UC San Diego

This study explores the anthropological study of Islam through an ethnographic analysis of the Tablighi Jama'at - a transnational piety movement. Recent anthropological writings on Islam have approached Islam as a discursive tradition and, drawing heavily on the work of Michel Foucault, have detailed the ethical formation of the subject. Embedded within these formulations are important notions of power, knowledge, truth, and authority, which are fundamental features of Islamic beliefs and practices. In the ethnographic sections of the study, I will apply this framework in the analysis of the Tablighi Jama'at. Although the movement is very much the product of a particular moment, which I will demonstrate in my historical overview, the Tablighi Jama'at has been able to expand on a global level. These two aspects will be clarified by demonstrating how the Tablighi Jama'at's formal methodology and creed are put into practice at a mosque in San Diego. In order to do so, I will rely heavily on semiotics, or the process of signification, and I will demonstrate how semiotics forms are vital elements to the success of these types of piety movements. Thus, in the final section of this study, I will revisit the debates about signification surrounding the nature of authorizing discourses, and will aim to show how semiotics allows us to connect the discursive traditions of Islam, with its authorizing and authoritative discourses, with immanent utterances and practices in the world