Abul A'la Maududi
Abul A'la al-Maududi was an Islamic scholar and the author of Tafhim-ul-Quran, who was active in British India and later, following the partition, in Pakistan. Described by Wilfred Cantwell Smith as "the most systematic thinker of modern Islam", his numerous works, which "covered a range of disciplines such as Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, law, philosophy, and history", were written in Urdu, but then translated into English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Burmese, Malayalam and many other languages. He sought to revive Islam, and to propagate what he understood to be "true Islam". He believed that Islam was essential for politics and that it was necessary to institute sharia and preserve Islamic culture similarly as to that during the reign of the Rashidun Caliphs and abandon immorality, from what he viewed as the evils of secularism, nationalism and socialism, which he understood to be the influence of Western imperialism.
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Background
Maududi was born in the city of Aurangabad in colonial India, then part of the princely state enclave of Hyderabad. He was the youngest of three sons of Ahmad Hasan, a lawyer by profession. His elder brother, Sayyid Abu'l Khayr Maududi (1899–1979), would later become an editor and journalist. Although his father was only middle-class, he was the descendant of the Chishti. 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). He stated that his paternal family originally moved from Chisht, in modern-day Afghanistan, during the days of Sikandar Lodi (d. 1517), initially settling in the state of Haryana before moving to Delhi later on, and on his mother's side, his ancestor Mirza Tulak, a soldier of Turkic origin, moved into India from Transoxiana around the times of Emperor Aurangzeb (d. 1707), while his maternal grandfather, Mirza Qurban Ali Baig Khan Salik (1816–1881), was a writer and poet in Delhi, a friend of the Urdu poet Ghalib.
Childhood
Until he was nine, Maududi "received religious nurture at the hands of his father and from a variety of teachers employed by him." As his father wanted him to become a maulvi, this education consisted of learning Arabic, Persian, Islamic law and Hadith. He also studied books of mantiq (logic). A precocious child, he translated Qasim Amin's al-Marah al-Jadidah ("The New Woman"), a modernist and feminist work, from Arabic into Urdu at the age of 11. In the field of translation, years later, he also worked on some 3,500 pages from Asfar, the major work of the 17th century Persian-Shi'a mystical thinker Mulla Sadra. His thought would influence Maududi, as "Sadra's notions of rejuvenation of the temporal order, and the necessity of the reign of Islamic law (Shari'ah) for the spiritual ascension of man, found an echo in Maududi's works."
Education
When he was eleven, Maududi was admitted to the eighth class directly in Madrasa Fawqaniyya Mashriqiyya (Oriental High School), Aurangabad, founded by Shibli Nomani, a modernist Islamic scholar trying to synthesise traditional Islamic scholarship with modern knowledge, and which awakened Maududi's long-lasting interest in philosophy (particularly from Thomas Arnold, who also taught the same subject to Muhammad Iqbal) as well as natural sciences, like mathematics, physics, and chemistry. He then moved to a more traditionalist Darul Uloom in Hyderabad. Meanwhile, his father shifted to Bhopal – there Maududi befriended Niaz Fatehpuri, another modernist – where he suffered a severe paralysis attack and died leaving no property or money, forcing his son to abort his education. In 1919 by the time he was 16, and still a modernist in mindset, he moved to Delhi and read books by his distant relative, the reformist Sayyid Ahmad Khan. He also learned English and German to study, intensively, Western philosophy, sociology, and history for full five years: he eventually came up to the conclusion that "ulama' in the past did not endeavor to discover the causes of Europe's rise, and he offered a long list of philosophers whose scholarship had made Europe a world power: Fichte, Hegel, Comte, Mill, Turgot, Adam Smith, Malthus, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Darwin, Goethe, and Herder, among others. Comparing their contribution to that of Muslims, he concluded that the latter did not reach even 1 percent."
Journalism
Despite his initial publication on electricity in Maarif in 1918 at the age of 15 and his subsequent appointment as editor of the weekly Urdu newspaper Taj in 1920 at the age of 17, he subsequently resumed his studies as an autodidact in 1921. Notably through the influence of certain members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, he pursued subjects such as philosophical theology and the Dars-e-Nizami curriculum. Maududi obtained ijazahs, which are certificates and diplomas in traditional Islamic learning. However, he abstained from referring to himself as an ''alim in the formal sense, as he perceived the Islamic scholars as regressive, despite some influence from Deobandi on him:
Political writings
Maududi's works were written and published throughout his life, including influential works from 1933 to 1941. Maududi's most well-known work, and widely considered his most important and influential work, is the Tafhim-ul-Quran (Urdu: تفہيم القرآن, Romanised: Towards Understanding the Qur'an), a 6-volume translation and commentary of the Qur'an which Maududi spent many years writing (which was begun in Muharram, 1361 A.H./February 1942). In 1932, he joined another journal (Tarjuman al-Quran) and from 1932 to 1937 he began to develop his political ideas, and turn towards the cause of Islamic revivalism and Islam as an ideology, over what he called "traditional and hereditary religion". The government of Hyderabad helped support the journal by buying 300 subscriptions which it donated to libraries around India. Maududi was alarmed by the decline of Muslim ruled Hyderabad, the increasing secularism and lack of purdah among Muslim women in Delhi.
At this time he also began work on establishing an organisation for Da'wah (propagation and preaching of Islam) that would be an alternative to both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. At this time he decided to leave Hyderabad for Northwest India, closer to the Muslim political center of gravity in India. In 1938, after meeting the famous Muslim poet Muhammad Iqbal, Maududi moved to a piece of land in the village of Pathankot in the Punjab to oversee a Waqf (Islamic foundation) called Daru'l-Islam. His hope was to make it a "nerve center" of Islamic revival in India, an ideal religious community, providing leaders and the foundation for a genuine religious movement. He wrote to various Muslim luminaries invited them to join him there. The community, like Jamaat-e-Islami later, was composed of rukn (members), a shura (a consultative council), and a sadr (head). After a dispute with the person who donated the land for the community over Maududi's anti-nationalist politics, Maududi quit the waqf and in 1939 moved the Daru'l-Islam with its membership from Pathankot to Lahore.
Founding the Jamaat-i-Islami
In August 1941, Maududi founded Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in British India as a religious political movement to promote Islamic values and practices. His Mission was supported by Amin Ahsan Islahi, Muhammad Manzoor Naumani, Abul Hassan Ali Nadvi and Naeem Siddiqui.[citation needed] Jamaat-e-Islami actively opposed the partition of India, with its leader Abul A'la Maududi arguing that the concept violated the Islamic doctrine of the ummah. The Jamaat-e-Islami saw the partition as creating a temporal border that would divide Muslims from one another. Maududi held that humans should accept God's sovereignty and adopt the divine code, which supersedes manmade laws, terming it a "theodemocracy", because its rule would be based on the entire Muslim community, not the ulama (Islamic scholars).
After the creation of Pakistan
With the partition of India in 1947, the JI was split to follow the political boundaries of new countries carved out of British India. The organisation headed by Maududi became known as Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, and the remnant of JI in India as the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Later JI parties were the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and autonomous groups in Indian Kashmir. With the founding of Pakistan, Maududi's career underwent a "fundamental change", being drawn more and more into politics, and spending less time on ideological and scholarly pursuits. Although his Jamaat-e-Islami party never developed a mass following, it and Maududi did develop significant political influence. It played a "prominent part" in the agitation which brought down President Muhammad Ayub Khan in 1969 and in the overthrow of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977. Ideas of Maududi and the JI were especially influential in the early years of Muhammad Zia ul-Haq's rule.
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Maududi poured his energy into books, pamphlets and more than 1000 speeches and press statements, laying the ground work for making Pakistan an Islamic state, but also dealing with a variety of issues of interest in Pakistan and the Muslim world. He sought to be a Mujaddid, "renewing" (tajdid) the religion. This role had great responsibility as he believed a Mujaddid "on the whole, has to undertake and perform the same kind of work as is accomplished by a Prophet." While earlier mujaddids had renewed religion he wanted also "to propagate true Islam, the absence of which accounted for the failure of earlier efforts at tajdid." He was very much disheartened after the Ottoman collapse, he believed the limited vision of Muslims to Islam rather than a complete ideology of living, was its main cause. He argued that to revive the lost Islamic pride, Muslims must accept Islam as complete way of living.[citation needed]
Qur'an
Maududi believed that the Quran was not just religious literature to be "recited, pondered, or investigated for hidden truths" according to Vali Nasr, but a "socio-religious institution", a work to be accepted "at face value" and obeyed. By implementing its prescriptions the ills of societies would be solved. It pitted truth and bravery against ignorance, falsehood and evil. The Qur'an is ... a Book which contains a message, an invitation, which generates a movement. The moment it began to be sent down, it impelled a quiet and pious man to ... raise his voice against falsehood, and pitted him in a grim struggle against the lords of disbelief, evil and iniquity.... it drew every pure and noble soul, and gathered them under the banner of truth. In every part of the country, it made all the mischievous and the corrupt to rise and wage war against the bearers of the truth.
Islam
Maududi saw Muslims not simply as those who followed the religion of Islam, but as (almost) everything, because obedience to divine law is what defines a Muslim: "Everything in the universe is 'Muslim' for it obeys Allah by submission to His laws." The laws of the physical universe—that Heaven is above the Earth, that night follows day, etc.—were as much a part of sharia as banning consumption of alcohol and interest on debts. Thus it followed that stars, planets, oceans, rocks, atoms, etc. should actually be considered "Muslims" since they obey their creator's laws. Rather than Muslims being a minority among humans—one religious group among many—it is non-Muslims who are a small minority among everything in the universe. Of all creatures only humans (and jinn) are endowed with free will, and only non-Muslim humans (and jinn) choose to use that will to disobey the laws of their creator.
Women
According to Irfan Ahmad, while Maududi opposed all Western influence in Islam, "the greatest threat to morality" to him was "women's visibility" in the bazaar, colleges, theatres, restaurants. "Art, literature, music, film, dance, use of makeup by women: all were shrieking signs of immorality." Maududi preached that the duty of women is to manage the household, bring up children and provide them and her husband with "the greatest possible comfort and contentment". Maududi supported the complete veiling and segregation of women as practiced in most of Muslim India of his time. Women, he believed, should remain in their homes except when absolutely necessary. The only room for argument he saw in the matter of veiling/hijab was "whether the hands and the face" of women "were to be covered or left uncovered." On this question Maududi came down on the side of the complete covering of women's faces whenever they left their homes.
Music
Maududi saw music and dancing as social evils. In describing the wickedness that comes of ignoring Islamic law he included not only leaving the poor to "starvation and destitution" while wallowing in luxury, liquor and drugs, but having "a regular need" for music, satisfied with "musicians, dancing girls, drum-beaters and manufacturers of musical instruments".
Economics
His 1941 lecture "The Economic Problem of Man and Its Islamic Solution" is generally considered to be one of the founding document of modern Islamic economics. Maududi has been called the leader of the "vanguard of contemporary Islamic orthodoxy" in "riba and finance" and credited with laying "down the foundations for development" of Islamic economics. However, Maududi believed Islam "does not concern itself with the modes of production and circulation of wealth", and was primarily interested in cultural issues rather than socioeconomic ones. Maududi dismissed the need for a "new science of economics, embodied in voluminous books, with high-sounding terminology and large organisation", or other "experts and specialists" which he believed to be "one of the many calamities of modern age". But since Islam was a complete system, it included (a shariah-based) economic program, comparable and superior to other economic systems. Capitalism was a "satanic economic system" starting with the fact that it called for the postponement of some consumption in favor of investment.
Islamic Modernism
Maududi believed that Islam supported modernisation but not Westernisation. He agreed with Islamic Modernists that Islam contained nothing contrary to reason, and that it was superior in rational terms to all other religious systems. He disagreed with their practice of examining the Quran and the Sunnah using reason as the standard, instead of starting from the proposition that "true reason is Islamic" and accepting the Book and the Sunnah, rather than reason, as the final authority. He also took a narrow view of ijtihad, limiting the authority to use it to those with thorough grounding in Islamic sciences, faith in the sharia, and then only to serve the needs of his vision of an Islamic state.
As the Amir (Guide) of Jama'at e-Islami (JI), Maududi remained in close contact with JI members, conducting informal discussions every day in his house between Asr and Maghrib salat prayers, although according to some, in later years discussion was replaced by answers to members' questions with any rebuttals ignored. For his votaries in the Jama'at, Maududi was not only a "revered scholar, politician, and thinker, but a hallowed Mujaddid." Adding to his mystic was his survival of assassination attempts, while the Jama'at's enemies (Liaquat Ali Khan, Ghulam Muhammad, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) "fell from grace" or were killed. He had a powerful command of Urdu language which he insisted on using, in order to "free Muslims minds from the influence of English." In private he has been described as "strict but not rigid", taciturn, poised, composed, uncompromising and unyielding. His biographers have talked of his karamat (special gifts) and haybah (great presence)." His public speaking style has been described as having "great authority". Maududi would make his argument step-by-step with Islamic edicts, rather than attempting to excite his audience with oratory. Although he did not publicise the fact, Maududi was a practitioner of traditional medicine or unani tibb.
Family and health
Maududi has been described as close to his wife, but not able to spend much time with his six sons and three daughters due to his commitments to religious dawah and political action. Only one of his offspring, ever joined the JI. And only his second daughter Asma, showed "any scholarly promise". Maududi suffered from a kidney ailment most of his life. He was often bedridden in 1945 and 1946, and in 1969 was forced to travel to England for treatment.
Late life
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 hospitalised in Buffalo, New York, where his second son worked as a physician. Following a few surgical operations, he died on 22 September 1979, at the age of 75. 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. Yusuf al-Qaradawi led the funeral prayer for him.
Maududi is regarded by many as "the most influential" of the contemporary Islamic revivalist scholars; whose efforts influenced revivalism across the Islamic World. His doctrines would also inspire the Iranian revolution and shape the ideological foundations of Al-Qaeda.
Pakistan and South Asia
In Pakistan, (where the JI claims to be the oldest religious party) it is "hard to exaggerate the importance" of that country's "current drift" toward Maududi's "version of Islam", according to scholar Eran Lerman. His background as a journalist, thinker, scholar and political leader has been compared to Indian independence leader Abul Kalam Azad by admiring biographers. He and his party are thought to have been the most important factors in Pakistan working to generate support for an Islamic state. They are thought to have helped inspire General Zia-ul-Haq to introduce "Sharisation" to Pakistan, (Sharia laws decreed by Zia included bans on interest on loans (riba), deduction by the government of 2.5% annual Zakat tax from bank accounts, the introduction of Islamic punishments such as stoning and amputation with the 1979 Hudood Ordinances. One policy of Zia's that was originally proposed by Maududi, and not found in classic Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), was the introduction of separate electorates for non-Muslims (Hindus and Christians) in 1985.)
Arab world
Outside of South Asia, Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb read him, according to historian Philip Jenkins. Qutb "borrowed and expanded" Maududi's concept of Islam being modern, Muslims have fallen into pre-Islamic ignorance (Jahiliyya), and of the need for an Islamist revolutionary vanguard movement. His ideas influenced Abdullah Azzam, the Palestinian Islamist jurist and renewer of jihad in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Iran
Maududi also had a major impact on Shia Iran, where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is reputed to have met Maududi as early as 1963 and later translated his works into Persian. "To the present day," according to Philip Jenkins, "Iran's revolutionary rhetoric often draws on his themes."
Turkey
In Turkey, where his name is spelled Mevdudi, from the mid-1960s onward his "full oeuvre was available in Turkey within a few years" and he became an influential figure within the local religious circles.
Militant Islamist movements
Maududi is considered as "second to Qutb" among the intellectual fathers of contemporary militant Islamist movements. According to Youssef M. Choueiri, "all the major contemporary radicalised" Islamist movements (the Tunisian Islamic Tendency, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation, and the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria), "derive their ideological and political programmes" from the writings of Maududi and Sayyid Qutb. His works have also influenced the leadership of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in their ideology.
Maududi wrote 73 books, 120 booklets and pamphlets, and made more than 1,000 speeches and press statements. His magnum opus was the 30 years in progress translation (tafsir) in Urdu of the Qur'an, Tafhim ul-Qur'an (The Meaning of the Qur'an, also Introductions to the Qur'an), intended to give the Qur'an a self-claim interpretation. It became widely read throughout the South Asia and has been translated into several languages. Some of his books translated into English.
