Mawdudi's Concept of Islam

Mawdudi's Concept of IslamAuthor(s): Eran LermanReviewed work(s):Source: Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct., 1981), pp. 492-509Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4282856 .Accessed: 29/11/2011 05:09

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Mawdudi's Concept of Islam Eran Lerman

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 by Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan in 1875) was not so much a re-definition of Islam

MAWDUDI S CONCEPT OF ISLAM 493

as much as it was a re-statement of Western values, under the guise of Islamic terminology. Westernized education often resulted in a scant and superficial knowledge of the Islamic sources; and it was here that Mawdudi was able to put forward a system much more consistent with the long traditions of Islamic thought and jurisprudence-yet new. The different attitudes were a result of different education. Mawdudi's self-education was primarily, but not wholly, traditional. But they were also the result of different challenges: they reflect the transformed face of the twentieth-century West.

The above-said could be better understood against a short survey of Mawdudi's early career and the rival currents of modern Indian Islam with which he had to content. He was born in Aurangabad, Deccan, in 1903; his father had previously left Delhi, since the latter was declining as a Muslim centre. Being a lawyer (of non-Shariah law), Mawdudi's father did not raise his son as a traditional Alim (scholar); but his strong Islamic sentiment led him to teach his son Arabic and Persian, which gave Mawdudi access to the sources of Islamic tradition.

The death of his father in 1918 forced Mawdudi to abandon his regular studies-and the fact that he was never formally educated, neither as an Alim nor as a Westernized student, accounts for his relative freedom from both traditions. He started working as a journalist-later as the editor-of a local paper in Jabalpur, and his considerable talent did not go unnoticed: at twenty he was invited bylamiat-i Ulama-i Hind to assist in editing its paper, al-Jamiah.

The Jamiat (the Association of Indian Ulama) identified itself in the early twenties with the Khilafat movement (led by Muhammad Ali and his brother Shawkat Ali) which sought to re-establish the Ottoman Caliphate-and was, above all, an expression of anti-British sentiment. For a while there was real cooperation between the Ulama, the Westernized Muslims, and nationalist Hindu leaders such as Gandhi-but it was not to last. Kemalist Turkey was renouncing old traditions rapidly and with apparent success; and disillusionment with the Khilafat soon set in. The Muslim and Hindu communities were falling out over local issues; and as to the Muslim community itself, the failure of the movement and the looming conflict with the Hindus gave rise to internal tensions. Mawdudi once wrote (about a different 'Revivalist' movement) that its failure proved you cannot expect so-called Muslims to act like real Muslims;' and the demise of the Khilafat movement seems to have set Mawdudi apart from the romantic and vague Islamism held by many of its leaders.

This tendency was driven further by an incident that took place in 1924. A leader of the extreme Hindu movement, Arya Samaj, was murdered by a Muslim for having allegedly slighted the Prophet Muhammad. Gandhi and others criticised Islam for its violent components, and most Westernized Muslims took up an apologetic attitude towards Jihad (Holy War). Mawdudi refused to do so; and his books on the question of Jihad marked the break with both Ulama and Westernized intelligentsia.2 In 1927 he went back to Hyderabad; and after 1932 began publishing there his own periodical, Tarjuman al- Quran (the translation, or interpretation, of the Quran). Under

494 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

the auspices of the Nizam he published there an exposition of what Islam is; and the book, Risalah diniyyah (translated into English under the title Towards Understanding Islam), proved very popular and gained for Mawdudi the status of Mawlana, a religious teacher, and a reputation as a major thinker.

This was already a thoroughly fundamentalist (or, in Mawdudi's terms, Revivalist) book. The following lines are typical:

The law of Islam is eternally applicable, because it is not based on the customs and traditions of any particular people, and it is not for any particular period, but it is based on the same principles of nature on which man has been created.3

Such opinions about the laws of Islam drew towards Mawdudi the attentions of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, the poet-laureate of modern Indian Islam. Iqbal, while being a dynamic and activist thinker, often expressed similar attitudes:

O Thou that art emancipated from the old Custom Adorn thy feet once again with the same fine silver chain!

Do not complain of the hardness of the Law, Do not transgress the statutes of Muhammad!4

Through Iqbal's initiative, a Waqf estate was allocated to Mawdudi in Pathan Kot (Punjab)-which included a Press; in this new setting Mawdudi let his beard grow (as befits a religious teacher), published several books and numerous articles on both religious and political issues, and took an active part in the argument concerning the future of India and of Indian Islam.

It was during this period that he set himself against all other currents in Indian Islam-doing battle, as it were, on three fronts. Like almost all other revivalists in modern Islam, he rallied against the Sufi element in popular Islam. Those who 'misled the Muslims with amulets, intonations and prayer beads ... and sent them to tombs and Sufi societies so they would intercede for them and ensure for them eternal happiness'5 are to blame for the deterioration of Islamic fighting spirit. In this he was a disciple of Arabian and Indian Wahabiyyah; but unlike the Wahabis, he was highly critical of the state of Islamic orthodoxy-the responsibility for the atrophy of Muslim spirit lies also with those 'who distracted the Muslims off the foundations of Islam and its general, total principles and busied them with questions concerning the details of Fiqh (religious jurisprudence) . .. until they forgot what they were created for and ignored the sublime purposes for which Islam stands'.6

In all this one can detect the influence of the long tradition of Islamic reform in India: similar things might have been said by Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan, by the poet Shibli, or by any graduate of Sir Sayid's College at Aligarh. But it was against these very people-the new Westernized elite of Muslim India-that Mawdudi directed his most scathing attack. Their attempts to reconcile Islam to the West led to the loss of its moral authority:

Look at the leaders and chiefs and principals, who profess their belief in


the Book of Allah and in his Prophet but, regrettably, show nothing of the true code of the Book, or of the Shariah (religious law, The Way) given by the Prophet, in their own ways-apart from taking, sometimes, part in the Prophet's birthday festivities, or inviting the reciters of the Quran to read it once or twice in their house to entertain their relatives, and, if they feel like it, give a speech extolling Islam and praising its teaching, much as one would lavishly praise a poet-but to act according to the Shariah, and struggle to carry it out in this world, of that they have no inkling. . .

Such religious attitudes had their political consequences. Mawdudi rejected the positive attitude taken byJamiat-i Ulama-i Hind and its leader, Madani, towards Gandhi's liberation movement and his call for Indian unity; he seemed to view this as another proof of the Ulama's passivity. But his main criticism-up until the very establishment of Pakistan-was directed against the Westernized leaders, such as Jinah himself, who sought to cover up their lack of true belief by turning Islam into a national identity. When Mawdudi finally set up his own political party, Jamaat-i Islami, in August 1941, he did so, above all, in order to resist the 'Pakistan demand' (that is, the call for the partition of India) adopted by Jinah's Muslim League in March 1940. This Pakistan, he claimed, would have nothing to do with the truly Islamic state: 'In India, the Muslims who have had a Western education are unable to understand this sublime truth; and they are, even if they chatter about an Islamic state, forced by their mentality and Western culture to aspire to no more than a national state.'8 They may use Islamic terminology, like Ummah or Taat al-Amir (terms denoting, in Islam, the Muslim polity and the obligation to obey its sovereigns), but 'all these terms are used by them, because of their basic mentality, only to convey what they wish to convey-the meanings of their new religion, the religion of nationalism'.9 Such new religion, he claimed, is in fact Shirk (Polytheism); Jinah's Pakistan would be pagan and its leaders Pharaohs and Nimrods, infidel tyrants, he wrote in 1942.10

Such tirades against the major force in Indian Muslim politics, the Muslim League, and against its beloved Qaid-i Azam (Great Leader) Jinah, drove Mawdudi into political isolation. Since he opposed both Jinah and Gandhi as nationalists, he had little to offer by way of solving India's immediate problems-and he felt little need to do so. Using deliberate anachronisms, he pointed out the Prophet himself did little-at first-to solve the immediate problems of Arabia: Byzantine and Persian imperialism, internecine fighting, infiltration by 'Jewish capitalists'. The Prophet, said Mawdudi, first addressed himself to the establishment of a dedicated following, who were willing to sacrifice all for the cause and who were to be the nucleus of a new society; " the re-creation of a truly Islamic society must take precedence over all other issues.

Most former attempts to re-invigorate Islamic society were centred around piecemeal modifications of Islamic law, compromises between the Shariah and the liberal Western notions that seemed to be the secret of Europe's success. But once an initially apologetic criterion has been applied


to the Shariah, claimed Mawdudi, there was no way of averting the final dominance of Western ideas. In India, 'Western civilization has become the judge of the merits and "faults" of Islam-not vice versa . . . In Egypt, Shaykh Muhammad Abduh adopted a similar line of compromise and thus opened the door wide for the Westernizers in the Arabic-speaking world who came after him'.12 If Islamic society is to be both free from Western dominance and a dynamic and powerful society, it is not the body of Islamic traditions that should be changed: these must be kept intact, if Islam is to survive. What needs to be established is a new general understanding of what Islam is, a re-statement of its basic message.

DEFINING ISLAM

Ever since the establishment of Tarjuman al- Quran, Mawdudi saw himself, above all, as a translator of the Quranic principles-into Urdu and into the terms of modern reality. His exegetic method led him to express his definition of Islam by means of etymology: Christianity, he wrote in 1932, is named after Christ; Buddhism after Buddha; Judaism after the land of Judea; Zoroastrianism after Zoroaster.

Islam, however, claims the unique distinction of having no association with any particular person or people. The word Islam does not express any such relationship, for it does not belong to any people, person or country . . . 'Islam' is an Arabic word, and signifies submission and obedience. The religion of Islam is so called because it is submission and obedience to Allah (God).'3

Here is Mawdudi's Islam in a nutshell. Islam, he points out, is unlike any other religion; it is universal; its supreme virtue is obedience. The uniqueness of Islam was further emphasised by Mawdudi's choice of Arab terminology:

They (the West) thought that Islam is a religion (Nihlah; the English word'religion' appears in the text as a synonym for Nihlah) in the sense in which the word 'religion' is often used ... and what is meant by 'religion' is no more than the sum of several beliefs, rituals and sentiments . . . but this is not the case.'4

All other religions and schools of thought may fall under Nihlah; Islam is much more than that, it is Din.

Din encompasses the universality of Islam, the sense of submission, the primacy of religious law: and again Mawdudi demonstrates his attitude by etymological means. The original senses of Din, he says, were four:

1. Power, authority, rule, the exactment of obedience and the use of sovereignty ...

2. Obedience and service and servility to one Lord ... 3. Law, statute, mode of behaviour ... 4. Justice, reward and punishment ... .'5


The very use of one word to denote four different meanings was an indication of the disorderly and primitive state of the Arabs under the Jahiliyyah; but with the revelation to Muhammad came not only social but linguistic order. The four meanings of Din were now interwoven:

1. The sublime sovereignty and governance. 2. Obedience and submission to that sublime sovereignty. 3. The theoretical and practical order established under that governance. 4. The judgement passed by sublime sovereignty upon following of that

order and dedication to it-or upon rebellion against it and rejection of it.'6

The fourth element of Din refers to the Akhirah (the Afterworld, Heaven and Hell), which Mawdudi sees as central to Muslim ethics; the third refers to the Shariah as a total order, a total way of life (a notion traceable back to the early writings of Abu al-Kalam Azad).'7 It was under the first two headings that Mawdudi developed some of his most original ideas: Islam, he claims, denotes the very order of creation. In Towards Understanding Islam he put forward a most far-reaching interpretation:

This powerful law which governs and controls all that comprises the Universe, from the largest stars to the tiniest particle in the earth, is made and enacted by the Great Governor, whom the whole Creation obeys. The Universe, therefore, literally, follows the religion of Islam, as Islam signifies nothing but obedience and submission to God, the Lord of the Universe. The sun, the moon, and the stars are thus all 'Muslims'. The earth is also Muslim, and so are air, water, and heat. Trees, stones and animals are all 'Muslims'.'8

Even an infidel is biologically a 'Muslim' -but as a man, he is required to be more than that to be truly Muslim (Mawdudi, in fact, spent much of his political career denying others, especially the Ahmadiyyah, the title of true Muslims). Mankind is different.

'Man has been invested with freedom of will and choice and the power to use the resources of the world in any manner he likes. In short, man has been given a sort of autonomy while being appointed God's Viceregent of the Earth."9 Man is free to choose his basic religious attitude-Mawdudi distinguishes between Atheism, Polytheism, Asceticism and Islam20 -and this is what was meant by the Quran saying 'there is no compulsion in religion' (Surat al-Baqarah, verse 256);21 but once the choice for Islam has been made, man becomes part of an authoritative order, one that reflects the order of creation.

Since Islam is the reflection of world order, it is also the religion which a reflective mind should arrive at: it is 'the religion of science and reason'. In an article of this title (al-Islam din al-ilm wal-aql), published in Tarjuman al-Quran in 1936, he depicted Islam as based on science-in fact, he claimed, Islam cannot be truly followed but through science and reason.22 It is the West that is taking up irrational attitudes, forsaking reason in its purity and enslaving itself to the senses.23 All this was meant to prove that a true Muslim society could be scientifically and technologically independent; but


in doing so Mawdudi took up notions that were manifestly apologetic. He was trying to prove the scientific viability of Islam by the standards of Western science-and seemed quite ignorant of the fact that the sort of science he was addressing himself to, the science of 'Natural Laws' and mechanistic 'World Order', had ceased to exist.24 (His treatment of Darwin was typical. Like the properly so-called Fundamentalists, he took strong exception to the Ape-Men; but unlike W.J. Brian, he set upon them not with quotations from the Gospel but with what he took to be a 'scientific' argument. No Ape-man remains have been found, he claimed (wrongly), and therefore Darwin's theory is nothing but 'inference and hypothesis'. If these are 'acceptable as evidence, how can you refute my inference if I said, on its basis, that the origin of life and of the species of creation lies in the word of the Omniscient Ruler and according to His plan, and this is much more reasonable and understandable than Darwin's inference ... and leaves no question unanswered'.25 The article on Darwin, written in the Sixties, indicates that Mawdudi never progressed beyond the nineteenth century notions of what science is.)

But if Mawdudi's knowledge of science is scant, his logic is consistent and powerful. Islam is in itself a logical system: 'It is a total order, based on wise and perfect principles; and its great and important pillars, as well as its small and fine details, all logically derive from these principles.'26 W. Cantwell Smith observed that this drive to turn Islam into a system might prove to be Mawdudi's most *enduring contribution :27 and much of Mawdudi's work-including his attempts to establish 'Muslim Science'-was directed towards this systematization. Like the conservative Ulama, Mawdudi sought to preserve the Shariah-but while they saw religious law as based on tradition, Taqlid, he saw it as a branch deriving logically from the roots of Islam.

The challenge that gave rise to grand schemes of that sort could not have been that of the often inconsistent Liberalism-certainly not a total system-that an earlier generation of Indian Muslims took to be the essence of Western wisdom. It was a new challenge-that of the new, revolutionary systems of thought emerging in Europe, and above all the challenge of Marxism and its claim for totality. Mawdudi's response was in the attempt, described above, to claim similar totality for Islam-and in trying to bring about what he called an Islamic Revolution.

THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

If Islam is a total-and perfect-system, leaving no question unanswered, it logically follows that it cannot and should not co-exist with any other system. It is then the Muslim's duty towards humanity to do his utmost for the victory of Islam. This duty is as old as revelation itself. As a preface to a book of the exegesis of the Quran, Mawdudi wrote:

Quran does not contain mere opinions and abstract thoughts so that you can peruse it sitting in your padded armchair and understand all that it wants. It is not a book discussing theology ... it is a book of agitation and movement (Kitab da'wa wa harakah; da'wa being, more or less, the


Islamic equivalent of the Marxist Agitprop), and by its very revelation it shook a meek and complacent man ... and made him confront the wayward world, struggling against evil and fighting the chiefs of idolatry and the leaders of sin and the purveyors of fallacy. This book called forth every happy spirit and every pure soul from every home and gathered them under the flag.. .28

Islam, therefore, should be a dynamic force, an avant-garde: 'Since we were established on this world as the "best of nations" (Khayr Ummah) our purpose in this world is-being Muslims-to take command and lead, not trudge along as a rear-guard . ' 29

The goals of this avant-garde were portrayed by Mawdudi-uninhibited by apologetic considerations-as the attainment of world supremacy. The message of the Quran was manifestly universal, directed towards the whole of humanity and not towards the Arabs or any other nation. It is the duty of the true Muslim leader 'to initiate such a strong universal movement as may spread Islam among Mankind at large, and enable Islam to become a predominant cultural force in the world and capture the moral, intellectual and political leadership of Mankind'.30 Ummah-the Muslim polity-is not a 'nation' in the Western sense;3" 'Islam demands the earth, and will not settle for a part or a section of it.'32

Such views of Islam as a world-wide revolutionary movement meant, again, the ardent rejection of nationalism (in this he differed from al-Banna, who remained partial to Arabism, Urubah), or the nationalism of 'that miserable man Ataturk and his followers'.3 Muslim nationalism, Mawdudi is reported to have said, is as self-contradictory as a chaste whore.34 Nationalism is not only Shirk, polytheism, it is also based on discrimination between people; not so the world government envisaged by Islam. 'The universal regime believes in equality between people and would give to each their rights in equal measure, and its principles are universal.'35

Totality, dynamism, international goals, universal equality, revolutionary spirit: Mawdudi's concept of Islam reflects the challenge of revolutionary socialism, as his generation came to know it. Indeed, he was considered by some of his admirers, during the early 1940s, as the father of a synthesis between socialism and Islam36 -and while he would have been the first to deny it, there is no doubt that he was woven-albeit effectively-socialist influences into his Islamic system. Even the line he took when critized for his concentration on Pakistani affairs (following his failure to check Jinah's movement and the establishment of Pakistan in 1947) is reminiscent of Stalin's apology for his Soviet-centred policies.

We want to bring about this revolution in our country, Pakistan, first of all, so that we can make it a tool of reforming the whole world; and if you see us today discussing the faults of Pakistan and its present calamities, it is because they obstruct our progress . .. if these wrongs were not confronting us, you would have seen us working and striving towards the purpose upon which we set our eyes to being with. This purpose of ours is eternal, universal and total, and nothing will stop us from achieving it.37


Mawdudi had subscribed to 'Islam in one country'. Nowhere is the challenge of revolutionary, Marxist thought, more evident

than in Mawdudi's choice of terminology: 'Islam is a revolutionary ideology (Fikrah inqilabiyyah) and a revolutionary practice, which aims at destroying the social order of the world totally and rebuilding it from scratch ... and Jihad denotes the revolutionary struggle.'38

Even the traditional term Mahdi was reinterpreted: not a giant-bodied Sufi endowed with occult powers, but

a most modern leader of his age possessing an unusually deep insight in all the current branches of knowledge, and all the major problems of life. As regards statesmanship, political sagacity and strategic skill in war he will take the world by surprise and prove the most modern of all the moderns. But, I am afraid, the first to raise hue and cry against his innovation will be the Ulama and Sufis.39

This led some people to suspect that Mawdudi himself claims to be the Mahdi. His reply was typical of both his views and his sense of humour:

I cannot help remarking that giving expression to such suspicions cannot be the pastime of a person who fears Allah, who holds himself answerable to Him and who remembers His clear command: 'Avoid suspicions scrupulously, for some suspicions are sinful.' Those who are expressing such misgivings . .. are rendering themselves exposed to a grievous punishment which I have decided to inflict on them and which they will never be able to avoid. The punishment is that, God willing, I will pass away into the presence of my Allah without making any claim, and there I shall see what plea these people put in before Him for creating those misgivings . . .40

In this case the challenge was directly referred to by Mawdudi: 'When the leaders of iniquity like Lenin and Hitler can appear on the stage of this world, why should the appearance of a leader of Goodness only be regarded as remote and uncertain?'4'

But the influence of this power of iniquity-Marxism-on Mawdudi extended beyond terminology; it is discernible in both the social values and the political methods of Islam as he understood it. The egalitarian spirit inspired his interpretation of Tawhid (Monotheism, Unity) as a social principle, a call for revolt:

The call of Islam for Tawhid and the worship of Allah, The One, is not only a theological issue and principle-as is the case with other religions and sects-but is in fact a call (Da'wa, Agitation) for social revolution, aimed primarily at eradicating those who assumed the throne of divinity and enslaved people.42

The subordination of one man to another is also Shirk (polytheism). In the truly Muslim society there would be no ruling classes-not even the religious establishment-it would be, as he called it, a 'Theo-Democracy' .43

Mawdudi described the purpose of the Islamic revolution as the establishment of a perfect social order, in which all virtues will be able to


flourish and 'all kinds of exploitation, injustice and disorders ... are supressed and prevented' . This happy vision led some Western students of Islamic history to compare such movements as al-Banna's Ikhwan or Mawdudi's Jamaat-i Islami with Christian Messianic movements, such as emerged during the fifteenth century.45 The comparison might be intriguing, but it is not necessarily valid: European Chiliasts-such as the fifteenth century Tabortes in Bohemia-were driven by a vision of doom and Kingdom Come, of a transcendental change in human nature, of 'new Heavens and new earth' as the Revelation has it. Mawdudi's polity, on the other hand, has nothing to do with Yawm al-qiyamah or with a transformation of Mankind: 'It does not, through a false sense of originality ... provide any novel moral virtues.'46 A sociological study might indicate some traits common to both 'Militant social Chiliasm' (to quote Halpern) and Islamic 'Fundamentalist' movements; but Mawdudi's system of thought, his concept of what Islam is, are not chiliastic or Messianic. The terms in which he stated the scope and purpose of Islam were much more closely related to Marxist influences-and so were also his concepts concerning the political practice of Islam.

In the more concrete and political sense, Islam is a political party:

The expression 'Muslim' indicates the world revolutionary party established by Islam .. . and anyone believing in this call and truly accepting the responsibilities is a member of the 'Islamic Community' (Jamaat-i Islami) or the 'Islamic Party' ... called 'The Party of God' in the Revelation (i.e., in the Quran; the Arabic term used is Hizb Allah. )47

It is a party organised by God, and therefore destined to take the reins of power; and, like other revolutionary parties, it is not only a political instrument but also the kernel of future society, a living manifestation of Islam. The odds may seem against its success; but again the challenge of Marxist achievement was invoked by Mawdudi as an exhortation to the discouraged.

In the Nineteenth Century the supremacy of Capitalism was complete. It did not occur, to the cowardly and fatalist mind, that the regime that ruled the world with such awesome military and political power can ever be overthrown. Nevertheless, under these conditions there emerged a man, Karl Marx, and he began to preach the Communist ideal-and he was opposed to by the governments, lost his homeland, and he became a refugee, wandering from one country to another and suffering misfortune and poverty. Nevertheless, before his death he succeeded in forming a community (Jama'a) that within forty years was to put an end to the throne of a great and fearsome power, Russia. And it did not stop at that, but shook the foundations of Capitalism all over the world . . .48

Marx as an exiled prophet: the ever-present challenge of Marxism is reflected in Mawdudi's version of the life of Marx, not (mutatis mutandis) unlike the outline of the life of Muhammad.


This fascination with the advent of Marxism, discernible in many of Mawdudi's early writings, seems to have been shared by his audience-the new generation of Indian Muslims who became his followers in the 1930s and 1940s. The reasons for that had relatively little to do with the actual social conditions of India and of the Muslim community: no authentic drive towards social change was to emerge out of Mawdudi's theory. The attitude he took towards Marxism-active assimilation of revolutionary terminology and practices, accompanied by total rejection and intolerance towards the theory as a whole-can best be understood as a part of the general conflict between Islamic and Western thought. Ever since the challenge of a rival civilisation presented itself, Islam was in the process of re-defining itself as a response. This hardly applies to its reaction towards Hinduism: the long and rich vernacular civilisation of India was dismissed by Mawdudi as remnants of a primitive past that should have been done away with more thoroughly. Only the West, with its superior power, forced Muslim Indians to redefine their faith.

MAWDUDI'S ISLAM AND THE WEST

Following the defeat of the 1858 rebellion, Muslim elite in India underwent a process of rapid Westernisation, guided by the thought and activities of men like Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan and embodied in his college at Aligarh (and it must be remembered that, as far as Mawdudi was concerned, 'the real power of a nation lies not with its general public, but with its elite').49 The basic attitude of the Westernised elite towards Islam was apologetic: an attempt to reconcile Islamic tradition with Western philosophy and values. The logical impossibility of such an undertaking was exposed by Mawdudi in a concise and scathing paragraph:

The concept of religion in Islam means the code of human life, while the concept of religion in the West is that it is merely a personal belief, which has nothing to do with practical human life. And Islam puts the belief in God above all, while in the West the existence of divinity is not at all accepted as a fact. And the whole civilisation of Islam is based upon the belief in revelation and prophecy, while there the revelation is suspect and the existence of prophecy doubted. And the belief in the Day of Judgement is the cornerstone of moral order, while this cornerstone has no foundation in the West. And those rituals and deeds that are obligatory in Islam are considered by Westerners as traditions left over from the dark and primitive ages, of no use at all nowadays. It is also that principles of culture and civilisation in Islam are totally different from those of the West. The root of roots and the supreme principle of Islamic jurisprudence is that exalted Allah is in Himself the promulgator of law, but they in the West acknowledge no right for God in the promulgation of law-for them it is done by the legislative council, elected by the nation. And in politics Islam seeks an Islamic government and the West aims at national government. Islam turns toward internationalism and the eyes of the West are on Nationalism. In


economics Islam provides for the eating of Halal and for alms and charity and forbids interest absolutely, while economic order in the West is based only on interest and profit. And in ethics Islam looks towards after-life happiness and the West looks towards material profit in this life. And in social affairs the way of Islam differs again from the way of the West in almost everything . . .50

But such contradictions did little to deter the Westernisers as long as 'The West'-or the British Empire and its culture-remained stable and powerful. Two factors combined to make Westernisation seem inevitable: the immense political, military and economic power of the Western powers, that seemed all but permanent; and the notion that European civilisation, based on liberal thought, was the proudest achievement of mankind and the criterion for the evaluation of the rest. Both assumptions lay behind the apologetic re-definition of Islam; and both assumptions were shattered in the twentieth century by world war and by Marxism. This gave Mawdudi an opportunity to follow the greatest of Muslim revivalists, Al-Ghazali, in curing the Westernised elite of their delusions. Al-Ghazali

studied Greek thought with great intellectual acumen and subjected it to such searching criticism that its grip on the Muslim mind was loosened considerably. Those who had taken Greek speculations to be based on reality, and were endeavouring to defend Revelation against their onslaught by showing that the two were identical (i.e. by apologetics), were helped to understand the truth on the correct perspective.5'

Where Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan saw a triumphant world power, Mawdudi saw a sick and declining civilisation. In an essay titled 'The Suicide of Western Civilisation' (Intihar al-hadarah al-gharbiyyah), written in the early 1930s, Mawdudi sought to prove that its final demise was inevitable: both'Natural Law' and the Quran led to the same conclusion. In our world, he wrote, there is constant cyclical movement: birth and death, youth and old age, strength and weakness. All powers and empires, including the West, are bound to decline. (There is no indication of the extent to which Mawdudi was influenced by Spengler, directly or indirectly). Furthermore, the Quran also indicates that the ascendancy of the West is temporary: all nations and rulers are given their limited period in power, so that they can be tested (Thumma ja'alnakum khala'if ala al-ard ... Li-nanzura kayfa ta'maluna). Those who failed, like Pharaonic Egypt or the modern West, to use their power for godly purposes, were given an initial warning: 'The World War, the economic problems, increasing unemployment, the spread of contagious diseases [such as the 'flu epidemic of 1919] and the deterioration of family order-all these are manifest omens.'52 Pharaoh, the Quran and the Bible tell us, did not take heed-and neither has the modern West done so:

The state of affairs now indicates that the stage of warning and of collecting evidence is almost over, and the hour of judgement is near. Two powerful demons have seized the West, dragging it towards


self-destruction-the demon of birth control (Shaytan qat' al-nasl) is one, and the demon of nationalism (Shaytan al-qawmiyyah) is the other.53

The abortions and contraceptives, the mass slaughter weapons of nationalist wars, the economic breakdown, even the failure of prohibition in the United States (Mawdudi described Roosevelt's success in 1932 as the victory of Wine-Khamr-over Word-Amr)54 were all the portents of impending suicide.

All these prophecies of doom were rather commonplace in Mawdudi's generation, and went far towards reducing the awe with which the West had been held by Muslims. But the political and social upheavals were not in themselves sufficient to undermine the authority of Western-in fact liberal-values: it is in this regard that the influence of Marxism was crucial. Here was a revolutionary political movement that propagated a system of thought that was independent of-or rather incompatible with-what people like Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan took to be the values of the West. If such defiance was possible, there was no need for anyone-least of all the Muslims-to seek a symbiosis between their ways and Western values. Western wisdom was no more the sum of all human knowledge; its very validity as a system was questioned, and the world was open for alternative systems of thought (and for their political manifestations) to assert themselves.

This accounts, most probably, for Mawdudi's fascination with the advent of Marxism: as a political power it weakened Western powers, as an ideology it undermined the moral authority of liberal thought. But fascination did not breed tolerance: while treading in the footsteps of Marxist ideology and borrowing freely from Marxist terminology and Marxist practice, Mawdudi declared himself a staunch enemy of both liberalism and Marxism.

MAWDUDI AS AN ANTI-MARXIST

The very act of asserting Islam as a total ideology, while inspired by Marxism, meant-paradoxically-the negation of Marxism; and since it seemed, at least to Mawdudi, a more potent and dangerous force than liberalism, the enmity towards it was bound to be more pronounced. Mawdudi sought to refute or reject not only Marxism in general but also the philosophical sources of Dialectical Materialism-both Dialectics and Materialism.

Hegel won Mawdudi's respect by trying to give meaning to history-but his view of mankind as constantly developing through conflict was rejected as dangerous to Islam. If each and every period, wrote Mawdudi, has its unique creations-which are later to be improved upon by antithesis and synthesis-then the same might be said about Muhammad and his Revelation; but the eternal validity of the Quran is a sacrosanct Muslim tenet. The dialectical development, accompanied by constant strife, may have been the path of actual history; in a diagram, Mawdudi represents it as a sinusoidal line leading from A to B. The wild gyrations of the line represent


the passages from thesis to antithesis. On the same diagram there appears a straight line-leading also from A to B; this is the straight path, al-sirat al-mustaqim of the daily prayers, which human history would have taken had the guidance of Muhammad been truly followed.55

It was materialism, however, that bore the main brunt of Mawdudi's critique-of both liberalism and Marxism. Indian Hindu and Sufi Muslim traditions stressed the complete denial of the body, the asceticist yearning for the perfect spirituality. The West went to the other extreme, that of

Material perfection, which meant that a man should be surrounded by all the material comforts and bounties of the world and regarded himself as nothing but an animal [again the evil effects of Darwin] . . . Men learned to fly like birds, swim like crocodiles, run like horses and even terrorize and destroy like wolves-but to live like human beings they learned not.56

This inhuman materialism did not triumph overnight, explained Mawdudi; for five or six centuries a struggle had been going on between the principles of religion and the atheistic spirit of Western science. This atheism is not immanent to science: it was a result of the narrow-mindedness of the Christian Church, which led scientists to look upon every religion and spiritual belief as an enemy of free thought57 (this, he implies, would not have happened under true Islam). The struggle was decided rather recently, according to Mawdudi: from Spinoza and his Pantheistic religious rationalism the road finally led to Spencer's atheism and Mill's utilitarianism. It was merely coincidental that this came about at the same time with the high tide of Western power and development:

For the development achieved by the people of the West in this era, from the material point of view, was not achieved due to secularism and materialism but was achieved in spite of them. The proof of that is, briefly, that man cannot develop without being ready to sacrifice life, time, money, effort and personal interest in the service of a noble cause, while secularism and materialism lack the ability to give man a motive for sacrifice . . .58

This may apply to Western liberalism, but hardly to Marxism-which had proved highly influential as a call to arms, making people ready to sacrifice all for the cause. Against the materialism of Marx, Mawdudi put forward a stronger (and emotionally effective) argument: if liberal materialism meant the atrophy of society, Marxist materialism meant the degradation of the individual. Marx 'observed the external animal (in every man) marked by the dependence upon sources of income, and totally ignored the internal human being that lives encapsulated within the external animal. ..'. Had Hegel or Marx read the Quran, they would have encountered none of the obstacles which forced them to rely upon hypothesis and inference, 'for the knowledge of man and the philosophy of history put forward by the Quran solve in a -true form and a convincing manner all these problems which confused Hegel and Marx'.59 Islam, by stressing obedience to Allah even in the everyday business of man, solves the problems of human existence by


making man's material life into 'a thoroughly spiritual venture';60 while Marxism, ignoring God, finds itself in league with Darwin and his alleged denial of the spirit.

This Marxist atheism, wrote Mawdudi, was manifest in the attitude of the Russian communists, who tried to exile God from Russia;6' and it led them to view history as constant class warfare, in which they took the side of one particular class. But in Islam all men are equal under God, and therefore no artificial equality is necessary: 'Islam does not agree with those who desire to enforce complete equality in respect of the means of production and the fruits of economic endeavour, as they aim at replacing limited natural inequalities by an artifical equality.'62 This promise of Marxism is, however, effective and enticing; only a true version of Islam-namely, Mawdudi's Jamaat-i Islami-can counter it.

The only regime fit to confront the sweeping current of communism is a regime that treats the questions of human life and its practical problems in a better way than communism, and gives man-at the same time-the peace of mind that the spiritual happiness that communism absolutely lacks. And if a regime like that is to be established it cannot be established but on the basis of Islam alone.63

In practice, this meant a continuous confrontation between Mawdudi's Jamaat-i Islami and the Marxists in Pakistan. A recent communist account of Pakistani politics after Bhutto's fall from power describes Mawdudi's party as 'a peculiar imperialist construct' using 'goon squads' against the left. But violence is not the only method used: 'We are not satisfied with merely preaching and instructing to save the workers from the opiates of communism, but do our best in fact to solve their problems as well.'64 This is to be done by competing with communist activities on the shop-floor and community levels, setting up unions, and offering a promise of Islamic justice-though not of equality. This proved to be an expedient role to play: it more than partly accounts for the growing influence of Jamaat-i Islam, now under the political leadership of Mian Tufail, with the military government-and for the financial and political support given to Mawdudi by Saudi Arabia. With more Saudi aid going to Pakistan than to any other country, the latter seems to be of major importance-the Saudis, in fact, saw Mawdudi safely through his conflicts with Bhutto's government.

But there was more to Mawdudi's anti-Marxism than mere expediency, and there was more to the success of his party than Saudi backing. Mawdudi's concept of Islam-both as a total ideology and as the movement that would implement its vision-was to a great extent a response to the new challenge of Marxist thought and of Marxist power. Mawdudi was constantly addressing himself to the elite (the Khasah, 'special', of traditional Muslim terminology) of Indian Muslims-for whom a return to past values has become impossible. 'We do not wish to reconstruct Islamic civilization,' Mawdudi wrote; the break with Western liberalism, that was central to his thought, was not towards the past but towards a future in which 'we shall make Islam the supreme authority over human life in its totality'.65 Such a break was, in a sense, made possible by the example of the Marxist break


from Western tradition (as it seemed to Mawdudi to be). In borrowing heavily from Marxist revolutionary terminology and practices, Mawdudi came dangerously close to restating socialism under an Islamic guise-a notion that was as far from his mind as the apologetics of former generations. It therefore became increasingly necessary to point out the faults and fallacies of Marxism, to emphasize its incompatibility with Islam;

This did not mean abandoning the idea of Islamic revolution. The rise to prominence of Jamaat-i Islam in Pakistan was only a part-albeit a major one-of the resurgence of similar movements and ideas in several Muslim states (of which Iran was the most spectacular example). The promise of a brave new Islamic policy seemed to be offering solace to peoples and elites that saw the former promises-those of happiness through national independence-gradually dissipating. In contemporary Pakistan, Mawdudi's concept of Islam is of special import: for Pakistan was never a proper nation-state. It was the result of an experiment, an attempt to establish a nation-like polity around Muslim identity, an 'undertaking to build an Islamic society' as W.C. Smith put it.66 As an experiment, it seemed both expensive and unpromising: the wars with India, the struggles over the issues of democracy, constitutionalism and religion, the constant scramble for power-all these led not to national-Muslim consolidation but to bloodshed, disintegration and disillusionment. Paradoxically, it was Mawdudi's Jamaat-i Islami that now offered a raison d'e'tre for the Pakistani state they originally opposed: a vision of a future society ruled by Islam in its totality, a society greater and happier than the one envisioned by Marxism.

But with the advent to power of Islamic revolutionaries new risks were incurred, risks yet to be avoided. Mawdudi strongly denounced the godlessness of Marxism-but he had chosen to combat Marxism not only on that front but also on the front of social welfare. He stressed the importance of Heaven and Hell in Islam-but it is clear that he saw them as no more than the guarantees of social ethics in the Islamic polity. By responding to the Marxist challenge, it seems, Mawdudi accepted at least one Marxist tenet (while vehemently rejecting most others): that it is the purpose of a revolution to establish a political shortcut to social happiness and moral perfection. Mawdudi's answer to the question of 'What is Islam?' is that Islam is a total, universal ideology that can shape a perfect society; and that the purpose of Islam as a revolutionary movement is to govern the world, 'so that peace, contentment and well-being may fill the earth as waters fill the

' 67 oceans. The above phrase, coined by Mawdudi (or by his disciple and colleague

Khurshid Ahmad, who translated most of his works into English) to describe the promise of Islam as he understood it, has a familiar ring to it. Whether intentionally or not, it is reminiscent of the words of Isaiah-'For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea' (Isaiah 11, 9, according to the King James version). The difference between these two phrases assumes a symbolic significance: for while Isaiah spoke of the knowledge of God, Mawdudi-and his political movement-speaks of a well-ordered and happy society; while Isaiah spoke of the end of time, Mawdudi speaks of a situation that can obtain-if and where Jamaat-i Islami


attain power-here and now. It is in this regard that the revolutionary Islamic movements are now incurring new risks: for the validity of their Islam will ultimately be judged not according to the religious merits of their argument but according to their ability to fulfil a promise of happiness, here and now.

NOTES

(All books and articles are by Mawdudi, unless otherwise indicated).

1. A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam (Lahore: 1963), p. 109. 2. Leonard Binder, Religion and Politics in Pakistan (Berkeley: 1963), p. 83. 3. Towards Understanding Islam (Rampur: 1951), p. 210. 4. Iqbal, The Secrets of the Self, quoted in Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India

(London: 1946), p. 109. 5. Al-Jihad fi sabil Allah (Damascus: n.d.), p. 50 (My translation-E.L.). 6. ibid. 7. ibid. 8. Minhaj al-ingilab al-islami (Rawalpindi: n.d.), p. 10 (my translation-E.L.). 9. op. cit., p. 11.

10. Quoted in Azis Ahmad, 'Mawdudi and Orthodox Fundamentalists in Pakistan', MEJ, XXI (1967), p. 374.

11. Minhaj al-inqilab al-islami, pp. 37-8. 12. Correspondence between Maulana Maududi and Maryam Jameelah (Lahore: 1969), pp.

57-8. 13. Towards Understanding Islam, pp. 1-2. 14. Al-Jihad . . ., pp. 8-9 (my translation-E.L.). 15. Al-mustalihat al-arba'a ft al-quran (the four forms referred to are God, al-Illah; Sovereign,

Rabb; Worship; Ibadah; and Din) (Kuwait: 1971), pp. 116-18 (my translation-E.L.). 16. Op. cit., p. 120. 17. Sayed Riaz Ahmad, Maulana Maududi and the Islamic State (Lahore: 1976), p. 29. 18. Towards Understanding Islam, p. 3. 19. Islamic Way of Life (Lahore: 1967), p. 2. 20. See Revivalist Movement. . ., pp. 6-17. 21. 'Mabadi' salimah li-tafsir al-Quran' in al-Islam fi muwajahat al-tahaddiyat al-mu'asirah

(Kuwait: 1971), p. 177. 22. 'Al-Islam din al-ilm wal-aql', op. cit., p. 11. 23. 'Hida al-madhhab al-aqli Aydan' in Nahnu wal-hadarah al-gharbiyyah (Damascus: n.d.),

p. 140. 24. W.C. Smith, Modern Islam in India, p. 71. 25. 'Nazariyyat Darwin lil-nushu' wal-irtiqa' in al-Islam fi muwajahah, p. 24 (my

translation-E.L.). 26. Nazariyyat al-Islam al-siyyasiyyah (Damascus: 1967), p. 7 (my translation-E.L.). 27. W. Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History (Princeton: 1957), p. 234. 28. Al-mabadi al-asasiyyah li-fahm al-Quran (Kuwait: 1971), p. 53 (my translation-E.L.). 29. 'Al-da' wa-dawa'uhu' in Nahnu wal-hadarah al-gharbiyyah, pp. 336-37 (my

translation-E.L.). 30. Revivalist Movement, p. 38. 31. Al-Jihad fti sabil Allah, pp. 8-9. 32. op. cit., p. 12 (my translation-E.L.). 33. 'Al-niza' bayn al-sharq wal-gharb fi Turkia', Nahnu ... , p. 120. 34. Quoted in K.K. Aziz, The Making of Pakistan (London: 1967), p. 105. 35. Al-mabadi al-asasiyyah ... p. 60 (my translation-E.L.). 36. W. Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India, p. 149. 37. Waqi' al-muslimim wa sabil al-nuhud bihim, (Damascus: 1956), p. 7 (my translation-

E.L.). 38. Al-Jihad fi sabil Allah, p. 10 (my translation-E.L.).


39. Revivalist Movement . . ., p. 41. 40. op. cit., p. 147. 41. op. cit., p. 43. 42. Al-Jihad fi sabil Allah, p. 23 (my translation-E.L.). 43. Political Theory of Islam, quoted in K.B. Sayeed 'Jama'at-i Islami Movement', Pacific

Affairs, XXX (1957), p. 68. 44. Islamic Way of Life, p. 37. 45. Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa

(Princeton: 1963), p. 136. 46. Islamic Way of Life, p. 37. 47. Al-Jihad ... p. 10 (my translation-E.L.). 48. 'Shari'at al-abtal, la shari'at al-du'af, in Nahnu wal-hadarah al-gharbiyyah, pp. 280-81

(my translation-E.L.). 49. 'Talai' al-thawrah 'ala al-din', op. cit., pp. 35-6 (my translation-E.L.). 50. 'Inhitat hadarat al-Islam fi al-hind', op. cit., pp. 35-6 (my translation-E.L.). 51. Revivalist Movement. . ., p. 57. 52. 'Intihar al-hadarah al-gharbiyyah', in Nahnu ..., p. 76 (my translation-E.L.). 53. op. cit., p. 77. 54. 'Bayna al-shari'a al-rabbaniyyah wal-qanun al-wad'i', in op. cit., p. 52. 55. 'Falsafat Hegel wa Marx lil-ta'rikh, in Al-Islam ft Muwajahat ... p. 37. 56. Islamic Way of Life, p. 83. 57. 'Ubudiyyatuna al-fikriyyah wa asbabuha', in Nahnu wal-hadara, p. 13. 58. 'Al-Quwah a-ra'idah al-muwajjihah fi-al-'asr al-hadith ... al-Islam aw al-masihiyyah' in

al-Islam fi muwajahat .. ., p. 280 (my translation-E.L.). 59. 'Falsafat Hegel. . .', pp. 34-5 (my translation-E.L.). 60. Islamic Way of Life, p. 87. 61. 'Al Manhaj al-jadid li-ta'mir kiyan al-Ummah', Nahnu wal-hadarah al gharbiyyah, p. 197. 62. Islamic Way of Life, p. 72. 63.,'Al-Quwah al-ra'idah . . .', pp. 280-81 (my translation-E.L.). 64. Waqi' al-muslimim wa sabil al-nuhud bihim, p. 59 (my translation-E.L.). 65. op. cit. p. 45. 66. W. Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History, p. 207. 67. Islamic Way of Life, p. 1.

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Mawdudi's Concept of Islam