Syed Abul A'ala Maududi (September 25, 1903– September 22,
1979), also known as Molana (Maulana) or Shaikh Syed
Abul A'ala Mawdudi, was a Sunni Pakistani journalist, theologian, Muslim
revivalist leader and political philosopher, and a major 20th century Islamist thinker. He was also a prominent
political figure in his home country (Pakistan) and was the first recipient
of King Faisal International Award for his services to Islam in 1979. He
was also the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami,
the Islamic revivalist party.
Early life
Maududi was one of the descendants of Khwaja Qutb ad-din
Mawdud al-Chishti, a notable of the Chishtiyya Tariqa. Hazrat Muinuddin al-Chishti of Ajmar was
Qutb ad-din's caliph, one of those who were ordered and given permission by him
to guide the people who wanted to learn.
Maududi was born in Aurangabad,(presently Maharashtra),India. Then part of the princely state enclave
of Hyderabad until it was annexed by India (1948).
Syed Abul A'ala Maududi was born to Maulana Ahmad Hasan, a lawyer by
profession. Syed Abul A'ala Maududi was the youngest of his three
brothers. His father was "descended from the Chishti line of saints; in fact his last name was derived
from the first member of the Chishti Silsilah i.e.Khawajah Syed Qutb ul-Din Maudood Chishti (d. 527 AH)
At an early age, Maududi was given home education, he
"received religious nurture at the hands of his father and from a variety
of teachers employed by him." He soon moved on to formal education,
however, and completed his secondary education from Madrasah Furqaniyah. For
his undergraduate studies he joined Darul Uloom, Hyderabad (India). His
undergraduate studies, however, were disrupted by the illness and death of his
father, and he completed his studies outside of the regular educational
institutions. His instruction included very little of the subject matter
of a modern school, such as European languages, like English. He
reportedly translated Qasim Amin's The New Woman into Urdu at the age of 14 and about 3,500 pages
from Asfar, a work of mystical Persian thinker Mulla Sadra.
Journalistic
career
After the interruption of his formal education, Maududi
turned to journalism in order to make his living. In 1918, he was already
contributing to a leading Urdu newspaper, and in 1920, at the age of
17, he was appointed editor of Taj, which was being published from
Jabalpore (now Madhya
Pradesh). Late in 1920, Maududi
went to Delhi and first assumed the editorship of the
newspaper Muslim (1921–23), and later of al-Jam’iyat (1925–28),
both of which were the organs of the Jam’iyat-i Ulama-i Hind, an
organization of Muslim religious scholars. According to Dr. Israr Ahmed,
Maududi worked for sometime at the Dar ul Islam Trust, Pathankot,
an Islamic research academy established by the Muslim philanthropist, Chaudhry
Niaz Ali Khan.
Founding
the Jamaat-e-Islami
In 1941, Maududi founded Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in British
India as a religious
political movement to promote Islamic values and practices. JI was against the
creation of Pakistan. Presented with a fait accompli after
the Partition
of India, JI was redefined in 1947
to support an Islamic State in Pakistan. JI claims to be the oldest religious
party in Pakistan.
With the Partition of
India, JI split into several
groups. The organisation headed by Maududi is now known as Jamaat-e-Islami
Pakistan. Also existing are Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Bangladesh
Jamaat-e-Islami,
and autonomous groups in Indian Kashmir, also in Sri Lanka.
Maududi was elected Jamaat’s first Ameer (President)
and remained so until 1972 when he withdrew from the responsibility for reasons
of health.
Political struggle
In the beginning of the struggle for the state of
Pakistan, Maududi and his party were against the idea of creating a separate
state of Pakistan. He did criticize other leaders of the Muslim league for
wanting Pakistan to be a state for Muslims and not an Islamic state. After
realizing that India was going to be partitioned and Pakistan created, he began
to support the idea. Maududi moved to Pakistan in 1947 and worked to turn it
into an Islamic state, resulting in frequent arrests and long periods of
incarceration. In 1953, he and the JI led a campaign against the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan resulting in the Lahore riots of 1953 and selective declaration of martial law.[10] He was arrested by the military
deployment headed by Lieutenant General Azam Khan, which also
included Rahimuddin Khan, and sentenced to death on the charge of
writing a seditious pamphlet about the Ahmadiyya issue.
He turned down the opportunity to file a petition for mercy, expressing a
preference for death rather than seeking clemency. Strong public pressure
ultimately convinced the government to commute his death sentence to life
imprisonment. Eventually, his sentence was annulled.
Last days
In April 1979, Maududi's long-time kidney ailment
worsened and by then he also had heart problems. He went to the United States for treatment and was hospitalized
in Buffalo,
New York, where his second son
worked as a physician. During his hospitalization, he remained intellectually
active.
Following a few surgical operations, he died on September
22, 1979, at the age of 76. His funeral was held in Buffalo, but he was buried
in an unmarked grave at his residence in Ichhra, Lahore after a very large funeral procession
through the city.
Islamic beliefs and ideology
Maududi wrote over 120 books and pamphlets and made over
1000 speeches and press statements. His magnum opus was the 30 years in
progress translation (tafsir) in Urdu of the Qur’an, Tafhim al-Qur’an (The
Meaning of the Qur'an),
intended to give the Qur’an a practical contemporary interpretation. It became
widely read throughout the subcontinent and has been translated into several
languages.
Islam
Mawdudi saw Muslims not as people who followed the
religion of Islam, but as everything: "Everything in the
universe is 'Muslim' for it obeys God by submission to His laws." The only
exception to this universe of Muslims were human beings who failed to follow
Islam. In regard to the non-Muslim:
“His very tongue which, on
account of his ignorance advocates the denial of God or professes multiple
deities, is in its very nature 'Muslim' ... The man who denies God is
called Kafir (concealer) because he conceals by his disbelief
what is inherent in his nature and embalmed in his own soul. His whole body
functions in obedience to that instinct… Reality becomes estranged from him and
he gropes in the dark".
Mawdudi believed that Islam was a "religion" in
a broader sense of the term. He stated: "Islam is not a ‘religion’ in the
sense this term is commonly understood. It is a system encompassing all fields
of living. Islam means politics, economics, legislation, science, humanism,
health, psychology and sociology. It is a system which makes no discrimination
on the basis of race, color, language or other external categories. Its appeal
is to all mankind. It wants to reach the heart of every human being."
Sharia
Maududi believed that without Sharia law
Muslim society could not be Islamic:
That if an Islamic society
consciously resolves not to accept the Sharia, and decides
to enact its own constitution and laws or borrow them from any other
source in disregard of the Sharia, such a society breaks its contract with God
and forfeits its right to be called 'Islamic.'"
Mawdudi also largely expanded upon his view of the
Islamic State and Sharia in his book Islamic
Way of Life.
Islamic
state
Maududi also believed that Islam required the
establishment of an Islamic state. The state would be a "theo-democracy," and underlying it would be three
principles: tawhid (oneness of God), risala (prophethood)
and khilafa (caliphate).
The "sphere of activity" covered by the Islamic
state would be "co-extensive with human life ... In such a state no one
can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private."
The state would follow Sharia Islamic
law, a complete system covering
family relationships,
social and economic affairs, administration, rights and duties of citizens,
judicial system, laws of war and peace and international relations. In short it
embraces all the various departments of life ... The Sharia is a complete
scheme of life and an all-embracing social order where nothing is superfluous
and nothing lacking.
Consequently, while this state has a legislature which
the ruler must consult, its function "is really that of law-finding, not
of law-making."
Maududi believed that the sovereignty of God (hakimiya)
and the sovereignty of the people are mutually exclusive. Therefore, while
Maududi stated in one of his books that "democracy begins in
Islam," Islamic
democracy according to him was
to be the antithesis of secular Western democracy which transfers hakimiya (God's
sovereignty) to the people.
He also advocated personal freedom and condemned
suspicion of Government:
This espionage on the life
of the individual cannot be justified on moral grounds by the government saying
that it is necessary to know the secrets of the dangerous persons. Though, to
all intents and purposes, the basis of this policy is the fear and suspicion
with which modern governments look at their citizens who are intelligent and
dissatisfied with the official policies of the government. This is exactly what
Islam has called as the root cause of mischief in politics. The injunction of
the Prophet is: "When the ruler begins to search for the causes of
dissatisfaction amongst his people, he spoils them" (Abu Dawud). The Amir
Mu'awiyah has said that he himself heard the Prophet saying: "If you try
to find out the secrets of the people, then you will definitely spoil them or
at least you will bring them to the verge of ruin." The meaning of the
phrase 'spoil them' is that when spies (C.I.D. or F.B.I.agents) are spread all
around the country to find out the affairs of men, then the people begin to
look at one another with suspicion, so much so that people are afraid of
talking freely in their houses lest some word should escape from the lips of
their wives and children which may put them in embarrassing situations. In this
manner it becomes difficult for a common citizen to speak freely, even in his
own house and society begins to suffer from a state of general distrust and
suspicion.
Non-Muslims
The rights of non-Muslims are limited under Islamic state
as laid out in Maududi's writings. Although non-Muslim "faith, ideology,
rituals of worship or social customs" would not be interfered with,
non-Muslims would have to accept Muslim rule.
Islamic 'Jihad' does not
recognize their right to administer State affairs according to a system which,
in the view of Islam, is evil. Furthermore, Islamic 'Jihad' also refuses to
admit their right to continue with such practices under an Islamic government
which fatally affect the public interest from the viewpoint of Islam."
Non-Muslims would also have to pay a special tax known
as jizya.
This tax is applicable to all able adult non-Muslims, except old and women, who
do not render military service. Those who serve in the military are exempted.
It must be noted that all adult Muslim men are subject to compulsory military
service, whenever required by the Islamic State. Jizya is thus
seen as a protection tax payable to the Islamic State for protection of those
non-Muslim adult men who do not render military service.
Maududi believed that copying cultural practices of
non-Muslims was forbidden in Islam, having
very disastrous
consequences upon a nation; it destroys its inner vitality, blurs its vision,
befogs its critical faculties, breeds inferiority complexes, and gradually but
assuredly saps all the springs of culture and sounds its death-knell. That is why
the Holy
Prophet has positively and
forcefully forbidden the Muslims to assume the culture and mode of life of the
non-Muslims.
Maududi strongly opposed the Ahmadiyya sect
and the idea that Ahmadiyya were Muslims. He preached against Ahmadiyya in his
pamphlet The Qadiani Question and the book The
Finality of Prophethood.
Jihad
Because Islam is all-encompassing, Maududi believed that
the Islamic state should not be limited to just the "homeland of
Islam". It is for all the world. 'Jihad' should be used to eliminate un-Islamic rule
and establish this Islamic state:
Islam wishes to destroy all
states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to
the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation
which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its
own ideology and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of the
standard-bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the
process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. Islam requires
the earth—not just a portion, but the whole planet because the entire mankind
should benefit from the ideology and welfare programme [of Islam] ... Towards
this end, Islam wishes to press into service all forces which can bring about a
revolution and a composite term for the use of all these forces is ‘Jihad’. .... the objective of the Islamic ‘ Jihād’
is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an
Islamic system of state rule.
He explained that jihad was not only combat for God but all
effort that helped those waging combat (Qita'al):
“In the jihad in the way of
Allah, active combat is not always the role on the battlefield, nor can
everyone fight in the front line. Just for one single battle preparations have
often to be made for decades on end and the plans deeply laid, and while only
some thousands fight in the front line there are behind them millions engaged
in various tasks which, though small themselves, contribute directly to the
supreme effort.”
Criticism and controversy
Political
A general complaint of one critic is that Maududi's
theo-democracy is an ideological state in which legislators do not legislate,
citizens only vote to reaffirm the permanent applicability of God's laws, women
rarely venture outside their homes lest social discipline be disrupted, and
non-Muslims are tolerated as foreign elements required to express their loyalty
by means of paying a financial levy.
On a more conceptual level, journalist and author
Abelwahab Meddeb questions the basis of Maududi's reasoning that the
sovereignty of the truly Islamic state must be divine and not popular, saying
"Mawdudi constructed a coherent political system, which follows wholly
from a manipulation." The manipulation is of the Arabic word hukm,
usually defined as to "exercise power as governing, to pronounce a
sentence, to judge between two parties, to be knowledgeable (in medicine, in
philosophy), to be wise, prudent, of a considered judgment." The Quran
contains the phrase `Hukm is God's alone,` thus, according to Maududi, God – in
the form of Sharia law – must govern. But Meddeb argues that a full reading of
the ayah where the phrase appears reveals that it
refers to God's superiority over pagan idols, not His role in government.
Those whom you adore
outside of Him are nothing but names that you and your fathers have given them.
God has granted them no authority. Hukm is God's alone. He has
commanded that you adore none but Him. Such is the right religion, but most
people do not know.
Quranic "commentators never forget to
remind us that this verse is devoted to the powerlessness of the companion
deities (pardras) that idolaters raise up next to God…"
Abdel Meddab's view is contradicted by well-respected
Islamic scholars such as Shaikh Salih al-Fawzan he writes in his book Aqidah
ul-Tawhid: "He who accepts a law other than Allah's ascribes a partner
to Allah. Whatever act of worship that is not legislated (hukam) by
Allah and His Messenger is Bid'ah, and every Bid'ah is a means of deviation...
Any other law which is legislated (hukam) by neither Allah nor His
Messenger in politics, or for judging in people's disputes, it is considered as
the law of Taghut, and Jahiliyyah. Allah says: Do they seek the judgment of
Jahiliyyah? And who is better than Allah as a judge for a people who have firm
faith? (Qur'an 5:50) The right of legalizing and illegalizing belongs to Allah
too, and no one is permitted to share this right with Him. Allah says: And do
not eat of that on which the name of Allah is not pronounced, for surely that
is disobedience. And certainly Satans inspire their friends to argue with you.
And if you obey them, then you are polytheists. (Qur'an 6:121)"
Maududi is also criticized for his early open opposition
to Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the
leader of the drive to create Pakistan, although Maududi later changed his view and
supported the state of Pakistan. Some critics believe Maududi's opposition
stemmed from sectarian differences, as Jinnah came from a Shia Muslim
background.
A unique honour
He was rendered with the title Of Imam-ul-Muslimeen in
the annual meeting of Raabta-e-Aalam-e-Islami Saudia Arabia held in January
1974.
Clerical
Maududi is said to have received "sustained
hostility" from the ulema. Muhammad Yusuf Banuri (d.
1397/1977) is quoted as saying
"Great Muslim scholars
of India of every madhhab congregated at Jamiyyat al-'Ulama' in Delhi on the
27th of Shawwal, 1370 (August 1, 1951) and reached the conclusion that Mawdudi
and his Al-Jamaat al-Islamiyya caused the destruction and deviation of Muslims
and published this fatwa (decision)
in a book and in papers." And the scholars of Pakistan passed a
resolution that Mawdudi was a heretic who tried to make others heretics; this
resolution was edited once again in the Akhbar al-Jamiyya in Rawalpindi on the
22nd of February, 1396 (1976)."
He has been criticised by some Deobandi scholars, such as
Allamh Yusuf Ludhyanwi, for what was seen as disrespect towards the Sahabah (Companions
of the prophet Muhammad) and the Mahdi.
Maududi has been criticised by Salafist author Jamaal Ibn Fareehaan al-Haarithee for
"rejection of the Dajjal", as Maududi is alleged to
have claimed that the prophet Muhammad" used to think that the Dajjaal
(Anti-Christ) would come out in his time, or close to his time. However, 1350
years passed away and many long generations came and went, yet the Dajjaal did
not come out. So it is confirmed that what the Prophet (sallallaahu ’alayhi wa
sallam) thought did not prove true!!” Maududi's alleged belief in this
theory was explained by its being an "opinion and analogical
deduction" of Muhammad while al-Haarithee considers this shirk (polytheism) as the Quran says “And he
does not speak from his own desire. It is revelation inspired to him.”
Other clerics who have criticised Maududi are Shaykh Safi
ur-Rahman Mubarakpuri, Hammaad al-Ansaaree and Al-Albaanee, Sanaullaah
Amritsari.
In an article entitled Fatwa about the Deviation
of Mawdudi, Mawdudi is accused of being "CIA agent"; of
attempting to solve "the main principles of Islam" using "his
own reason," and departing from "Islamic knowledge"; and of
preaching revolution when, "Islam would spread not
through revolution but through knowledge, justice and morals."
However, such attacks against Maududi's work haven't
affected their widespread influence in the Islamic community, nor did they
conflict with the majority of Maududi's views. The only thing that was desputed
was Maududi's usage of certain terms relating to Islamic
Prophets and Muhammad's
Companions
Legacy
Mawdudi's influence was widespread. According to
historian Philip Jenkins, Egyptians Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb read
him. Qutb "borrowed and expanded" Mawdudi's concept for being a
modern as well as pre-Muhammadan phenomenon, and of the
need for an Islamist revolutionary vanguard movement. His ideas
influenced Abdullah Azzam, the Palestinian Islamist jurist. The South Asian diaspora,
including "significant numbers" in Britain, were "hugely
influenced" by Mawdudi's work. Mawdudi even had a major impact on Shia Iran, where AyatollahRuhollah
Khomeini is reputed to have
met Mawdudi as early as 1963 and later translated his works into Persian. "To the present day, Iran's
revolutionary rhetoric often draws on his themes."
Mostly, however, Mawdudi influenced South Asia. In
Pakistan, Jamaati party members joined Pakistan's military and intelligence
establishments in large numbers, which were reportedly "rife with
hard-line Islamist views"
by the 1970s.
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