Abstract
This article focuses on the implementation of the Islamic transnational movement Tablighi Jama’at in the area of Barcelona, Spain, since the 1970s. Its proselytizing mission extends today to different areas of the city and the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, contributing to the increasing influence of the movement among Muslims of diverse origin. The Tablighi Jama’at promotes a pious experience of Islam that makes its practice in the city familiar with such environment rather than exceptional. Thus, I argue that this movement challenges hegemonic views of Islam as a foreign religion and as alien to the democratization of the public sphere. However, scholars have not been able to explain the scope of the Tablighi Jama’at. It remains underrepresented and misunderstood in public discourses. I suggest that in order to comprehend its scope and the role it plays among Muslims living in this context it is necessary to reconsider notions of time (both historical and quotidian) and space (both historical and urban) in relation to the experience of Islam in Spain. I conclude proposing the body as a bridge between religion and the city and as the potential focus for future ethnographic research and the venue for the comprehension of the Tablighi Jama’at and the debate on the presence of Islam in contemporary Spain.
Keywords
Islam; Spain; Tablighi Jama’at; piety; anthropology of the body