Preaching Islam in Modernity: Competing Forms of Religious Authority

My paper reflects on the question of who can legitimately preach Islam. Is preaching the reserve of the madrasa-trained ‘ulama, or can ordinary believers lacking any formal religious training also lay claim to it? The Tablighi Jama‘at, an early-twentieth-century Indian pietist movement of faith renewal, offers a productive vantage point for addressing this question. Founded by Ilyas Kandhlawi, an ‘alim from Delhi, the Jama‘at encouraged ordinary believers to preach Islamic ideals. The paper discusses the competing forms of religious authority where Tablighi leaders, despite being scholars, could not endorse exclusive religious authority for ‘ulama as traditionally the rightful preachers. They also espoused ordinary believers as legitimate preachers, albeit with a perplexing anxiety to control this authority by exhorting them to avoid complex Islamic thought and always seek the guidance of ‘ulama. I argue this recalibration of religious authority was the product of the anxiety of the Muslim scholarly elite to safeguard Islam in modernity.