Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

90 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYSet against the armed conflict and unstable politicalsituation in the South, the poverty of Muslims and thelack of job opportunities for them, this inward religiousintensification seems to attract adherents because it isa form of escape from the difficult life in the South.In the city, the increasing number of adherents to thismovement may be explained by alienation and theloss of a sense of brotherhood or communality as theconstant bombardment by the materialist media haspushed Muslims to seek a more spiritual, peaceful andsecure life.The group that seems to have the biggest number ofadherents within this emerging movement is the Jama’ahTabligh (Community of Mission). Although this groupstill believes that there should be no separation betweenreligion and the state, its idea of an Islamic state is nolonger understood within the framework of a nationstateand the political struggle to establish it, butthrough religious intensification (Islamic awakening)and preaching (Tabligh). The more intense a person isin his religiosity and the more Filipinos are convertedto Islam through the missionary zeal of Muslim‘evangelists,’ the closer the Philippines will come tothe creation of an Islamic society. If the MILF and theMNLF are operating politically, the form of Islamicfundamentalism represented by the Tabligh is primarilya struggle in the cultural realm.Filipino Muslims’ movement: A sociologicalperspectiveThe political struggle of Filipino Muslims representedby the MILF and the MNLF and the cultural struggle ofthe Tabligh can be discussed from different sociologicalperspectives. Although the MILF and the MNLF areIslam-inspired, they share some of the assumptions ofsocial structuralist theories which consider the socialstructure, particularly the economic structure, as themost significant determinant of technical, social, andcultural change. The parallelisms between the MNLF/MILF experience and social structuralism are notsurprising. MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari’s outlook asthe founder of the MNLF (from which the MILF split)was influenced by the nationalist struggle and activismin the University of the Philippines in the 1960s.In contrast, the emerging movement represented bythe Jama’ah Tabligh more closely resembles EmileDurkheim’s interpretation of the change process.In Durkheim’s theory (Durkheim1893/1964), thesequence of transformation is from change in thecultural structure to change in the social structureand eventually to the technical structure. By culturalstructure, Durkheim means forms of collectivesentiments or social values. These sentiments are thefundamental basis of social integration and cohesion,transcending and changing the material relationshipsfound in society.The religious content of the Tabligh Islamic renewalmovement constitutes the collective sentiments that themembers of the new movement hope will eventuallychange the political and economic structure ofPhilippine society into an Islamic society. In particular,the collective sentiment based on the Islamic faith(iman) can be seen in the internal structure of theummah (Muslim community). The imam and the largercontext of the “jama’ah” or “ummah” derive from thevalue system of tawhid.Religious intensification to strengthen the iman basedon the tawhid has been continuously made by theJama’ah Tabligh. The jama’ah or ummah is a communitythat creates, internally or externally, an institutionalsystem with its own authority: the ustdaz or imamleadership within the Islamic school (ma’had) and itsstudents. This community structure evolved out of thenormative value system, which became the reference forestablishing its social institutions. On this normativelevel, the ummah is an ideal entity or an imagined realityconstituted by Islamic values. Out of the imagined idealgrew the concept of ummah wahidah (oneness of theIslamic community/society) based on the Islamic valuesystem. Once the value-based internal structure of theummah is established through the conversion of moreFilipinos to Islam, followers of Jama’ah Tabligh believethat the technical structure (the Islamic society/Islamicstate) will be formed easily and peacefully.In contrast, the Shiah community did not raise theissue of the Islamic state since this school of thought isassociated internationally with the intention to establish“God’s government” on earth through an Islamic state,following the example of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.This could be due to their position as a minority groupwithin the marginalized Muslim community in thelarger Philippine context. Key informants claim thatit is too idealistic to think of an Islamic state in thePhilippines.Similarly, members of the other group, Syabab, assertthat a greater focus on educating Filipino Muslims andpropagating Islamic teachings among non-Muslimsis more significant than an outright political strugglefor territorial control. In Quiapo, the members ofthis group have devoted themselves to education byestablishing the New Horizon Islamic School in PasigAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows