¹ Ali, J., Islamic Revivalism Encounters the Modern World: A Study of the Tabligh Jama‘at, Sterling, New Delhi, 2012, p. 1Google Scholar.

² Da'wah is an Arabic word meaning ‘invitation’ or ‘summons’, and it appears in the Qur'an to describe Allah's call to prophets or humanity in general to spread and practise his religion. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some Islamic revivalists (including, but not exclusively, Tabligh Jama‘at) began to interpret da'wah as a duty of all Muslims to teach Islamic faith and encourage devotion among fellow Muslims. In Egypt, China, and probably elsewhere, the term also encompasses a variety of educational and social welfare activities targeting Muslims in need (Mahmood, S., Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005, pp. 57–8Google Scholar).

³ Tablighis in other countries often travel abroad, especially to the movement's headquarters in India, but most Chinese Muslims find acquiring passports and visas to be prohibitively difficult and expensive.

⁴ Noor, Islam on the Move, p. 19.

⁵ Ibid., p. 166.

⁶ Ibid., p. 163.

⁷ Alexiev, A., ‘Tabligh Jamaat: Jihad's stealthy legions’, Middle East Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1, 2005, pp. 3–11Google Scholar; F. Burton and S. Stewart, ‘Tabligh Jamaat: an indirect line to terrorism’, Security Weekly, 23 January 2008, https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/tablighi_jamaat_indirect_line_terrorism, [accessed 8 November 2017]; W. Langley, R. Nikkhah, J. Orr, D. Bamber, and M. Ansari, ‘Army of darkness’, The Telegraph, 20 August 2006.

⁸ Alexiev, ‘Tabligh Jamaat’; Burton and Stewart, ‘Tabligh Jamaat’; Langley et al., ‘Army of darkness’.

⁹ Ali, J., ‘Islamic revivalism: the case of Tabligh Jamaat’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, vol. 23, no. 1, 2003, pp. 173–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dickson, R., ‘The Tabligh Jama‘at in southwest Ontario: making Muslim identities and networks in Canadian urban spaces’, Contemporary Islam, vol. 3, 2009, pp. 99–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Horstmann, A., ‘The inculturation of a transnational Islamic missionary movement: Tabligh Jamaat al-Dawa and Muslim society in southern Thailand’, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, vol. 22, no. 1, 2007, pp. 107–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Janson, ‘“We don't despair, since we know that Islam is the truth”’: new expressions of religiosity in young adherents of the Tabligh Jama‘at in the Gambia’, Youth and the Global South: Religion and the Making of Youth in Africa Asia and the Middle East conference, Dakar, 13–15 October 2006; Noor, Islam on the Move; M. Tozy, ‘Sequences of a quest: Tabligh Jama‘at in Morocco’, trans. Masud, M. K., in Travelers in Faith: Studies of the Tabligh Jama‘at as a Transnational Movement for Faith Renewal, Masud, M. K. (ed.), Brill, Boston, 2000, pp. 161–73Google Scholar; Sikand, Y., ‘The Tabligh Jama‘at and politics: a critical reappraisal’, The Muslim World, vol. 96, 2006, pp. 175–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Alexiev, ‘Tabligh Jamaat’; Langley et al., ‘Army of darkness’.

¹¹ This Sunni Hanafi revivalist school of thought named for a city in north India formed after the failed 1857 Mutiny Uprising against British colonists. The founding Indian scholars sought to reverse the decline of Islam by building madrasas, placing new emphasis on the scriptural basis of religion, and promoting a constrained Sufism that opposed many Sufi practices.

¹² This term means ‘remembrance of Allah’ and it can include the recitation of numerous Arabic phrases praising Allah, which are usually repeated over and over and sometimes counted on beads or electronic counters.

¹³ Tozy, ‘Sequences of a quest’, p. 171.

¹⁴ Ali, Islamic Revivalism, pp. 294–5.

¹⁵ Dickson, ‘The Tabligh Jama‘at’, p. 111.

¹⁶ Simon, G., ‘The soul freed of cares? Islamic prayer, subjectivity, and the contradictions of moral selfhood in Minangkabau, Indonesia’, American Ethnologist, vol. 36, no. 2, 2009, pp. 258–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ See Gaubatz, P., ‘Mosques and markets: traditional urban form on China's northwest frontiers’, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, vol. 9, no. 2, 2002Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Built in 1038, this is the oldest and largest mosque in Xining that draws tens of thousands of worshippers each Friday and hundreds of thousands on Islamic holidays. Most of these are adherents of the Yihewani sect. Adherents of sects with a longer history in China and the more recently arrived Salafi scripturalist sect attend other mosques.

²⁰ Metcalf, B., ‘Travelers’ tales in the Tabligh Jama‘at’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, vol. 588, 2003, pp. 136–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Qian Xue Mei, ‘钱雪梅 达瓦宣教团研究’ [‘Da'wah preaching circle research’], 国际政治研究 [International Policy Research], vol. 2, 2009; Ma Qiang, ‘马强, 泰卜里厄哲玛提研究述评’ [‘Tabligh Jama‘at research review’], 世界宗教研究 [World Religions Research], vol. 2, 2012; Ma Zhi Qiang, ‘马志强, 达瓦宣教团在我国的发展及其影响’ [‘Da'wah preaching circle domestic development and influence’], Department of Anthropology, Lanzhou University, n.d.

²² Qian, ‘Da'wah preaching circle research’.

²³ Ma Qiang, ‘Tabligh Jama‘at research review’; Ma Zhi Qiang, ‘Da'wah preaching circle domestic development and influence’.

²⁴ Alles, E., Chérif-Chebbi, L., and Constance-Héle, ‘Chinese Islam: unity and fragmentation’, Religion, State and Society, vol. 31, no. 1, 2003, pp. 7–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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²⁶ Taojiang County Government (Hunan Province), 桃江县民族宗教事务2011年工作总结 [Tongjiang County Ethnic and Religious Affairs 2011 Work Summary], 18 May 2012, http://web.archive.org/web/20130414031609/http://www.taojiang.gov.cn/News/NewsDetail_20751.html, [accessed 20 October 2017].

²⁷ Shou County Government (Anhui Province), ‘寿县人大常委会:突出’六抓’ 抓出民族宗教工作新成效’ [‘Shou County People's Congress Standing Committee Promotes “Six Grabs” to Hold Out Minority Religions’ New Achievements’], posted on 中穆网 [Chinese Muslim Net], 12 January 2010, http://www.2muslim.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=162627, [originally accessed 22 August 2014, no longer available].

²⁸ I use the term ‘organizer’ instead of a term like ‘leader’ because the movement strives to maintain at least the appearance of an acephalous organization at the local level. Those deeply involved with the movement lead study sessions and facilitate jama‘ats, but they never give orders or introduce themselves as authority figures.

²⁹ Zhang Lin, Tang Dong, and Long Da, ‘马甲某聚众扰乱社会秩序二审刑事裁定书’ [‘Ma Jia Mou gathering a crowd to disturb social order appellate criminal ruling’], Judicial Opinions of China, 9 January, 2014, http://www.court.gov.cn/zgcpwsw/xj/xjwwezzqgjrmfyylhskzzzfy/xs/201401/t20140109_212484.htm, [accessed 20 October 2017].

³⁰ Tulufan Administrative Office (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region), ‘关于依法打击和整治非法宗教活动清除社会危害维护社会稳定的通告’ [‘Announcement about legally combatting and correcting illegal religious movements to eliminate social harm and protect social stability’], August 2013, http://www.xjssdj.com/list.asp?Unid=7039, [originally accessed 22 August 2014, no longer available].

³¹ For a more thorough description of China's Islamic sects and their history, see Gladney, D., ‘The Salafiyya movement in northwest China: Islamic fundamentalism among the Muslim Chinese’, in Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts, Manger, L. (ed.), Curzon Press, Surrey, 1999, pp. 102–49Google Scholar.

³² Ibid., p. 257.

³³ M. K. Masud, ‘The growth and development of the Tabligh Jama‘at in India’, in Masud, Travelers in Faith, p. 14.

³⁴ Ali, ‘Islamic revivalism’, p. 178.

³⁵ Van der Veer, P., ‘Playing or praying: a Sufi saint's day in Surat’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 51, no. 3, 1992, pp. 557–8Google Scholar.

³⁶ It is important to point out that, in spite of decrying the Sufi practice of hereditary succession, the second and third amirs were Maulana Muhammad Ilyas’ son and his sister's grandson, and his family features prominently in the council of three that leads the movement today (see Masud, ‘The growth and development’).

³⁷ Ali, Islamic Revivalism, p. 258.

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⁴¹ This is the general Tabligh procedure for walking, not specific to this activity, but certainly part of it.

⁴² Male jama‘atis only approach other males, but there are also jama‘ats for women which exclusively preach to other women.

⁴³ All Chinese Muslims have a legal Mandarin Chinese name as well as an Arabic name. Tablighis exclusively used the latter during Tablighi activities.

⁴⁴ Metcalf, ‘Living Hadith’, p. 602.

⁴⁵ The smallest number recommended for a jama‘at is four, but one of our group could not make it. After organizers spent a couple hours trying to recruit a fourth member, the three of us decided to go with just three people.

⁴⁶ Like most Chinese Muslims, these men learned not to eat pork and maybe some basic Arabic phrases as children. They probably celebrated Islamic holidays (at least when it became acceptable to do so after 1978), but they did not grow up performing prayer on a daily basis and never studied in a mosque or Islamic school.

⁴⁷ Hadith describe the prophet sleeping always on his right side with his head to the north, the right hand under the cheek, and the left hand on one's side. Before going to sleep, Tablighis perform ablution and recite specific supplications and surahs of the Qur'an. This also includes a midday nap, which Muhammad reportedly encouraged.

⁴⁸ During our stay, we met and studied with another jama‘at of nine men from Xinjiang who were staying at a nearby mosque for a few days during their 40-day trip.

⁴⁹ A heated platform bed common in northern China.

⁵⁰ These posters enumerated the Six Points of Tabligh with the benefits, methods, and motives of studying; things to pay attention to while travelling, including the ‘four don't talks’, ‘four protects’, ‘four stops’, ‘four seldoms’, ‘four oftens’, and ‘four don'ts’; four types of work for day and night; five types of work to be done in mosques; and proper etiquette for preparing to go on jama‘at, carrying out general and special visits, consultation, eating, sleeping, entering a mosque, speaking, putting on clothes, and using the restroom. Whenever possible, we would read the proper procedure aloud before each activity, and we all dutifully photographed these posters with our cell phones before we left.

⁵¹ Noor, Islam on the Move, pp. 157–8.

⁵² Janson, ‘“We don't despair”’, p. 17.

⁵³ Hollup, O., ‘Islamic revivalism and political opposition among minority Muslims in Mauritius’, Ethnology, vol. 35, no. 4, 1996, p. 297CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ Sardar, Z., Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim, Granta Books, London, 2004Google Scholar; see Dickson, ‘The Tabligh Jama‘at’.

⁵⁵ Metcalf, ‘Living Hadith’, p. 606.

⁵⁶ Ibid., p. 163.

⁵⁷ Sikand, Y., The Origins and Development of the Tabligh Jama‘at, 1920–2000: A Cross Country Comparative Study, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2002, p. 255Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Horstmann, ‘The inculturation’, p. 126.

⁵⁹ Sikand, Origins and Development, p. 255.

⁶⁰ Sikand, ‘The Tabligh Jama‘at and politics’, p. 186.

⁶¹ Bourdieu, P., The Logic of Practice, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990Google Scholar.

⁶² Mahmood, Politics of Piety.

⁶³ Ibid., pp. 136–9.

⁶⁴ Tozy, ‘Sequences of a quest’, p. 164.

⁶⁵ Ali, Islamic Revivalism, p. 218.

⁶⁶ Sikand, Origins and Development, p. 260.

⁶⁷ Horstmann, ‘The inculturation’, p. 110; Sikand, Origins and Development, p. 76.

⁶⁸ Sikand, Origins and Development, p. 76.