Javed Ahmad Ghamidi

جاوید احمد غامدی

b. 1951 · Pakistan · Scholar, Qur'an commentator, founder of Al-Mawrid and Danish Sara

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi was born in 1951 in the Punjab province of Pakistan into a landowning family with Sufi leanings. After schooling he moved to Lahore in 1967 and took a bachelor’s degree with honours in English literature and philosophy at Government College Lahore. His early interest in literature turned towards religion when he came across the writings of Hamiduddin Farahi and then sought out Farahi’s pupil Amin Ahsan Islahi, with whom he studied the Qur’an and the interpretive method of the Farahi-Islahi school.

He taught Islamic studies at the Civil Services Academy in Lahore from 1979 to 1991, founded the institutions Al-Mawrid and Danish Sara in Lahore, and served for a period on Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology from 2006. He reached a wide public through lectures and television programmes in Urdu, and a centre carrying his name, the Ghamidi Center of Islamic Learning, operates in the United States.

His central works are Mizan, a systematic statement of what he takes to be the content of the religion, and a Qur’an translation and commentary, Al-Bayan. He argues that Islam consists of the Qur’an and the Sunnah as understood through the Muslim community’s continuous practice, and he reads questions of law, such as jihad, penal rulings and the nature of the state, in a way that departs from many classical and Islamist positions. These views have been criticised by some traditionalist scholars and have also been the subject of controversy in Pakistan.

Photo: CR Guru PK, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Archived 19 October 2026 · Biography sources: en.wikipedia.org · openlibrary.org

Works

Language:

Books 6

BOOK 2000 · Urdu

Burhan برہان

A critical examination of contemporary religious and political thought among Muslims.

Archived 19 October 2026 · Source: openlibrary.org

Cite

Ghamidi, Javed Ahmad. Burhan. 2000. Archived 19 October 2026 in Islamic Internet Archives: Archive of Modern Islamic Thought. https://islamicarchives.org/authors/javed-ahmad-ghamidi/#javed-ahmad-ghamidi-burhan

No free copy online

COLLECTION 2001 · Urdu

Maqamat مقامات

A collection of Urdu essays, including one in which he explains the origin of his name.

Archived 19 October 2026 · Source: openlibrary.org

Cite

Ghamidi, Javed Ahmad. Maqamat. 2001. Archived 19 October 2026 in Islamic Internet Archives: Archive of Modern Islamic Thought. https://islamicarchives.org/authors/javed-ahmad-ghamidi/#javed-ahmad-ghamidi-maqamat

No free copy online

BOOK 2001 · Urdu

Mizan میزان

His comprehensive statement of Islam's beliefs, law and ethics drawn from the Qur'an and Sunnah; also published in English as Islam: A Comprehensive Introduction (Shehzad Saleem, trans.).

Archived 19 October 2026 · Source: Internet Archive

Cite

Ghamidi, Javed Ahmad. Mizan. 2001. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/Meezan_201902. Archived 19 October 2026 in Islamic Internet Archives: Archive of Modern Islamic Thought. https://islamicarchives.org/authors/javed-ahmad-ghamidi/#javed-ahmad-ghamidi-mizan

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BOOK 2009 · English

Islam: A Comprehensive Introduction

English translation of Mizan, his systematic account of the religion's sources, beliefs, law and ethics.

Archived 19 October 2026 · Source: Internet Archive

Cite

Ghamidi, Javed Ahmad. Islam: A Comprehensive Introduction. 2009. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/mizan-english-ghamidi. Archived 19 October 2026 in Islamic Internet Archives: Archive of Modern Islamic Thought. https://islamicarchives.org/authors/javed-ahmad-ghamidi/#javed-ahmad-ghamidi-islam-a-comprehensive-introduction

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BOOK Urdu

Al-Bayan البیان

His Urdu translation and commentary on the Qur'an in the tradition of Farahi and Islahi, published in several volumes.

Archived 19 October 2026 · Source: Internet Archive

Cite

Ghamidi, Javed Ahmad. Al-Bayan. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/bq-1_20241121. Archived 19 October 2026 in Islamic Internet Archives: Archive of Modern Islamic Thought. https://islamicarchives.org/authors/javed-ahmad-ghamidi/#javed-ahmad-ghamidi-al-bayan

READ AT SOURCE ↗

BOOK Urdu

Qanun-e Jihad قانونِ جہاد

His treatment of the law of jihad, holding that armed jihad may be waged only by a properly constituted state.

Archived 19 October 2026 · Source: openlibrary.org

Cite

Ghamidi, Javed Ahmad. Qanun-e Jihad. Archived 19 October 2026 in Islamic Internet Archives: Archive of Modern Islamic Thought. https://islamicarchives.org/authors/javed-ahmad-ghamidi/#javed-ahmad-ghamidi-qanun-e-jihad

No free copy online