Transregional Islamic movements in Thailand and their role in the socio-political life of the country (the case of Jama’ah Tabligh)

Abstract

The article analyzes the phenomenon of transnational Islamic movements’ expansion to Thailand, taking the case of such a transregional missionary movement as Jama’ah Tabligh. Wide-scale activities of various international Islamic movements in Thailand and their rising influence on political and social life there since the 1970s resulted in the growing complexity of the religious situation in Thailand in general and in its southern provinces in particular. The Muslim Brotherhood was the most influential among Islamic movements in Thailand in that period. Its ideological framework became the basis of the Young Muslims Association of Thailand’s activities. However, the impact of the transnational movement Jama’ah Tabligh originating from India and Salafi movements urging the clearing of Islam from local traditions on Thailand’s Muslims was also essential. Each of these movements has its own strategy of ideological expansion and its own model of social activity. Thus, new ideological constructions and cultural identities emerging from the expanding Islamic network structures originating from the Islamic reformist movements supplemented the patchwork constellation of Islamic movements historically established in Thailand in the Modern Times. These processes became most visible in Thailand’s Muslim south.