What does a nonMuslim make of 3 million people gathered for three days of prayers, lectures, and ruminations on how to be a good—and peaceful—Muslim?

A journalist from 'Slate' attends the bishwa ijtema in Bangladesh and files in a report on "a gathering, hosted by Tablighi Jamaat, a massive organization of Muslim missionaries that espouses a strict, yet nonpolitical, interpretation of Islam."

Interesting, if irreverent (so what else is new?), grassroots reporting on the Muslim-majority country of roughly 145 million people.

A sample:

"Tablighis, as the group's followers are known, shun bristle toothbrushes in order to clean their teeth with miswak, an aromatic stick used by the Prophet Mohammed. They also drink every glass of water in three sips, the same way the prophet did. They are fundamentalists in every sense of the word. But they are mostly harmless."

link courtesy: SunniSister