Mawdudi's concept of Islam

Bibliographic Data

ID10282143
AuthorsEran Lerman (corresponding author)
Year1981
Volume17
Issue4
Pages492-509
Publication date1981-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMiddle Eastern Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-3206 • E-ISSN: 1743-7881
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00263208108700487
OpenAlexW2088241557
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited2

The religious and political thought of Mawlana Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi was, and is, one of the main ideological currents contending for supremacy in modern Pakistan. Not unlike his Egyptian counterpart and contemporary, Hasan al-Banna, Mawdudi went beyond the formulation of a new type of Muslim political theory: they both sought to put such theory into practice through political and social action, and established political movements for that very purpose. But while Banna's Muslim Brothers were crushed in their premature bids for power (Banna himself was assassinated in 1949, probably by Government agents; and many of the movement leaders perished under Nasir), Mawdudi and his party, Jamaat-i Islami (The Community of Islam) had survived several similar clashes with the Pakistani authorities and seem to have emerged-under Zia al-Haqq's military regime-as a dominant force. Even after the Bangladesh secession, Pakistan is a major centre of Sunni Islam (prior to 1972 it was the largest Muslim state, in terms of population); and it is hard to exaggerate the importance of its current drift towards Mawdudi's version of Islam. What is his version of Islam? Mawdudi has been a prolific writer. Jamaat-i Islami published, since 1941, several dozens of his books in Urdu, English, Arabic and major Indian languages; and he started his career as a journalist and essayist as far back as 1918. He has covered an extremely wide spectrum of subjects: from a critique of Hegel to the religious injunctions concerning meat. He has undertaken in his writings to outline a programme for the establishment of a truly Islamic state; and in doing so, he involved himself (and his party) in a number of controversies-ranging from the making of a Pakistani constitution to Mawdudi's defence of Purdah (the segregation of women). All these were of immediate political relevance; and they tended to draw attention away from the more fundamental differences between Mawdudi and his rivals-away from his own different answer to the question 'What is Islam?' This paper is aimed at elucidating Mawdudi's answer to this basic question-and tracing the challenges that brought about his response. This is, above all, a primary question-and within a rigorously logical system of ideas, such as Mawdudi's, the answer to it is the cornerstone of the whole construction. Moreover, much of Mawdudi's intellectual appeal (and hence much of his political power) derives from his ability to formulate a coherent answer to that very question. Here 'Fundamentalists' like Mawdudi or al-Banna succeed, while alternative Muslim interpretations fail. For the traditional Muslim scholars, the Madrasa-bred Ulama, the question was almost meaningless: in a world where no real challenges presented themselves, there was no need to re-define Islam. For the Westernized elite of Muslim India, on the other hand, the question did arise: but for them the answer, propagated by the centres of Westernized Islamic education (such as the 'Anglo-Oriental Mohammedan College', established

Ideology · Islam · Political science · Politics · Population · Power (physics · Sociology · State (computer science · Theology · Bangladesh Politics, Society, and Development · Demography · Law · Philosophy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Religious studies

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