Jamaat-e-Islami & Abul Alaa Maududi

Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-e-Islami

Jamaat-I-Islami is Pakistan's oldest religious party. The Jamaat-e-Islami ranks among the leading and most influential Islamic revivalist movements and the first of its kind to develop an ideology based on the modern revolutionary conception of Islam in the contemporary world.

Jamaat’s intellectual inspiration primarily came from thoughts of Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, who along with the great thinker poet Dr. Mohammed Iqbal, set the pace for contemporary Muslim thinking in the South Asian sub-continent. Jamaat-e-Islami was established in Lahore on August 26, 1941 (2 Sha’ban, 1360 AH).

Supporters are sorted keeping in mind the extent of their commitment to party. The hierarchy that resulted began at the bottom with the sympathisers (hamdard) then the affiliate (mutaffiq) and ended with the members (arkan). The first thwo categories played no official role besides serving as a pool from which new members were drawn and helping relay the Jamaat’s message. All categories provided workers (karkuns) employed by party to perform political and administrative functions. Affiliates were those who favored an Islamic order and supported the Jamaat but were not members. They were, however, under Jamaat’s supervision and were organised into circles and clusters. Affiliates stood higher in hierarchy than the sympathisers.

With the founding of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, the Jamaat was also reorganised. It was then classified into two independent organisations -- the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan and the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Besides these two bodies, Jamaat has an autonomous existence in the Indian held Kashmir, also in Sri Lanka the Jamaat is working as a self-reliant establishment. In mid ’70s, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was also revived as an independent movement. While all the five organisations under the name of Jamaat-e-Islami are working for essentially similar objectives and have identical ideological approach, there is no organisational link between them. Each operates independently and has developed its programs.

In its endeavours to propagate Islamic thought and to work for the cause of the Muslims around the world, Jamaat developed and maintained close brotherly relations with the Islamic movements and missions working in different continents and countries. The Akhwan-al-Muslimeen in the Arab world, the movements working in the northern African countries, Hammas in Palestine, Rifah in Turkey, Hizb-e-Nehdat-e-Islami, Tajikistan, Ma’Shoomi in Indonesia, the Muslim Youth Movement and the Islamic Party of Malaysia, al To’iah-al Islamia of Kuwait and Qatar and Al-Jamaat-e-Islamia of Lebanon, have ideological and at levels practical contacts with Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan.
Abul Alaa Maududi

Abul Alaa Maududi (1903-79) was the founder of the Islamic sect in Pakistan called Jama'at-i Islami. Maududi was what is now being termed a "contemporary Islamic revivalist thinker." The Jama'at-e Islami founder Maulana Maududi coined the terms tehrik-e Islami and Islami inqilab (Islamic revolution) in the south Asian context. The ideological contribution made by Maududi appears to be one of the major factors behind the global Islamic reawakening. His call for ijtihad based on the Islamic sources [the Qur’an and sunnah] led to what has been termed fundamentalism by Christian scholars.

Abul A’la was born on Rajab 3, 1321 AH (September 25, 1903 AD) in Aurangabad, a well-known town in the former princely state of Hyderabad (Deccan), presently Maharashtra, India. Born in a respectable family, his ancestry on the paternal side is traced back to the Holy Prophet Muhammad. The family had a long-standing tradition of spiritual leadership and a number of Maududi’s ancestors were outstanding leaders of Sufi Orders. One of the luminaries among them, the one from whom he derived his family name, was Khawajah Qutb al-Din Maudud (d. 527 AH), a renowned leader of the Chishti Sufi Order. Maududi’s forefathers had moved to the Subcontinent from Chisht towards the end of the 9th century of the Islamic calendar (15th century of the Christian calendar).

During 1920-28, Maulana Maududi also translated four different books, one from Arabic and the rest from English. He also made his mark on the academic life of the Subcontinent by writing his first major book, al-Jihad fi al-Islam. This is a masterly treatise on the Islamic law of war and peace. It was first serialised in al-Jam’iyat in 1927 and was formally published in 1930. Maududi pretty much summarizes the entire Islamist ideology and some of its justifications in the Quran. The text serves as an excellent (and nearly comprehensive) summary of Islamist ideology. No other work approached this topic so systematically and unapologetically.

In the mid ’30s, Maududi started writing on major political and cultural issues confronting the Muslims of India at that time and tried to examine them from the Islamic perspective rather than merely from the viewpoint of short-term political and economic interests. He relentlessly criticised the newfangled ideologies which had begun to cast a spell over the minds and hearts of his brethren-in-faith. Perhaps no other Muslim intellectual in the 19th and 20th century offered such elaborate ideas on political, economic and social dimensions of Islam as we find its in the writings of Sayyid Maududi.

Around the year 1940, Maududi developed ideas regarding the founding of a more comprehensive and ambitious movement and this led him to launch a new organisation under the name of the Jamaat-e-Islami. Maududi was elected Jamaat’s first Ameer and remained so till 1972 when he withdrew from the responsibility for reasons of health.

After migrating to Pakistan in August 1947, Maududi concentrated his efforts on establishing a truly Islamic state and society in the country. Consistent with this objective, he wrote profusely to explain the different aspects of the Islamic way of life, especially the socio-political aspects. This concern for the implementation of the Islamic way of life led Maududi to criticise and oppose the policies pursued by the successive governments of Pakistan and to blame those in power for failing to transform Pakistan into a truly Islamic state.

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 September 22, 1979 at the age of 76.