I end this book by revisiting the beginning. During my last visit to the humble Tablighi markaz in the town of Jogjakarta, Central Java, I encountered a small delegation of Tablighis who had arrived from their khuruj further afield. Among the new arrivals was a young man who clearly seemed out of place, and did not look the part: he was clad in tight jeans, wore a heavy metal T-shirt, had no skullcap on his head and did not sport a beard or a moustache. Instead, the expression that he wore on his face seemed to say: ‘What on earth is this, and what have I gotten myself into?’

The encounter was a sentimental one for me, for it reminded me of my own confusion and uncertainty many, many years ago, when I found myself under the care of Brother Bismillah at the Tablighi markaz of Dewsbury. Then, like now, the question had to be asked: What on earth is the Tablighi?

The Tablighi Jama’at is a mass movement of itinerant missionaries who walk the earth, literally, in their quest to become better Muslims. And in the course of their earthly labours, they encounter real obstacles such as states and governments that are wary of people who walk around too much and too freely. As we have argued in the previous chapter, the Tablighis inhabit the same world as we do, and they live in the here and now of the global war on terror. Their image has been shaped by contemporary concerns since the very beginning, and as such their identity is one that is also necessarily diachronic and historically determined. Try as they might to exit the world, they cannot help but have to deal with the world, for it is there that their commitment is tested.