In the previous chapters we looked at the foundational texts of the Tablighi Jama’at as well as the locally produced vernacular literature of the movement. Now we shall turn to the personal microbiographies of the Tablighis themselves, focusing in particular on the stories they tell of themselves and to themselves – which may help us in our attempt to understand what may be termed the Tablighi mindset. Labouring still along the path set by Quine and his notion of radical translation of the language of the Other, I will extend the scope of my enquiry beyond the written to the spoken word.

The Tablighis are, obviously, Muslims – but they also happen to be Tablighi Muslims, which means that they belong to a particular community set against the broader context of the wider Muslim community as a whole. Though it would be hard to dispute the Tablighis’ claim that they belong firmly within the fold of orthodox Islam and that they are not a cult or sect by any stretch of the imagination, we still need to account for how and why ordinary Muslims choose to abandon their former lives in order to gain membership to this rather select fraternity. My focus in this chapter will be the conversion narratives of the Tablighis, by means of which I hope to understand the internal workings of the Tablighi Jama’at as well.

In the course of my field research, I have come across a wide variety of conversion narratives among members of the Tablighi who reside throughout Southeast Asia. Earlier I argued that the discursive economy of the Tablighi should be seen as a system with its own set of rules of meaning. The discourse of the Tablighi is in some respects self-referential and distinguishes itself from others by way of the discursive strategies – of identity construction, boundary marking, exteriorisation of difference and denial of alterity – that can be found in other minority discourses as well.