘interior jihad’ can be exploited by the Islamic terrorist network as a basis to induce the most psychologically fragile and impressionable subjects towards the ranks of the militant jihad, tout court to redeem a feeling of personal or social uneasiness.

From this point of view, the missionary network, for the capillary nature and fluidity of its multi-ethnic ties, can lay itself open to infiltration attempts or interference by jihadist formations and could be, not only, a vehicle for the selection and recruiting of moujaheddins - even better, if converted and of western nationality – but also as an ad hoc coverage for movement, (for example, as a good way of obtaining visas) as well as the activities of financing and of logistic support. By way of illustration, in the Spring of 2001, Kamal Derwish – an Al Qaeda member, killed in Yemen, a year later – had recruited six Yemenite Americans of Lackawanna (New York), for training in Afghanistan. The group – condemned for terrorism on their return to the United States – had declared to be directed for Pakistan, to study Islam with the Tabligh. As one can imagine, from the Pakistani Koran madras to the ‘smoking’ Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, it was but a short step.