PREFACE

Since Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi is the foremost standard-bearer of the movement for Islamic renaissance in recent times, some knowledge about his life, activities, aims and ideals is essential for all those who strive for the universal triumph of the Islamic order. To provide the public with first-hand information of his work, I have quoted extensively from Maulana Maudoodi’s writings and press statements at all stages of his career. Those who want to pursue this more deeply, should diligently study his many books in the original Urdu or translations.

Because Maulana Maudoodi is by nature very reserved and speaks about himself and his private affairs with much reluctance, no definitive biography on him has yet been written. His self-abnegation is so extreme that some of his supporters fear it might prove detrimental to the very cause for which he has dedicated his life. They insist that he must write his autobiography without delay. But if, due to poor health, he cannot, this pamphlet is presented to the reader with the hope that it will inspire some gifted Muslim pen to treat this subject with greater originality, thoroughness, scholarship and literary merit.

MARYAM JAMEELAH (formerly Margaret Marcus)

New York Dhulqadah 26, 1392 (January 3, 1973)

MAULANA SAYYID ABUL ALA MAUDOODI—THE GREAT MUJADDID OF THE MODERN AGE

All of the previous movements for Islamic revival in the recent past have either disintegrated or are now more or less successfully suppressed, having failed to attain their objectives. The only internationally significant Islamic movement still strong and active in the world today is the Jama’at-e-Islami in Pakistan. This exceptional movement owes its existence and survival to one man—Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi.

He was born on September 25, 1903 in Aurangabad, Hyderabad-Deccan of a family who claimed direct descent from Khwaja Qutbuddin Maudood-e-Chishti, the founder of the Chishti order of Sufism whose teachings reached the Indo-Pak subcontinent through his disciple in the third line of Khwaja Moinuddin of Ajmer. Khwaja Moinuddin was the disciple of Khwaja Usman Harwani who was the disciple of Haji Sharif Zandani and he in turn was a follower of Khwaja Qutbuddin Maudood. Maulana Maudoodi’s father was an advocate but although Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan was a cousin of his mother and he received his education at Aligarh, in his later life, he grew increasingly disenchanted with the British rule and its supporters. Thus repelled by Western civilization, he did not want to send his sons to English schools and so arranged for them a thorough education at home in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. When he was only sixteen years old, he lost his father and henceforth began to support himself as a journalist. In 1919 he became the Editor of Weekly Taj in Jabulpur and the following year in 1920, continued when the journal became a daily newspaper. In 1922 he was the editor of a small Muslim bi-weekly in Delhi. From 1924 to the end of 1928 he was the editor of Al-Jamiat in Delhi, the organ of the Jamiat ul Ulema-e-Hind, but a few months afterwards he fell ill and returned to Delhi. In 1931 he again went to Hyderabad and in 1932 began publication of the monthly which has ever since been associated with his name—Tarjumanul Qur’an.

In March 1938 he went to the Punjab at the invitation of Allama Muhammad Iqbal to work for the revival of Islamic law, and settled in the Gurdaspur district on an endowment of eighty acres containing a mosque and four or five buildings which were to become the Dar ul Islam Academy.

‘Allama Iqbal died in April and Maulana Maudoodi moved to Lahore where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Theology without payment. After one year the authorities insisted on paying him and because he did not want to accept any restrictions on the propagation of his views, he left the university but remained in Lahore for three and a half years during which he founded the Jama’at-e-Islami in August 1941. In June 1942, he left Lahore and returned to Dar ul Islam where he continued writing and preaching.

From the date he founded the Jama’at-e-Islami, his life was inextricably bound to the fate of his movement.

Thus Maulana Maudoodi is a self-educated man. Even as a boy of seventeen when he lent his support to the Khilafat 3 movement, he was endowed with a penetrating critical mind which would not allow him to follow the movement blindly.

Now it has been part of my nature that I never take things for granted but rather ponder over any problem that confronts me or rouses my interest and try to come to know as much about it as possible in order to comprehend it fully. Accordingly, I began to acquaint myself with the facts about the Khilafat issue and the situation in Turkey and discovered as a result, that the leadership which had emerged in Turkey after World War I was inspired by the sentiment of Turkish nationalism and its thought was influenced by the secularist ideals of those Young Turks who had been educated in the West. At the same time, I discovered how the enemies of Islam had incited nationalism and nationalist aspirations among the Arabs so that instead of standing together during the first world war, the Turks and Arabs had become enemies. It was clear to me that there was an inherent contradiction in the situation in Turkey. Those in power, had on the one hand, become heirs to the Khilafat, the Khalifa having then fled into British protection and none having formally succeeded to the office and on the other, wanted to lead the country along the path of secularism. Not only this, but by making Turkish nationalism the fundamental basis of their existence, they were committing the error of alienating the loyalties of such Arabs who still remained in Turkey, the Kurds and other non-Turkish inhabitants. But they were not the only ones to be misguided. So had been—and continued to be—the Arab leaders who, not knowing the nefarious machinations of Christians and Jews, had adopted Arab nationalism as a counter to Turkish nationalism and having sided with the British, had given the latter an opportunity which they would never otherwise have had, of occupying Muslim lands in which were situated the Islamic holy places. > > When I came to realize this state of affairs, I began to feel that the Khilafat for which the Indian Muslims were prepared to make any sacrifices, did not in fact exist at all. The whole body politic of the Muslim community in India had taken up an issue which was entirely beyond its control. What, I asked myself, would be the fate of our movement if the Khilafat itself was put to an end by the secularist Turkish leaders?

4 In 1924, events proved all my fears to be correct. What I apprehended did happen and shook my confidence in our national leadership. In that year those in power in Turkey announced the abolition of the very same Khilafat for the preservation of which the Muslims of India had stood up as a body. We had taken up the defence on behalf of the Khilafat to the neglect of all the problems that faced us in our own country and now those very people who were regarded as wearing the mantle of the Khilafat had cast it aside.

In the same year, the Hindu-Muslim unity which had led to the Congress support of the Khilafat movement and the Muslim support of the Swaraj movement had come to a tragic end.

A series of communal riots broke out all over India and the entire Hindu leadership, including Gandhi, condemned the Muslim community though the worst sufferers from the rioting were the Muslims and siding with the Hindus and uttering sympathy for them even where they were the aggressors. By the end of 1924, events had left no doubt as to this attitude and it was clear that Hindu-Muslim unity had really no meaning at all and would never endure in practice.¹

Maulana Maudoodi first attracted public notice in 1926 upon the printing of Al-Jihad Fil al-Islam which in detail compared the Islamic concept of Jihad with modern international law on warfare, carefully distinguishing Jihad from ancient and modern concepts of war.

In 1932, Maulana Maudoodi composed his most popular and well-known book, Towards Understanding Islam for the purpose of winning over the minds of the modern-educated youth to an unadulterated faith.

Towards Understanding Islam has been translated into more than a dozen languages, reprinted again and again, subsequently selling thousands of copies throughout the world. This book has also become

5

a standard text in the schools of some Muslim countries. That same year, Maulana Maudoodi began the publication of the monthly journal which has ever since been associated with his name—Tarjumanul-Quran—which has for several decades expounded an undiluted Islam to the literate Urdu-speaking public.

When I began to publish Tarjumanul-Quran from Hyderabad in 1932, the plan of action I had in mind was that I should first break the hold which Western culture and ideas had come to acquire over the Muslim intelligentsia and to instill in them the fact that Islam had its own code of life, its own culture, its own political and economical system and a philosophy and an educational system which are all superior to anything that Western civilization could offer. I wanted to rid them of the wrong notion that they needed to borrow from others in the matter of culture and civilization. I wanted to convince them that the Islamic system was far superior to any in the world and I also wished to make them aware by a critical analysis of the Western system which seemed to overawe them, of all its weaknesses and shortcomings.²

During those years when the Pakistan movement under the leadership of the Muslim League was gathering force, although Maulana Maudoodi thoroughly accepted and supported the two-nation concept and that the Muslims of the subcontinent must be free to develop and prosper in a separate country of their own, at the same time, he emphatically opposed communalism which incited nothing but hatred and fear between Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims, he insisted, were not an ordinary nation, but a people with a mission aimed at spreading the message of Islam throughout the world. A Muslim was a Muslim not merely because he had been born into a Muslim family and given

6 a Muslim name, but because his practical everyday living

provided eloquent testimony to his non-Muslim neighbours that he subscribed to the Kalimah.

Mere profession of being a Muslim was not enough.

A Muslim, in order to be worthy of the name, must actually live an Islamic life according to the precepts of the Quran and Sunnah and in order to be respected by his Hindu neighbors, revive Tabligh and a vigorously missionary role.

The Muslim League was no doubt gathering strength rapidly but I felt that while the kind of men who were joining it could establish and run a nationalist Muslim state, I felt equally certain that they were by no means the kind who could really set up an Islamic state. The kind of leadership and those who flocked to the Muslim League, and were in fact in the forefront of it, did not inspire by their character and conduct, their daily mode of living, their education and their way of thinking, any confidence that they would or could establish a genuine Islamic state. They could only establish a nationalist state for Muslims but could not transform it into an Islamic state.³

This was the main theme of his series of articles written during 1939-1940 under the title of Musalman aur

Maujooda Siyasi Kashmakash.

Here, even before the partition of the subcontinent took place, he predicted that if Pakistan were not established as a genuine Islamic state and hypocritical policies continued to be characteristic of its leadership, devoid of the cohesive ideology of Islam, local nationalisms, based on regionalism, would soon reassert themselves and the eventual disintegration of the country would become inevitable.

There were thus three problems before me; what to do to save the Muslims if the country was not divided; what to do for the Muslims who 7 would be left in India if the country was divided; what to do in the latter case to prevent the new Muslim state from becoming virtually a non-Islamic state and to set it along the path of becoming a genuinely Islamic state instead. It was after reflection on these three problems that the idea occured to me of setting up an organization to be known as the Jama’at-Islami to deal with the situation. Although the views I had been recently advocating had not appealed to the majority, and I had also received abuse from some quarters, there was still a small group of people who agreed with me and it was with the cooperation of this latter group that the Jama’at eventually came into existence.

I constantly kept in mind that this Jama’at should consist of such persons who were not only firm believers in Islam and all it stands for but who also possessed a reliable character which inspired confidence in others, that real strength lay not in numbers but in character and the Jama’at should therefore enlist such persons as its members who possessed an absolutely reliable character, no matter how small their numbers might be, who could inspire confidence in their word by their deeds and to whom the Muslims could safely entrust their funds, resting assured that they would be expended towards the same object for which they were being given. I also decided that Jama’at should have a very well-knit organization and strict discipline and there should be no relaxation of standards.

Another factor which was borne in mind when organizing the Jama’at was that it should consist of both those educated under the old system and those educated under the new so that they would harmoniously work together for the establishment of an Islamic order. The Jama’at also made efforts to bring together Muslims of all sects and schools of thought. Although no Shi’ah is as yet a full-ranking member, there are many who have joined as sympathizers (muttafiqin).

Nobody in Muslim India supported the Pakistan movement more enthusiastically than Maulana Maudoodi. In all his writings and speeches he convinced the Muslims of⁴ 8 India that they were a distinctive community and must govern themselves in their own state if they were to avert the menace of Hindu domination and persecution. While such sincere freedom-fighters as Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Maulana Shaukat Ali and even the Qaid-e-Azam at one time were members of the Indian National Congress, Maulana Maudoodi never joined it for a single day.⁵ When the Qaid-e-Azam was asked to join the Jama’at-e-Islami, he explained that there was no conflict between the Jama’at and the Muslim League; the one was working for a higher ideal and the other to realize the pressing immediate necessity for the Muslims of India to achieve their separate nationhood which, if lost, would make the practical fulfillment of the Jama’at’s mission impossible.⁶

After the partition of the subcontinent on August 14, 1947, Maulana Maudoodi devoted all his efforts towards the establishment of an undiluted Islamic way of life in Pakistan. In January-March 1948, he delivered a series of five speeches over the radio, expounding the most outstanding features of the spiritual, moral, social, political and economic teachings of Islam.⁷ To him Islam was no mere slogan. He was one of the very few leaders in the country who proved by his every act he meant what that he said. With inexhaustible energy, he toured the country making speeches and mobilizing support for a full-fledged Islamic state. And because such honesty of purpose was intolerable to some vested interests, when he demanded a genuine Islamic Constitution for the country, he was accused of being an enemy of the State and imprisoned from October 4, 1948 to May 28, 1950. However, his efforts to achieve the basis for an Islamic Constitution for the country bore results when on March 7, 1949, the National Constituent Assembly passed The Objectives Resolution which embodied his demands.

The text of the Objectives Resolution is as follows:

Whereas sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty alone, and the authority which He has delegated to the state of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust;

This Constituent Assembly representing the people of Pakistan resolves to frame a constitution for the sovereign independent State of Pakistan;

Wherein the State shall exercise its powers and authority through the chosen representatives of the people;

Wherein the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed;

Wherein the Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Quran and the Sunnah;

Wherein adequate provision shall be made for the minorities freely to profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures;

Whereby the territories now included in or in accession with Pakistan, and such other territories as may hereafter be included or accede to Pakistan, shall form a Federation wherein the units will be autonomous with such boundaries and limitations on their powers and authority as may be prescribed;

Wherein shall be guaranteed fundamental rights including equality of status and opportunity before the law, social, economic and political

9

able to some vested interests, when he demanded a genuine Islamic Constitution for the country, he was accused of being an enemy of the State and imprisoned ft.om October 4, 194S to May 28, 1950. However, his efforts to achieve the basis for an Islamic Constitution for the country bore results when on March 7, 1949, the National Constituent Assembly passed TheObjectives Resolution which embodied his demands.

The text of the Objectives Resolution is as follows z

Whereas sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty alone, and the authority which He has delegated to the state of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust ;

This Constituent Assembly representing the people of Pakistan resolves to frame a constitution for the sovereign independent State of Pakistan ;

Wherein the State shall exercise its powers, and authority through the chosen representatives of the people ;

Wherein the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed ;

Wherein the Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Quran and the Sunnah ;

Wherein adequate provision shall be made for the minorities freely to profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures ;

Whereby the territories now included in or in accession with Pakistan, and such other territories as may hereafter be included or accede to Pakistan, shall form a Federation wherein the units will be autonomous with such boundaries and limitations on their powers and authority as may be prescribed ;

Wherein shall be guaranteed fundamental rights including equality of status and opportunity before the law, social, economic and political justice and freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship and association subject to law and public morality ;

Wherein adequate provision shall be made to safeguard the legitimate interests of minorities and backward and depressed classes ;

Wherein the independence of the judiciary shall be fully secured ;

Wherein the integrity of the territories of the Federation, its independence and all its rights including its sovereign rights on land, sea and air shall be safeguarded ;

So that the people of Pakistan may prosper and attain their rightful and honoured place among the nations of the world and make their full contribution towards international peace, progress and the happiness of humanity.⁸

For the first time in centuries, thirty-one ulema representing all the major Muslim schools of thought in Pakistan - Deobandi, Brelvi, Ahl-i-Hadith, and Shi’ah-at the persuasion of Maulana Maudoodi, held a conference in Karachi on January 21-24, 1951 and formulated in complete agreement, twenty-two principles indispensable for a modern Islamic state to be incorporated into the new Constitution. The unanimous decision of these ulema stipulated that :

The Constitution of an Islamic State must bring out the following basic principles :

1. Ultimate sovereignty over all Nature and all Law belongs to Allah, Rabb ul-Alamin.

2. The Law of the land shall be based on Qur’an and Sunnah, and no law shall be passed nor any administrative order issued which would be in conflict with Qur’an and Sunnah.

1

Explanatory Notes.-If there be any laws in force in the country which are in conflict with Qur’an or Sunnah, it would be necessary to lay down (in the Constitution) that such laws shall be gradually, within a specified period, amended in conformity with Islamic Law or repealed.

11 3. The State shall be based not on geographical, linguistic or any other materialistic concepts but on the principles and objectives of the Islamic scheme of life.

4. It shall be incumbent upon the State to uphold the Right (Amr-bil-Ma’ruf) and suppress the Wrong (Nahi-anil-Munkar) as postulated in Qur’an and Sunnah, to take all necessary measures for the revival and exaltation of the tenets of Islam, and to make provision for Islamic education in accordance with the requirements of the various recognized schools of thought.

5. It shall be incumbent upon the State to strengthen the bonds of unity and brotherhood among all the Muslims of the world and to inhibit among the Muslim citizens of the State the growth of all tendencies born of un-Islamic prejudices towards distinctions on the basis of race, language, territory or other materialistic considerations so as to preserve and strengthen the unity of the Millat-i-Islamia.

6. It shall be the responsibility of the government to guarantee the provision of basic human necessities, i.e., food, clothing, housing, medical relief and education to all citizens, irrespective of religion or race, who are temporarily or permanently incapable of earning their livelihood due to unemployment, sickness or other reasons.

7. The citizens shall be entitled to all the rights conferred on them by the Islamic law, i.e. they shall be assured, within the limits of the law, of full security of life, property and honour, freedom of religion and belief, freedom of worship, freedom of person, freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of occupation, equality of opportunity and the right to benefit from public services.

8. No citizen shall at any time be deprived of these rights except under the law, and none shall be awarded any punishment on any charge without being given full opportunity of defence and without the decision of a court of law.

9. The recognized Muslim schools of thought shall have, within the limits of the law, complete religious freedom, the right to impart religious instruction to their followers, and shall have the freedom to propagate their views. Matters relating to their personal status shall be administered in accordance with their respective codes of jurisprudence (Fiqh). It will be desirable to make provision for the administration of 10 religious instruction to their followers, and shall have the freedom to propagate their views. Matters relating to their personal status shall be administered in accordance with their respective codes of jurisprudence (Fiqh). It will be desirable to make provision for the administration of such matters by their respective Qazis.

10. The non-Muslim citizens of the State shall, within the limits of the law, have complete freedom of religion and worship, mode of life, culture and religious education. They shall be entitled to have matters relating to their personal status administered in accordance with their own religious laws, usages and customs.

11. All obligations assumed by the State within the limits of the Shari’ah towards the non-Muslim citizens shall be fully honoured. They shall be entitled equally with the Muslim citizens to the rights of citizenship as enunciated in paragraph 7.

12. The Head of the State must be a male Muslim in whose piety, ability and soundness of judgment the people or their elected representatives have confidence.

13. The responsibility for the administration of the State shall primarily vest in the Head of the State, although he may delegate any part of his powers to any individual or body.

14. Governance by the Head of the State shall not be autocratic but consultative (Shura), i.e., he will discharge his duties in consultation with persons holding responsible positions in the government and with the elected representatives of the people.

15. The Head of the State shall have no right to suspend the Constitution wholly or partly or to run the administration in any other way but on a consultative basis.

16. The body empowered to elect the Head of the State shall also be empowered to remove him by a majority of votes.

17. In respect to civic rights, the Head of the State is not above the law.

18. All citizens, whether members of the government, officials or private persons, shall be subject to the same laws which shall be applied⁹ to all by the same courts of law.

19. The judiciary shall be separate from and independent of the executive in the discharge of its duties.

20. The propagation and publicity of such views and ideologies as are calculated to undermine the basic principles and fundamentals of the Islamic State shall be prohibited.

21. The various zones or regions of the country shall be considered administrative units of a single State. They shall not be racial, linguistic or tribal units but only administrative areas which may be given such powers under the supremacy of the Centre as may be necessary for administrative convenience. They shall not have the right to secede.

22. No interpretation of the Constitution which is in conflict with the provisions of Qur’an or Sunnah shall be valid.

During 1952-1953 when the majority of Pakistanis of the Punjab demanded that the Qadiani sect be declared in the Constitution as a separate minority group, Martial Law was imposed to frustrate this proposal. Maulana Maudoodi then wrote a pamphlet entitled The Qadiani Problem in support of these demands, condemning the Government policy.

The Qadiani issue is altogether different from that of the mutual accusation of heresy among the various sects. The Qadianis have set up and established a new Prophetthood with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839-1908) and condemned all those who reject his claims as Kafirs. The Qadianis penetrate into Muslim society posing as Muslims, carry on proselytizing propaganda in an aggressive manner and continuously strive to swell their numbers at the expense of Muslim society. In the present case, the demand of separation of the Qadianis from the ummah of Islam has been put forth by the majority of Muslims, because it is the majority who has been the sufferer. On the one hand, the Qadianis are enjoying all the privileges of a minority which it is gaining by dint of its virtual separation from the main body of believing Muslims while, on the other 14 hand, it is grabbing all the benefits of being part of the majority, while it swells its numbers by means of subtle propaganda to deceive the ignorant, meanwhile grabbing a good deal more than its due in the various walks of collective life. That is why the demand of separation is being pressed by the majority and not by the minority.¹⁰

Consequently, on March 28, 1953 Maulana Maudoodi was arrested and imprisoned without trial. When the martial law court condemned him to death by hanging, he declared:

¹¹If God has so willed, I shall gladly accept this fate but if it is not His will that I must die now, no matter what they try to do, they can not inflict the least harm upon me.

It would be interesting to point out that soon after the pronouncement of the death sentence, a member of the C.I.D., Mian Anwar Ali, dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, accompanied the jailor to observe without disclosing his identity, the reaction produced on Maulana Maudoodi by the death-sentence.

In sharp contrast to the disturbed and abnormal internal condition which the police official had observed in almost all the condemned prisoners whom he had seen previously, Maulana Maudoodi was perfectly normal, as if nothing extraordinary was going to happen. He had been locked up in the small, narrow cell of the condemned prisoners, wearing a pyjama without a string and the shirt, specially prepared dress for the condemned, sitting on a straw mat with an earthen pot beside him containing water. When the jailor presented before Maudoodi the papers applying for mercy, Maudoodi came out with a clear, “NO!” He did not even take that much time to give the reply which is usually taken when someone asks a guest whether he would like to have tea or coffee! Mian Anwar Ali had related this story as one of those experiences of his life which he could never 15 forget.*

So great was the protest against his death-sentence throughout the Muslim world that the authorities were compelled to commute his punishment to 14 years imprisonment.

While Maulana Maudoodi was undergoing his sentence, Chief Justice Muhammad Munir, in collaboration with Judge M. R. Kayani, composed his famous report, known as The Munir Report, which in its investigation into the reasons for the popular agitation against the Qadiani sect and especially the public demand to remove Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan and other high-ranking Qadianis from office, diagnosed the cause of this unrest as Muslim bigotry and fanaticism.

From this premise he concluded that if Pakistan were allowed to become an Islamic state, all non-Muslims would automatically be the targets for persecution, the different Muslim sects would wrangle endlessly with each other in fratricidal strife, antiquated laws would be enforced conflicting with the standards of the “civilized” world and Pakistan, because of her backward culture and reactionary government, would be ousted as an outcaste from the international community. Not even Western orientalists and Christian missionaries attack Islam as harshly as The Munir Report has done. The tragedy that its author was a Muslim multiplied its harmful effects many times over. Fully aware of these facts, Maulana Maudoodi and the Jama’at-e-Islami answered the challenge to prove that all its assaults upon the concept of an Islamic state in

Introducing Maudoodi, by Misbah-ul Islam Faruqi, Students Publications Bureau, Karachi, 1961, pp. 113-115 (abridged).

16 Pakistan as well as its vituperations against him personally, contained no truth. To Munir’s concluding plea for a radical reinterpretation of Islam to bring it into conformity with contemporary thought so that Pakistan might be favourably regarded by world opinion, Maulana Maudoodi replied:

If anybody wants to reorient or reconstruct Islam, let him do so. His efforts will be welcomed, providing he proves on the basis of sound arguments what parts of Islam are lifeless, why they are lifeless, and on what grounds they can be changed and also, what are its vital and living parts and in what form he wants to retain them. But he should grasp two things thoroughly. Firstly, we can obtain decisions from the law-courts in our law suits but we cannot be forced to accept their decisions on ideological issues. Secondly, a Muslim may be convinced if the arguments are based upon the Quran and the Sunnah. But if Islam is placed before America, Britain, India and the other leaders of the “international fraternity” and they are requested to cut off from it whatever they dislike, to retain whatever they like and to add whatever they consider necessary and after these improvements, amendments, substitutions, additions and subtractions, something is presented to the Muslims in the name of “Islam”, however much it may appeal to certain high officials and the prosperous classes, for an ordinary Muslim, there would be no other way to greet it with a flat rejection than to kick it away with the utmost hatred!*

On May 25, 1955, on a writ of habeas corpus issued by the High Court, Maulana Maudoodi was released.

At last the first Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was promulgated in March 1956. It embodied much of the demands of Jama’at-e-Islami. Tragically, however, just as this Constitution was being

An Analysis of the Munir Report, Jama’at-e-Islami Publications, Karachi, 1956, pp. 214-215.

17 perfected to serve as the basis for a genuine Islamic state, President Iskander Mirza on October 7, 1958 passed a decree to annul it. That same month on October 27th, Field-Marshal Muhammad Ayub Khan seized power, imposed Martial Law and banned all political parties, including the Jama’at-e-Islami.

Undaunted, Maudoodi remained as determined as ever to promote the cause of Islam. Despite Martial Law, he managed to publish the revised and enlarged edition of a collection of his speeches and articles dating from 1939 to 1958 under the title of Islamic Law and Constitution which forcefully and convincingly establishes the necessity and the applicability of the Shariah in modern government. Maulana Maudoodi’s arguments were so convincing that even highly-placed Christians like Chief Justice of Pakistan, A. R. Cornelius publicly advocated the adoption of the Shari’ah as the only legal system suitable for the country.

At the West Pakistan High Court Centenary held on February 17, 1967, all the judges expressed their desire to see Islamic law prevail.

On May 5-6, 1960, Maulana Maudoodi, along with nineteen other ulema representing all the recognized Muslim schools of thought, met in Lahore and replied to the questions put to them by the Government-appointed Constitution Commission on the reasons for the failure of the parliamentary system to work effectively in Pakistan and then proposed the necessary remedial measures for the restoration of democracy and human rights.

Pakistan has come into being by virtue of the common Muslims. Furthermore, next to the grace of God, it is only the determination of 18 the common Muslims that can guarantee its existence and strength. No non-Muslim brought this country into being.

It could neither have come into existence without the sacrifices of the Muslims nor can it remain and continue to exist if, God forbid, the Muslims lose hope in it and give up their determination to live and die for it.

Barring a few high-grade State servants and a paltry number of people from prosperous families, the general Muslim populace desires to make and see this country flourish as an Islamic state whose laws should be Islamic, whose educational system should be Islamic and whose culture and civilization should be Islamic. It is for this object that the Muslims sacrificed their lives, property and honour to establish Pakistan. There can be no greater enmity towards this state than to destroy the interest of the people.

After creating frustration and disillusionment among the common Muslims, what support can a handful of such people lend to this State as are embarrassed by the very name of Islam—their own religion?

When on March 2, 1961, the All-Pakistan Women’s Association succeeded in persuading the Government to enact the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, which in clear contradiction to the Shariah, places stringent restrictions upon polygamy, makes registration of marriages compulsory, specifies a legal minimum age for marriage and declares divorce by the husband’s unilateral repudiation of his wife in private as invalid, Maulana Maudoodi along with 209 other ulema from every part of the country protested and demanded its repeal or at least the amendment of its objectionable clauses. The statement of the ulema in opposition to these new family laws was followed by harsh, repressive measures: Those responsible for printing and circulating it were put behind bars.¹²

¹³ 19 During this period, Maulana Maudoodi vigorously pursued his writing and preaching on an individual, independent basis.

Between 1959 and 1962, he travelled extensively throughout Western Asia where, in Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, he visited all the sacred historical places mentioned in the Scriptures in preparation for his six-volume Urdu translation and commentary of the Quran—the Tafhimul-Quran.

Begun in 1943, the sixth and final volume of the Tafhimul-Quran was completed in June 1972 and is in great demand throughout the Muslim world. To satisfy this growing demand, translations into English, Arabic, Bengali and Pushto are being prepared.

In his Tafhimul-Quran Maulana Maudoodi proves the absolute truth and superiority of the Islamic way of life over all others, showing where and how the Jews and Christians have corrupted their scriptures. Maudoodi’s commentary on Surah an-Nur and Surah al-Ahzab have been published separately and containing as they do an exposition of how the Islamic punishments for crimes are both more humane and more effective than any man-made secular penal code, this has become required reading for liberal arts and law students in Pakistani colleges and universities.

Maulana Maudoodi has also conducted research work on Hadith in his Sunnat ki Aeeni Haisiat (The Legal Position of the Sunnah) which includes a strong denunciation of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Ghulam Ahmad Parvez who rejected the authority of the Traditions of the Holy Prophet.

In 1961, at the urgent request of King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, Maulana Maudoodi set forth a detailed 20 scheme for the establishment of an Islamic University in Medina which he hopes will eventually fill the intellectual and educational vacuum created when the Islamic character of al-Azhar University in Cairo was destroyed through nationalization and secularization.

The scheme submitted by me and approved by a committee appointed by the King for the Islamic University of Medina provides for the teaching of Quran, Hadith, Fiqh (jurisprudence), Islamic history, Kalam (theology) along with modern law, politics, economics, history and comparative religions. One language out of English, French or German will also be compulsory. The education visualized in this scheme can neither be labelled “secular” nor “religious” in the narrowly accepted sense of these terms. This university will differ from all old and modern educational institutions and shall hold a unique place of its own.

We wish to turn out of it such Muslim scholars who are well-versed in Islamic teachings combined with modern knowledge and who are competent to apply Islamic principles to the problems of life today.¹⁴

When in 1963, because of the political strife between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the King rejected the annual Egyptian-made covering for the Kaaba, Maulana Maudoodi offered to undertake the responsibility of having it made in Pakistan. The King accepted this offer and thus, under the sponsorship of the Maulana, a most exquisite black Kiswa was hand-woven and embroidered with gold thread by the finest craftsmen in Lahore. When the work was complete in March of that year, two special trains manned by workers of the Jama’at-e-Islami, each carrying many large pieces, went from Lahore to Quetta, Quetta to 21 Karachi, Lahore to Peshawar and Peshawar to Karachi all over West Pakistan. This resulted in an unprecedented upsurge of religious enthusiasm throughout the land as entire villages and towns emptied into the railroad depots — women with babies, children and men of all ages from every station of life, many among the crowds of hundreds of thousands waiting there in tense expectancy for as long as several days. When at last the train arrived bearing the Kiswa, the Jama’at workers would hold its pieces aloft for everyone to see.

Praying and weeping with ecstatic joy, those who could press near each in turn kissed the sacred cloth and drenched it with perfumes.

When the Kiswa was at last brought to Lahore airport, more than a million people jammed every available space en route, reciting verses from the Quran and hoping for a glimpse of it. At the airport, Maulana Maudoodi presented the Kiswa to the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia who then expressed his gratitude.

Jealous of Maulana Maudoodi’s growing popularity and influence, his enemies tried in every way they could to sabotage the annual Conference of the Jama’at-e-Islami held on October 25-28, 1963. Despite all the obstacles his enemies tried to put in his way by withholding travel permits and refusing him permission to use the loud-speaker, the Conference was held and attended by more than 10,000 people. Under the protection of the police, hooligans tried to set the conference hall on fire and even assassinate Maulana Maudoodi, but his courage and the calmness of the Jama’at workers made the conference successful.

This was not to be tolerated by his adversaries who continued a bombardment of propaganda against him in the 22 official press which reached its climax when on January 6, 1964, he and all the most important leaders of the Jama’at were again arrested and imprisoned without trial. The Jama’at-e-Islami was banned as an unlawful association and all its offices, libraries and meeting places sealed by the police. However, as soon as the case was brought before the Pakistan Supreme Court for a fair and impartial hearing, the banning of the Jama’at and the imprisonment of its leaders was held null and void.

Only fifteen days after his release from prison on October 25, 1964 during the national Presidential election campaign, Maulana Maudoodi delivered a two-hour speech in Lahore before a large crowd where with devastating arguments, he attacked all the policies of the regime even to the extent of challenging the legitimacy of its right to stay in power.

Our greatest “crime” is that we are not hypocrites in the matter of our faith in Islam and that we are earnest in our endeavours to mould the affairs of our society so as to bring them in line with the tenets of Islam. When we profess that Islam is our religion, it naturally follows that Islam and Islam alone should be our guidance in all the domains of our lives, be it morality or conduct, faith or ideology, ethics or education, social order or cultural attainment, economic system or political structure, law or judiciary, internal affairs or international relations.

Every iota of corrupting alien influence must be wiped out from our individual and national life.

We do not tolerate any compromise on this issue and we are determined to practice what we profess.

This is highly unpalatable for those who want to play fraud in the name of Islam.

Their policy is to go deliberately against Islam in all walks of life, yet continuously pay lip service to it so that the nation may remain attached to them under the spell of that deception. Our second “crime” is that we are endeavouring to produce men of strong and dependable character. We take people into our fold only after 23 proper scrutiny and whoever joins the Jama’at-e-Islami does so after careful thought and due deliberation, and once he chooses this course, his entire life follows accordingly. He does not rest contented with a mere verbal declaration of his faith but tries to live up to his profession and bring about the necessary change in his behaviour and conduct. Suppression or oppression can bring no change in them. They would openly declare what is good and what is evil.

For them prisons are not a thing to be afraid of.

Rather they are for them in the nature of a moral and spiritual training camp.

“I am now giving a Charge Sheet against President Mohammad Ayub Khan which will throw some light on what he has done from the advent of Martial Law to the present day and also state the grounds for my view that he does not deserve to be the President of Pakistan.

First of all, he is guilty of nothing short of criminal breach of trust. The nation had reposed confidence and trust in him which he enjoyed as Commander-in-Chief of the army. But he brought about an armed revolution and tore down the constitution of the country. What right had he to come to power by using the army which was given under his command for the defence of the country? If Ayub had his own notions about the political affairs or if he had some scheme in his mind for the amelioration of the condition of the country, he should have first resigned from the post of Commander-in-Chief and had come out with his manifesto to contest the general elections which had been scheduled for February 1959.

The second crime committed by Ayub Khan is that he threw away the democratically promulgated Constitution of 1956 whose oath of allegiance he had duly taken for about four years.

During all this period, the people remained deprived of all the fundamental rights and he framed whatever laws he wished and imposed them upon the country. He scrapped off laws or regulations that did not suit him.

He established military courts, although civil and criminal courts were already functioning, and after summary trials, heavy punishments were inflicted upon the people.

24 The third crime of Mohammad Ayub Khan is that he, during the Martial Law period itself, introduced the system of Basic Democracies according to his own will and held the elections for it at a time when neither any political party existed nor there could be any manifesto nor could one hold any political discussion. And to talk of politics and indulge in political activity was made such a severe offence that a punishment of 14 years rigorous imprisonment could be awarded. What a congenial atmosphere to the elections of the Basic Democracies! And during the election these very thousand Basic Democrats were asked to vote for Ayub. There was no alternative candidate before the electorate.

On the occasion of these so-called elections, Ayub not only asked these 80,000 Basic Democrats to make him President but also sought from them the alleged authority for making a constitution of his own choice.

Was he justified to do so? At the time of the elections of the Basic Democracies, the people had never been told that the persons so elected by their votes will have the right to elect the President and that the President in his turn shall be empowered to frame a Constitution of his own. It is therefore quite evident that these 80,000 Basic Democrats had no mandate of the people for that purpose.

And now equipped with the powers to frame the Constitution, the President-cum-Chief Martial Law Administrator of the country set up a Constitution Commission to make recommendations about the future constitution. The entire personnel of this Commission was nominated by the President himself. No representation was given to the people. The expression of any political opinion was forbidden except, of course, for the President and his ministers.

In spite of all these precautions, the report of the Constitution Commission to a very great extent gave due weight to the democratic aspirations of the people.

Consequently, Ayub threw these recommendations into the waste-basket and came out with a Constitution which suited his genius. The Constitution of 1962 according to which the country’s affairs are being run today, was framed in utter disregard of the people’s wishes and aspirations and is not based even on the recommendations 25 recommendations of the Constitution Commission which was nominated by Ayub Khan himself. This Constitution embodies the will of a single person. It was enforced in the country while Martial Law was in force.

Now let us throw a cursory glance over the Constitution for which the nation must pay its eternal homage and unending tributes to its framer.

In this Constitution, all power has been concentrated into the hands of one single man—the Chief Executive. He alone controls the entire executive machinery at the Centre and so far as the Provinces are concerned, he himself appoints the Governors and can dismiss them whenever he likes without even stating the reasons for dismissal.

And now let us analyze what Ayub has done to our freedom of expression and freedom of association. No system can satisfactorily work unless the people are kept informed of the true state of affairs in the country and unless they have the freedom to criticize the misdeeds of the Government, unless they possess ample opportunities of utilizing the powers of pen, speech and association to mobilize strength for defending their basic rights against the onslaughts of the forces of tyranny.

First of all, the voice of the press was stifled. By gagging the Press, they have deprived the people of their freedom of speech. Thus after turning the country into a political grave-yard, the press, the platform and the radio and all the propaganda machinery of the country are forced to harp only on one tune and that is:

“All praise for President Ayub Khan!” The history of all past and present dictators is being repeated here. Everything is depicted to revolve around one man.¹⁵

During India’s treacherous invasion of Pakistan on September 6-24, 1965, Maulana Maudoodi delivered five speeches over Radio Pakistan in Lahore declaring the struggle to defend our homeland a genuine Jihad. The contribution of these stirring speeches to the war effort cannot be overestimated.

26

Maulana Maudoodi spared no effort to secure justice in Kashmir.

His speech from Azad Kashmir Radio in Muzaffarabad bitterly attacked India’s atrocities against the Kashmiri Muslims.

Maulana Maudoodi opposed both the terms of the United Nations Ceasefire order which took effect on September 24, 1965 and the Tashkent Declaration of January 10, 1966 on the grounds that they represented a complete diplomatic victory for India and made a just solution to the Kashmir problem impossible.

The great world powers have not taken any serious interest in the Kashmir problem. The situation was created by the British as they were relinquishing their power in the Indo-Pak sub-continent and the United States and the Soviet Union encouraged India in different ways. Not only did they refuse to press India to accept a fair and equitable solution of the dispute but they perpetually helped India to persevere in her perverse stand. Both the Great Powers have maintained a steady and growing flow of economic and military supplies to India and the Soviet Union has also helped India from time to time by vetoing every move in the Security Council towards the enforcement of its resolutions in Kashmir. Indeed, it would seem that both these powers regard India’s emergence as an imperial power as conductive to their own imperialistic interests. Both the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. seem anxious to prepare India as a powerful counterweight to China and are also helping her to develop into a nuclear power.

In these circumstances, it is futile to expect these Great Powers to help in the settlement of the Kashmir issue. Any fond hopes or illusions that might have lingered in this respect should have been finally dispelled by the Tashkent Declaration which signifies an attempt by the U.S.S.R with the open support of the United States to put the Kashmir issue into cold storage and perpetuate the Indian stranglehold on occupied Kashmir.

27 To us, Jihad seems to be the only solution and the brave freedom-fighters in Kashmir are already staking their lives and property and bearing indescribable suffering in their struggle to solve the problem. The least that we are in duty bound to help them is to ensure the widest and most effective publicity about the real situation in Kashmir and to make all possible efforts to mobilize public opinion all over the world in favour of the Kashmiri right to self-determination; to awaken the countries of the Muslim world and the smaller nations of the rest of Asia and Africa to the menace of Indian imperialism, so that they do not entertain any illusions about it and prepare themselves for the threat and organize moral support and material help for the people of Kashmir so that they may be able to free themselves from the Indian yoke and determine their destiny freely in accordance with their aims and ideals.¹⁶

When Israel committed her heartless aggression against

Egypt, Syria and Jordan on June 5-9, 1967, Maulana Maudoodi mobilized all his energies in support of his Arab brethren for the eventual liberation of Palestine and

especially the holy places in Jerusalem from Zionist occupation.

The call of the hour is that the entire Muslim world should join hands with the Arabs in complete unity and full determination. They should seek support from men of justice throughout the world for the acceptance of the principle that no nation can subjugate another country nor a nation can force territorial changes by war.

We must forge a united front in this regard, otherwise the consequences may be too terrible to imagine. If the Muslim states ignore the Jewish threat at this stage, disasters may follow in the future.

We must evolve a comprehensive plan to mitigate the far-reaching consequences of this defeat and do away with the basic factors that were responsible for our humiliation.

This war may be termed by many as only an Arab-Israeli war, and the defeat suffered by the Arabs may be 28 called just their defeat but the fact remains that this has inflicted incalculable damage to the prestige, honour and security of all the Muslim peoples in the world.

The Zionist occupation of the old city of Jerusalem and the dangerous designs to demolish Masjid al Aqsa and erect in its place Solomon’s Temple, is not a catastrophe confined to the Arabs alone. It is a grievous wound for every Muslim’s heart for the sacred city of Jerusalem does not belong to Arabs alone; all Muslims venerate it as their first Qibla. Furthermore, we should realize that the expansionist aggressive designs of world Jewry may pose a threat to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina also. This is a most serious question, the greatest danger not just for Arabs alone but a situation that is intolerable for the Muslims of the whole world.¹⁷

Since Israel committed her heartless aggression against Egypt, Syria and Jordan on June 5-9, 1967, Maulana Maudoodi has mobilized all his energies in support of our Arab brethren for the eventual liberation of Palestine, and especially the holy places in Jerusalem, from Zionist occupation.

In the March 1966 session of Rabita al Alam al-Islami (the World Muslim Congress) held in Mecca, as one of the founders of this organization, Maulana Maudoodi stressed the urgent necessity for each Muslim country to become self-sufficient militarily and not depend upon America, the Soviet Union or any other foreign power. He then called upon all the Muslims of the world to reject nationalism and unite into one single bloc to defend themselves and the cause of Islam everywhere. He proclaimed Islam as the only ideology capable of uniting all races and nations into

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one family which can serve as the basis for a world-state,

and bring about enduring justice and universal peace.

Islam did not present its conception of the equality of man as an idle philosophy. It established a society based on this concept. In that society it gathered the different races and nations on the basis of complete equality of all individuals. All distinctions of race, colour, language or nationality were eradicated. Not only that, Islam also established a world state on the basis of this same ideology and worked it successfully. The entire Muslim world was governed by the same

law. All Muslims formed one family. If a person, irrespective of

whether he came from the East or West, accepted Islam, he immediately became a member of the Islamic society and enjoyed the same rights and privileges. Whether one was a Negro, an Iranian, a Copt or a Berber, he stood on the same footing in Muslim society after accepting Islam as did the kin of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) and his Arab followers. His social status was equal to theirs. He could acquire the greatest eminence in the Islamic society on the basis of his moral qualities and righteousness. The believer in Islam, whatever his racial links, place of origin, mother tongue or colour, is a brother to every other Muslim and wherever he moves in a Muslim society, he enjoys the same privileges as other Muslims do. A Muslim from any part of the world could go to any Muslim land without any restrictions, move freely in that country, stay there as long as he wished, engage in any trade, secure the highest government post in that country and marry without any difficulty. Islamic history is replete with instances where a Muslim went out of his country and lived in other Muslim lands for decades. He might have studied in one country, engaged in business in another, become a minister or commander-in-chief of the army in a third one and then he might even go over to yet another country, settle there and get married.

A well-known example is Ibn Batuta who travelled through different Muslim countries for twenty-seven years. He did not need a passport or a visa to go to any of these countries. Nowhere was he questioned 30 about his nationality.

Nowhere did he face any difficulty in earning his living. He needed no permit to visit any place nor was any period

fixed for his stay. If he sought a job under any government, he got

appointed without difficulty.

He reached India during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq. The fact that he travelled from the farthest corner of Morocco, his native land, did not come in the way of his appointment as a magistrate in India. Afterwards the Sultan sent him to China as his ambassador. This proves that nothing barred his entering even into diplomatic service. This clearly shows that at this time not only the idea of commonwealth but also common citizenship was fully operative.

The manpower of the entire Islamic world was available to any Muslim country. The defence and protection of the world of Islam was the common responsibility of all Muslims. Till the beginning of the 19th century A.D. this position prevailed in the world of Islam. What greater proof could there be of the fact that Islam not only furnished the theoretical and ideological bases of the world state that the thinkers of today are longing for. In fact, it brought such a state into being and worked it effectively for centuries. (pp. 19-24)

Wherever we may go from Indonesia to Morocco, the Muslims have a culture that is shared by all believers in Islam. The fundamentals of this culture are equally manifest in all Muslim countries. Wherever a Muslim may go, the moment he hears the call to prayer, he becomes conscious that he is among his brethren in faith. He is as much a member of the congregation in the mosque as any native Muslim.

No one among the congregation considers him a stranger. Rather they rush to embrace him when they come to know that he has come from another Muslim country. He may not know their language but “assalaam alaikum” is the common mode of salutation between him and them.

The form and contents of the prayers are the same from Indonesia to Morocco. The congregation can choose him, the lone stranger, to lead their prayer. He, the lone stranger, can offer his prayer led by their leader. Outside the mosque, wherever he may move in the Muslim society of that country, he would find 31 the ties of culture binding him and the native Muslims. He can dine with them confident in the knowledge that all that is prohibited is anathema to him and them alike. The rules of cleanliness are observed as much by them as by him. Whatever Muslim country he may be visiting, its elite and common folk alike inquire after the welfare of the Muslims of his country as if they were their very own kinsmen. If they learn that they are comfortable, they praise Allah for the happy news and their faces beam with joy. If the report is not good, they feel sorry as his own compatriots would be if they learnt about the plight of their countrymen. Not only that. All laws governing marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc. in Muslim countries are so similar to one another that the citizen of one country finds no difficulty in marrying the citizen of another country.

This state of affairs exists nowhere else in the world apart from the Muslim countries. This proves that there exists among all Muslim countries a strong and deep relationship based on common sentiments, mutual sympathies and common culture and civilization—a relationship which no force can undo even in this age of the cult of nationalism. In addition, all the Muslim countries from the East to West are contiguous to one another geographically. Why should they not combine to solve their common problems and assist one another for progress and development? (pp. 33-35) One is surprised at the people who are opposing the union of the Muslim states on the ground that such a grouping on the basis of religion is unsound.

One is wonderstruck that joining hands in the name of Communism is wise and acceptable; making colour a rallying force is also justifiable; only uniting in the name of God and His faith is a folly! (p. 33) Now that the Muslims have regained the right to shape their destiny, the enemies of the Muslims are once more busy preaching nationalism which they hope will prevent the Muslims from forging strong bonds of unity. Nothing scares the world powers, Zionism and incipient Hindu imperialism as the spectre of Islamic revival and Muslim unity. Once the Muslims—who number around 600 million—close their ranks, it would mean an end to their aggrandizement and exploitation of the Muslim 32 countries. The Zionists know only too well that the day the Muslims unite, the end of Israel would be just at hand. This fear is shared by those who are dreaming of preponderant Hindu dominance and influence over Asia and Africa. The imperialist powers are aware that this unity would make it impossible for them to play with the destiny of Muslim countries as they have been doing in the past by placing one stooge into power here and another there. (p. 43) In the chaos that engulfs the present-day Muslim world, the call for an Islamic summit has raised new hopes.

Hence while the Muslims should welcome friendship and cooperation from whichever country it might come, they should maintain vigilance towards the world powers who are always on the look-out to exploit our present state of backwardness and disunity. In fact, this makes it all the more necessary for Muslims to come together so that the strength of each will be the strength of all. This alone is the road through which the Muslims will be able to retain their independence, play a healthy and constructive role in world affairs and bring about their much cherished renaissance. (pp. 44-45)¹⁸

What is the real reason for the backwardness of the Muslim world now?

In a speech delivered to the Jamiat ul-Tulaba, students organization in Karachi on December 10, 1963, Maulana Maudoodi declared:

The miserably slow pace of progress in all Muslim countries shows how heavily they have had to pay for the perpetual conflict resulting from their ruler’s attempts to impose alien values upon them. None of the Muslim countries have been able to achieve any significant progress in any sphere. Turkey, for example, has been an independent nation since 1924 but can it boast of any great progress in industry or trade?

During the same period, Japan and China have made remarkable progress in practically all fields and now stand among the most advanced nations of the world.

Obviously, the reason for Turkey’s 33 failure to progress lies in the internal conflict to which she has been subjected by her secularist rulers. Those in power have striven all along to impose Western civilization upon the country whereas the people want an Islamic order. The same story has been repeated more or less in every Muslim country.

A nation can develop and progress only when there is complete harmony between the aspirations of the people and the policies of their government. The present struggle in all Muslim countries is that the people are not prepared to go along with the rulers in the direction in which they are trying to take them and the rulers are not prepared to lead the people in the direction in which they desire to move. This has resulted in perpetual conflict in all the Muslim countries of the world. And that is “Islam Today.”¹⁹

Maulana Maudoodi and his movement provide an uncompromising bulwark against the onslaughts of regionalism, nationalism, secularism, atheism and materialism. He is the most implacable foe against all attempts by modernists to change the Shariah (especially its laws pertaining to personal status and the family) to force them into conformity to modern Western legal systems.

He is also the fiercest opponent of any national or international policy to control the growth of population through contraceptives, abortion and sterilization as diametrically opposed to the spirit of Islamic doctrine. In 1962 he published his essay on “Islam and Birth Control,” demonstrating with irrefutable evidence, the catastrophic consequences of artificial methods of population reduction from an individual, social, national, international, economic and moral standpoint. This book was banned by official decree from August 9, 1966 to March 10, 1967.

34 because the authorities feared it would sabotage the national Family Planning programme.

For three decades Maulana Maudoodi has waged an unrelenting struggle against such heresies as the deniers of Hadith led by Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, the Qadiani sect in Rabwah and the Ahmadiyya movement in Lahore based upon the claims of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as “Mahdi” and “Prophet”. He discusses the Qadiani heresy exhaustively in his booklet on the Finality of the Prophethood published in 1965 which also takes up the subjects of the Dajjal or anti-Christ, the second coming of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), and the Imam al-Mahdi and reveals the expansionist designs of Israel and the Zionist conspiracy against the Muslim world.

Although Muslim student societies in England and Germany had repeatedly invited Maulana Maudoodi to visit them, give lectures and advice, the Government, fearing his growing influence as an internationally significant personality, frustrated all his efforts to travel abroad. However, in August 1968, a special medical board formally acknowledged that the stone-formation he had suffered for many years in his kidney and bladder made his condition grave enough to justify granting immediate permission for him to go to London for his operation. Although this double operation left him too weak to travel about, many non-Muslims as well as Muslims came to see and talk with him. Just before he returned to Pakistan, a special reception was held for him at London Hilton Hotel on the evening of December 15th which was attended not only by the most important 35 representatives of the Pakistani community in England but by diplomats from many different Muslim countries, reporters of English and Urdu-language periodicals and also some English scholars and orientalists. There he delivered a speech in which he expressed particular concern for the Pakistani immigrants to Britain. He assured his audience that if the Muslims in Britain strive to their utmost to lead their lives in conformity to the ideals and values of Islam, its growth and expansion would receive an immense impetus in the West. However, if they permit themselves to be crushed by feelings of inferiority, a blind imitation of Western ways can only result in their loss of identity and their total merging into an alien culture. He warned the leaders of the Pakistani community in Britain that if the Muslim children are deprived of proper facilities for an Islamic education both at home and at school, the new generations may be utterly lost to Muslim society.

He insisted that it is wrong for the British to insist upon the assimilation and absorption of the Muslims into Western civilization under the slogan of “integration.” A multiracial and multi-cultural society for Great Britain, far from being a force of disintegration, would eliminate injustice and internal strife and greatly enrich the cultural life of the country.

During that same year in his interviews for Italian and German television companies, he declared that the most serious error of modern man was his blind acceptance of the fallacy that owing to scientific progress in controlling and exploiting the physical elements, he does not need

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the moral and spiritual guidance of Divine scripture revealed to the prophets.

As a result, Western life knows no peace. Life appears to have lost its meaning and purpose, the family is collapsing, crime is rampant and unrestrained violence everywhere threatens the future of the world. The second fatal error is the insularity of Western man. If Western civilization can find no solution to such problems as racial discrimination, people should learn how Islam solved it successfully and achieved a real sense of human brotherhood transcending race and nationality. Western man now has the duty to see beyond his limited world and learn how Jihad can remove the worst horrors and barbarism of warfare and also how the application of Islamic teachings can strengthen the family and thus halt the depersonalization of the individual which has resulted in an epidemic of mental illness and social disintegration. The heritage of Islam is not only for those born Muslim, he declared, but for the whole of mankind.

In September 1969 under the auspices of King Hassan of Morocco, Maulana Maudoodi attended the Islamic Summit Conference in Rabat and also the educational conference at Qarawayin University Mosque (Fez) where he met such notables as Allal al Fassi, Abdullah Kunun, the ex-Governor of Tetuan, Shaikh Ibrahim Niyass of Senegal and the Egyptian author, Dr. Aisha bint Shati. At the Summit Conference Maulana Maudoodi had a private meeting with the delegate of al-Fatah, Khalid Abdul Khatib who is associated with al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun and begged the Maulana’s support for the Palestinian Resistance Movement and to pray for its eventual success.

37 Maulana Maudoodi has convincingly clarified beyond any doubt the fact that Islam and Socialism are irreconcilable. To date, the most important document Maulana Maudoodi has produced on this subject is his reply to 31 questions put to him by Shorish Kashmiri, the editor of Weekly Chatan, Lahore, which was published in its special April 14, 1969 issue and created such excitement that copies were exhausted within three hours of its release from the press:

Islam and Socialism are totally opposed to each other. The basis of Islam is the belief that we belong to one God. We have faith in the absolute truth of the Guidance in all matters of our life which God has provided us through His Prophet (peace be upon him) and His Book and as Muslims we are bound to follow this Guidance. For us, the life in this world is subservient to the needs of our life Hereafter and the purpose of life for us is to attain the pleasure of God and this is only possible if we follow the Guidance of Allah and His prophet in this world. Based on this belief, Islam gives us a complete moral system and a complete mode of worship so that in practice our life may be fully attuned to our basic belief. Along with this Islam gives us comprehensive laws and regulations which encompass the whole of our existence from family and domestic life to the school, the law court, the parliament, the market and international relations.

In sharp contrast, Socialism begins with the idea that rejects outright the existence of God or any prophet and puts forward its own materialistic philosophy of history which believes that everything in human life depends upon its economic system and repudiates the very concept of absolute transcendental morality. In the triumph of Socialism, the end justifies the means which may involve telling lies, breaking promises or outright violence and bloodshed. Islam’s social system gives basic importance to man’s freedom and spells out 38 certain limits for it which stop it from degenerating into license. Thus individual capacities have the opportunity to develop; where instead of the conflict and hatred between classes advocated by the Communist doctrine, there would be cooperation, sympathy and where the entire social system would suppress evil and wrong by its own pressure and encourage good deeds on its own initiative. According to Marxist doctrine, private property and man’s freedom to make use of it is the root of all evils.

Hence it puts forward a system in which all economic means should be made part of collective property and individuals should be harnessed to this collective machine. But this is a strange and contradictory way of thinking that an ideology which believes that individuals are unreliable should take it for granted that the individuals who will work this collective machine from the centre will be angelic in their innocence and faultless above all other men and that under their control and administration, the economic means of an entire country will be put to the best uses and wealth will be distributed justly.

The philosophy of Communism begins with a concept of partiality, that is, support for the proletariat and extreme hatred and a strong desire for struggle against all other individuals and groups. In such a situation, how can one expect a just and equitable distribution for the whole of society? Then, if you consider, you will find that in practice, only a few individuals or a group holds all the power of distribution of wealth and this power concentration is even more total than that of any king in a monarchy or a capitalist or feudal lord in a capitalistic or feudal society. Here the communist party has total control over all the means of production as well as political power. After this, if they take the responsibility of providing people with the necessities of life, their position is no different than that of a jailor who thinks it mandatory upon him to provide the prisoners with bread, clothing, shelter and medical treatment.

According to the teachings of Islam, whatever a person earns by legal methods is the bounty of Allah and there is no limit to the bounty of Allah. Illegal property, however small, is illegal and 39 legally acquired property, however large, remains legal. Instead of confiscation of private property forcibly by the State, thus curing a minor disease by substituting a major disease, in the future, we should prohibit by law all the dishonest and illegal methods which lead to unjust concentration of wealth and the minimum necessities of food, clothing, shelter, education and access to medical treatment must be provided for all.

The source of the present ideological confusion in Pakistan is the Socialists who, having accepted a materialistic philosophy diametrically opposed to everything Islam stands for, in order to deceive the people, and make their programme palatable for them, attempt to convince the ignorant and gullible that these un-Islamic things are Islamic. The term “Islamic socialism” implies that this is only one of several schools of thought or in other words, that it is a new edition of Islam to which some Marxist doctrines have been added to compensate for the alleged defects and inadequacies of Islam. Why then believe in a religion which one considers defective? The term “Islamic Socialism” is an insult to Islam and all it stands for and is nothing but a complete contradiction in terms.

In an interview with a correspondent of the Arabic monthly al Ikhwan al Muslimun of Damascus, Maulana Maudoodi was asked why he opposed Communism. He replied:

We oppose Communism not only because of its outright rejection of the sovereignty of God and transcendental morality and its militant propagation of atheism and materialism but also because the establishment of the Communist order is inseparable from a reign of cruelty, brutality, violence, persecution and terror and to perpetuate the system, legalized despotism is absolutely indispensable. We also oppose Communism because it does not tolerate freedom of criticism, peaceful opposition nor provide any opportunities for reform or change of government through constitutional methods. Because in our view, these things are vital from a religious standpoint, if you consider the meaning of religion in its widest sense, then we can 40 also assert that we oppose Communism on purely religious grounds.

We are opposed to the Western bloc and its imperialistic policies as much as we are opposed to Communism. It is utterly fallacious to assume that our opposition to Communism means support for the Western imperialists. If a person simultaneously opposes two groups who are themselves opposed to each other, is that any sufficient proof in itself that he must necessarily support one because he is fighting the other? It is not correct to think on those lines.²⁰

As a result of the work of the Pakistani Democratic Movement, at the end of February 1969, President Ayub Khan finally agreed to hold a Round Table Conference in Rawalpindi with the leaders of all the major opposition groups and the entire country rejoiced when President Ayub Khan agreed to relinquish his office after a fair and democratic election based upon direct adult franchise, restore the parliamentary system, end the state of emergency which had been imposed during the Indo-Pak War of September 1965 and the repeal of the Defence of Pakistan Rules which allowed political rivals to be arrested and arbitrarily imprisoned for an indefinite period without trial. The five parties of the Pakistani Democratic Movement also stood for the restoration of the 1956 Constitution which was a far firmer basis for an Islamic state than Ayub’s self-made Constitution of 1962. Tragically, the leftist elements, particularly the People’s Party led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and the pro-Chinese National Awami League, headed by Maulana Bhashani insisted upon violent methods and refused to cooperate in the implementation of this programme. They toured the country, making

41 inflammatory speeches and striving their utmost to incite a Communist-type revolution. Because of student unrest, the colleges and universities were closed down for six months, industry and commerce were paralyzed by strikes, rioting, arson and murder convulsed the country, particularly in East Pakistan.

Law and order deteriorated to such an extent that President Ayub Khan resigned and General Yahya took over the reigns of power and declared Martial Law on March 25, 1969. In preparation for the national elections to restore democracy in the country, Maulana Maudoodi drafted an eight-point political ethics code whose text as released to the press runs as follows:

1. Nobody is entitled to do or say anything repugnant to the ideology of Pakistan, the Islamic democratic order of life or the solidarity of Pakistan.

2. No party or leader or responsible worker thereof should transgress the honour of their leaders in public. None should, particularly during the campaign for general elections, make false and villifying propaganda nor use abusive language against other parties or candidates.

3. Every party has a right to hold public meetings, take out processions and organize peaceful demonstrations but none has any right to disrupt and interfere into the meetings, processions and demonstrations organized by other parties. There should be an express provision in the electoral laws that any party or candidate resorting to such things during elections would be disqualified for office.

4. No party or individual is allowed to propagate undemocratic and revolutionary methods to bring about a change by force or violence against the democratic will of the people. A party or person should have no right to function or organize a political group resorting to such methods.

42 5. Every person and party certainly has the right to boycott the elections but if any party or leader declares that they would not allow the polls to be held or that they would obstruct others from taking part in the elections or that they would not permit the polling stations to function during the elections, must not only be disqualified and debarred from taking part in politics but such acts and activities should be made a cognisable offence under the law of the land.

6. All parties and candidates should scrupulously abstain from the following acts after the declaration of the election time-table and during the elections:

(a) Purchasing of votes by money or other allurement; (b) Securing of votes by means of official pressure or private intimidation through party workers and supporters; (c) Appeal to the racial, linguistic, regional or sectarian prejudices of the voters;

7. Every party should solemnly declare that in case of its coming to power, it will abstain from the following acts: (a) Abuse of official powers and resources in the interests of their party:

(b) Abuse of the propaganda machinery of the country viz: radio, television, news agencies and the newspapers in their own favour and against the Opposition parties; (c) Abuse of route-permits, licenses and other forms of Government patronage to bribe the members of other parties and independent persons and thus win them over to their side; (d) To impose curbs on the press and platform in the interests of their own party.

8. No party which does not believe in the Islamic basis or oneness and solidarity of Pakistan or wants to establish any other system against the democratic will of our people, should be allowed to take part in the elections.²¹

43

During the national elections of December 1970, Maulana Maudoodi correctly predicted that the triumph of the regional political parties would mean the inevitable disintegration of Pakistan. Subsequent events after the debacle bore out the truth of that statement. Not even the army could quell the revolt of the secessionists in East Pakistan which claimed the lives of so many thousands of non-Bengalis and those who supported a unified Pakistan, and it had no means of combatting Marxist and Hindu influences which raised the slogan of “Bangladesh,” and finally succeeded under Indian military occupation in December 1971 with the open support of Britain and Russia in amputating East Pakistan from the western wing.

On October 24, 1970, in his public speech in Sant Nagar, Lahore, Maulana Maudoodi declared:

I must warn all my countrymen in no uncertain terms that even the armed forces are not in a position to keep the country together. Anyone endowed with any power of thought can decide how far it would be possible to compel East Pakistan to remain united with West Pakistan in case the separatist movement continues to gather force. The two wings were not joined together to form Pakistan by any army but rather by the brotherly Islamic ties and the sentiment of the common Islamic heritage and they cannot remain united unless the same ties and sentiment continues to exist and the people of East Pakistan or at least an effective majority of them, wish to maintain this unity. Should those who wish to break the ties succeed in their designs, the armed forces will not be in a position to contain them. If these fissiparous tendencies become too widespread, they will eventually affect the armed forces which would then cease to be an effective tool of the Government.

Although the Pakistan movement was undertaken in the name of Islam and the goal set before the Muslims was the achievement of an Islamic State, is there any other party besides the Jama’at-e-Islami 44 which has explained in detail what are the essential and distinguishing features of an Islamic state and how such a state can be brought into existence? The Jama’at-e-Islami’s efforts alone in this field have been responsible for shattering the dreams of those who had envisaged Pakistan as a secular state. The achievement of Pakistan was only the first step. At the time of Partition, the most anybody could think of was in terms of having a Shaikh ul Islam, Dar ul Ifta, a Dar ul Qaza and a Ministry of Awqaf and that was all! The legal, professional and all others connected with the administration of Justice were not prepared to agree that it would be a practical proposition for a modern state to require among other things, the cutting of the hand of a thief. They felt disturbed when anybody wanted to discuss the Sunnah or Fiqh and they were at most prepared to agree to the Quran as the sole source of the law so that they might interpret it according to their whims and thus prepare a modern edition of Islam. There were a large number of persons among the educated classes who were utterly surprised if somebody stated that Islam had a constitutional system of its own or an economic system or that it can solve the problems of contemporary man. Most political leaders felt ashamed of establishing a religious state in the twentieth century.

It is the Jama’at-e-Islami alone which has over a period of 23 years

been able to remove one by one all the doubts that pricked the minds of our educated classes. It has made them realize the fact that a state is not Islamic in the full sense of the word until its legislature, courts, police, defence forces, revenue and financial system, commerce and industry and in fact all departments are regulated according to Islamic injunctions. The Jama’at and its literature dealt with each sphere of national life and indicated with convincing arguments how we can reconstruct our lives according to Islam, how to apply it in practice under modern conditions and how it can offer universal guidance. The Jama’at and its literature also subjected Western civilization and culture, its philosophy of life, capitalism and communism to a very thorough analysis and exposed in every detail for the benefit of the educated:

classes, all their weaknesses and defects and the unhappy consequences that follow from their adoption. As a result of this work, a high proportion of our educated classes, whether they be in Government service, in the legal profession, in educational institutions or in any other sphere of life are today convinced of the superiority of the Islamic order. In the colleges and universities in West Pakistan, many students are even ready to lay down their lives for the revival of the Islamic order. Can anybody name any other party which has thus prepared the ground for establishing Islam in the country? Can anyone assess how different the situation would be had it not been for this sustained effort over two decades? The Jama’at-e-Islami is not given to boasting but what I am saying is an irrefutable fact without the least exaggeration. The widespread clear conception of an Islamic system which exists now in our intelligentsia and which even the ulema talk of was not to be found at all in the writings of either group some thirty years ago. The arguments now being used against secularism and socialism or capitalism or for proving the superiority of the Islamic system over both have all been provided by the literature produced by the Jama’at and by no other party or person. Our adversaries may not acknowledge this openly but in their hearts, they know this to be the case.

On April 1, 1971, Maulana Maudoodi sent the following telegram to the heads of all the Muslim States in the world:

India is openly interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan and aggressively fomenting trouble in East Pakistan.

The only state that supports her in this policy is Israel. This is clear proof that the Indo-Zionist intrigue is working for the dismemberment of Pakistan, the largest Muslim state which had always supported Muslim causes everywhere in the world.

I appeal to your government and to your excellency to take serious notice and exert maximum influence against

this totally unwarranted and open violation of international law and civilized behaviour.

46

On June 5, 1971, when the situation in East Pakistan became critical, Maulana Maudoodi gave the following memorandum to the heads of all the Muslim States, and Muslim organizations including Britain, the U.S.A. and the entire Pakistani press.

1. First of all it should be quite clear that the Muslim population of East Pakistan never wanted secession. Neither these Muslims voted for Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman to promote the separatist’s cause, nor the common Muslim of this region participated in the rebellion starting from 1st March, 1971. As a matter of fact, this secessionist movement was started by a particular section of the Bengali nationalists who had been taught and educated in the colleges and universities mostly by Hindu professors and had no education in Islamic teachings. This section of the society has taken inspiration from the Bengali literature written by Hindu authors. They had become alienated from Islam and atheism and moral evils had spread among them on a very large scale. This section of the Muslim population was supported by Bengali Hindus numbering between eighty lakhs and one crore (fresh census has not yet taken place, therefore the present number is unknown). These Hindus, Bengali nationalists and socialists termed all non-Bengali Muslims their enemies whether they belonged to West Pakistan or had migrated from India to East Pakistan after India was divided, simply because they were non-Bengalis and spoke Urdu and a campaign of hatred had been pursued against them. This started a few years after the establishment of Pakistan and has continued ever since and under the prejudice of Bengali nationalism, they have been the target of bloodshed, arson and rape. The success of this group in the recent general election should not be allowed to create the false impression that the Muslim masses of East Pakistan were with them. To give you a clearer picture, I shall discuss the causes of this success in the coming pages.

2. In the last days of the Ayub regime, it was clearly felt that India as well as America and Britain were bent upon creating a situation to shatter Pakistan to pieces. The Hindus of India are at par with Jews 47 in their hatred and enmity towards Islam and Muslims and the existence of Pakistan is an anathema to them. As for America, it is well known that Zionists have a great hold there and they have a grudge against Pakistan due to the enthusiastic support she has been extending from the very beginning to the Arab cause against Israel. Such a vigorous support to the Arab cause has never been extended so far by any other non-Arab Muslim country.

For this reason, international Zionism applied all its resources to break the strength of Pakistan. It is also well-known about Britain that she has deep-rooted enmity against Islam and Muslims. She had approved the creation of Pakistan under compulsion, left it in as weak a position as possible and is responsible for the Kashmir problem. The attitude of Britain has never been sympathetic to West Pakistan since its inception.

3. When the Ayub Regime came to an end and the new era started with General Yahya Khan, the conspiracy of the leftist forces to disintegrate Pakistan was fully revealed. These elements tried their utmost to split the country into conflicting groups by creating and fanning prejudices on the basis of territorial and linguistic nationalism. The main target of their campaign was East Pakistan. Russia throughout continued supporting these elements.

4. During the recent general elections, these foreign elements which include Hindus, Zionists and America, provided large scale financial support to two parties which were entirely regional in their composition. One was Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman’s party which had no influence in West Pakistan and second was Mr. Z. A. Bhutto’s party which has no following in East Pakistan. Our enemies had this clearly in their minds that if these two regional parties succeeded, Pakistan would automatically split into two parts.

As it has been mentioned above, between eighty lakhs and one crore Hindus lived in East Pakistan and they extended their full support to Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. Under the joint electorate the overwhelming support extended to one party by this great mass could decisively influence the elections, and it did so. Here it is very pertinent to note 48 that even if a Hindu candidate ventured to contest from any constituency, Hindus exercised their vote in favour of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman’s candidate and discarded their co-religionist.

In West Pakistan, Qadianis (who believe in the prophethood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, India) and have great influence in the government and abundant financial resources, threw their full weight in favour of Mr. Z. A. Bhutto. Firstly, the Qadianis of West Pakistan consider an Islamic State to be extremely harmful to their interests and an anti-Islamic state, even if that may be a Communist one, is beneficial for them.

Secondly, as East Pakistan is free from their influence and their entire strength is in West Pakistan, therefore their utmost desire and efforts centred on the point that East Pakistan, through conspiracy should be amputated from West Pakistan so that they might be able to turn the western wing into a ‘Qadiani State’ in collaboration with Mr. Bhutto.

During the election campaign from the very beginning till the polling day, Sheikh Mujib’s party in the Eastern Wing and Mr. Bhutto’s party in the Western Wing continuously resorted to violence and hooliganism to win the elections.

Thus with the help of unlimited financial resources and widespread hooliganism and violence coupled with the support and influence of those government officials who were with them especially in the Eastern Wing, the result of the elections were exactly as the enemies of Pakistan desired them to be, that is, that in East Pakistan one regional party and in West Pakistan another regional party won the polls with an overwhelming majority.

6. The following is the brief sketch of political events which took place after the elections ²²

Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman started to stress continuously his six points which were in fact the programme for separation. Only a cursory glance on six points was enough to make it clear that it was a plan for dividing Pakistan into various independent states. Sheikh Mujib twice took an oath at two different public meetings, from the members of his party that they would not budge an inch from this six point programme.

Along with this, the Sheikh had forcefully advised the people that if they deviated from these points they “should be buried alive.”

Mr. Z. A. Bhutto made an effort to settle the issue of sharing power with Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman but they could not arrive at an agreement. Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman wanted that the assembly should be immediately summoned into session so that he may have a constitution framed on the basis of the six points through his majority vote in the Assembly. On the other hand Mr. Z. A. Bhutto’s utmost effort was not to allow the assembly session to be held without making certain his share in power.

Amid this conflict, March 3rd was fixed as the date for the assembly session. But Mr. Bhutto declared at a public meeting held on February 28th in Lahore that “if any elected member of his party went to Dacca to attend the assembly session, his legs would be broken” and that “if the members of other parties wanted to go, they should not purchase return tickets.” Under the circumstances, President General A. M. Yahya Khan had to postpone the assembly session.

The announcement for the postponement of the assembly was made on March 1st which was immediately followed by a rebellion in East Pakistan. As a result of this rebellion, Sheikh Mujib and his party practically took over the civil administration. Courts were closed on his orders. Government offices were also closed. Police and other Bengali Government employees sided with them. Pakistan’s flag was set on fire. The National Anthem was replaced by a poem written by Tagore—a Hindu poet. (This poem was written by Tagore in 1905 to stop the division of East and West Bengal and maintain the unity of one Bengal. Thus it became quite obvious by the adoption of this poem as the National Anthem that Sheikh Mujib’s party was truly imbued with the Hindu mentality.) East Pakistan was named “Bangla Desh” and the flag of independent “Bangla Desh” was hoisted. The shops of the non-Bengali Muslims were looted and ransacked. Assaults were made on the life, property, and honour of thousands of such Muslims. Women were disrespected and raped and

children were killed.

Incidents of burning people alive took place on a large scale.

All these atrocities were committed against helpless Muslims simply because they were non-Bengalis and spoke Urdu instead of Bengali. As I have mentioned above, these oppressed people not only consisted of Muslims of West Pakistan but also included millions of Muslims who had settled in East Pakistan after migrating from India at the time of the partition as they had no homeland except East Pakistan. It was ironical that Bengali nationalists and socialists (Muslims by name) collaborated with Hindus in the mass killing of these non-Bengali Muslims, in raping and humiliating their women and in looting their property. Seldom in history has such a horrible scene been witnessed that Muslims killed their fellow Muslims in cooperation with infidels and subjected their women to rape. But this perversity was performed by the Bengali nationalists and socialists whose names were like Muslims. I shall put this question to every individual who has any care for Islam in his heart, whether such Muslims should be counted as Muslims and if such “Muslims” are duly punished, then how can the sacred name of Islam be used in their favour and who can allege that Muslims were being killed and protest on this basis?

Furthermore, during the visit of the President at Dacca, the armed forces suffered humiliation on many occasions at the hands of Bengalis, their movements were interfered with, their supplies were cut off and whenever they passed from any locality, abuses were showered upon them. A plan was even prepared to arrest President Yahya Khan when he was in Dacca.

At this stage the army started its operation on the night between March 25 and March 26 when there was a strong apprehension that Bengali nationalists were going to declare independence of the “Bangla Desh” the same night. Had the independence of “Bangla Desh” been declared, India would have promptly recognized her.²³ 51 Then there would have been no bar left for Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman to ask for military aid from India and in response she (India) would have marched her army into East Pakistan in the same manner as she had in the case of Kashmir.

This was the situation when the army decided to move and who can say that its action was not justified?

Let anybody name a country which would look on as a spectator when one of her constituent parts tries to secede with the active assistance of an alien power and would do nothing more than just let it go its own way. In the nineteenth century, two great democracies had to face secessionist movements and both of them suppressed it with the force of arms. In 1847, seven Roman Catholic states of Switzerland had decided to secede from the Confederacy, but the remaining states fought against them and forced them to rejoin the confederacy. Similarly, in 1860 the southern states of U. S. A. had decided to secede but after a bloody war they were compelled to again to rejoin the United States. Recently when the movement for separation of Katanga from Congo was started in 1960 twenty-thousand troops were sent by U. N. to help suppress it. Nigeria is a fresh example. All the countries recognized the right of Nigeria to use arms to put an end to the secession of Biafra. Although all the Western Press and the Pope himself used influence in favour of Biafra, legally no country dared say that Nigeria should silently tolerate the armed rebellion of a part of her territory and that military action should not be taken against it.

These are the instances of those countries which frustrated by force the secessionist designs of their own integral parts. Quite recently Russia has used force against independent sovereign states of Communist bloc and compelled them to remain within that bloc. After this who can dare raise an objection against Pakistan’s action? Is there any country that would tolerate an armed campaign of revolt within its boundaries and would recognize the consequent separation? Is India prepared to tolerate it? Is Britain ready to accept it? Can America, France, Russia or any other country let it happen within their borders? Is Canada prepared to tolerate the secessionist movement of Quebec?

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On February 6, 1972, Maulana Maudoodi sent the following telegram to the United Nations, Rabita al Alam al Islamiya in Mecca and all the heads of the Muslim states in the world:

In East Pakistan, millions of Muslim Bengalis and non-Bengalis loyal to Islam and a united Pakistan are facing brutal oppression by the Indian Army and Mukti Bahini through mass killings, mass arrests and widespread victimization. Civilian colonies of non-Bengali Muslims are in danger of annihilation under attacks in which rockets and bombs are being used. Only in Dacca city a half million non-Bengali Muslims are in imminent danger of being wiped out.

Religious and educational institutions are being destroyed and closed. Bengali Muslim ulema are being killed or arrested. Collective prayers in mosques have become difficult. Big powers and other countries which were reverberating with stories of Pakistan Army’s oppression are now silent spectators as if tyranny by so-called Bengala Desh and Indian occupation forces is not tyranny but benevolence and creates no human problem. Please exert pressure for stopping this bloodshed and oppression!

On October 12, 1972, Maulana Maudoodi sent the following letter to leading lawyers, Islamic centres, Muslim institutions, heads of Islamic movements, organizations of Muslims youths and students, broadcasting companies and editors of prominent newspapers in Britain, Canada, America, France, Asia and Arab countries. More copies are being sent to Muftis, political leaders, the Islamic Secretariat, the United Nations and foreign ministers of the Muslim countries.

On December 16, 1971 when Dacca fell, not only the Pakistan army but also the civil servants of West Pakistan who had been posted there and the business men who had been there in connection with their business with all their families were made prisoners and they 53 were detained in prisoner of war camps in India. For almost a year, India has been making different pretexts to keep them in detention and still is not ready to release them but is trying to obtain benefits by holding them as hostages. As far as the civilians are concerned, there is no lawfulness in keeping them as prisoners and as regards the military servants, the Geneva Convention is quite clear in this matter that they should be returned without any delay when the war is over. In connection with these prisoners, India is putting forward the pretext that the Pakistani army surrendered not only to the Indian army but also before the Bengala Desh army. This pretext can never be applied to the civilian prisoners because they did not take part in the war and also they did not lay down their arms before anyone. As far as the army is concerned, India claims that the commander of the Pakistani forces put his signature on the document in which he surrendered before a joint command. But if this document was written after the surrender and becoming prisoners, then it stands nowhere. The fact is that the Bengala Desh government did not exist on December 16th and it had no regular army which had any legal ground and before whom the surrender was made. The surrender was only to the Indian army but India argued that the Pakistani commander surrendered to a joint command of India and Bengala Desh. Now more mischief is being done in that the so-called Bengala Desh government will try as war criminals all those Bengalis and non-Bengalis in East Pakistan who sided with the Pakistani government to save East Pakistan. Although the Government with whom they sided was the legal government and against whom they were struggling to save their country were not only traitors but also were helping a foreign enemy in invading the country. Now these traitors have become the rulers and are trying as war criminals those who sided with the legal constitutional government. The so-called Bengala Desh government intends to try about one thousand officers of the Pakistani army. These are prisoners in India and without the conspiracy of India in Bengala Desh, they can neither be sent to East Pakistan nor can they be tried. The question is if there is a revolt against the legal and constitutional 54 government and the army of the country is used to crush the revolt; then this step would be legal that rebels after succeeding in their revolt should try the army which was obeying the constitutional government and resisting the revolt. This means that whenever there is civil warfare in any country, the use of force in crushing the revolt of the secessionists would be illegal or the forces must be tried as war criminals if the revolt is successful. We are now facing this situation and it is essential that this problem be placed on the agenda of the General Assembly of the United Nations and in the international press. The problem should be fully explained in newspapers throughout the world.

On October 29, 1972, Maulana Maudoodi severely criticized President Bhutto for his speech in Lyallpur two days earlier in which he urged Pakistan to recognize the “reality” of Bengala Desh.

President Bhutto wanted to recognize the estrangement of East Pakistan from the very beginning of his assumption of power as without it he could not justify his taking over the control of the western wing of the country. The manner in which the President had proceeded towards the fulfillment of this objective not only adversely affected his own position but also that of the country. The severing of diplomatic ties with the small nations but not with the big Powers recognizing Bengala Desh and later re-establishing relations with small countries made Pakistan a laughing stock in the world. The Presidential address of August 14th in the Assembly had been calculated not only to distort history but also contradicted the President’s previous observations. Then his assurance on the eve of departure for Simla that he would not talk about Bengala Desh with India and his clearcut statement after arrival from India that nothing had been agreed on secretly except what had been written in the Simla agreement was untenable in view of the subsequent claim by India that the President had agreed to recognize Bengala Desh.

Bhutto had said that the reality of Bengala Desh could not be ignored indefinitely and we would have to recognize it. At the same time he assured us that the people’s approval would be sought before a decision on this behalf.

What would be the way of ascertaining the people’s approval or non-approval on the issue? The President had already asked for the people’s view on this point at Lahore before flying to Simla as he had done in the case of the release of Sheikh Mujjib ur Rehman at a public meeting in Karachi. The people had rejected the idea of recognizing Bengala Desh, however. How many times did the people’s opinion need to be asked on the Bengala Desh issue at public meetings? Assuming the people raised their hands in favour of this issue at a thousand meetings in West Pakistan, would it be logically tenable to decide the fate of East Pakistan on that basis? He said that Pakistan is like a human body which came into being with two wings from the very beginning. Supposing for arguments sake that people in one wing wish to amputate the other wing, would the amputation be justified on that score? President Bhutto intended to launch a drive for mobilizing public opinion in favour of the recognition of Bengala Desh but the arguments with which this campaign has been initiated at Lyallpur not only ran counter to facts but also tended to give the impression that India’s case instead of Pakistan’s was being pleaded. It was asserted that the separation of East Pakistan had not been caused by Indian aggression but because of the East Pakistani people who rose in armed revolt and organized the Mukti Bahini to fight the Pakistani armed forces and that India had just sent its army in their support. It implied that India had not committed aggression but rather was constrained to carry out its “sacred duty” of supporting the independence-lovers of East Pakistan. That was an unwilling attempt to describe the Pakistani army as aggressors because they had unsuccessfully tried

to keep the secessionists forcibly within Pakistan. If it was believed that the population of East Pakistan wanted separation, the logical conclusion was that not a few hundreds but the entire body of Pakistani armed forces were aggressors who must be prosecuted and thousands of those patriotic Bengalis who supported the armed forces were traitors. Can any head of state give a more dangerous statement against his country than this? Is it justifiable to say

wanted secession that the entire population of East Pakistan wanted secession? Did the people there vote for separation in the 1970 elections? Was the Assembly scheduled for March 3, 1971 called to decide the issue of secession? Is it not a reality that the secessionist movement had no cooperation from the general body of Muslim population and that the Mukti Bahini, trained and armed by India, had been rendered ineffective and unsuccessful by the Pakistani armed forces? Can it be denied that but for India’s attack, East Pakistan could not have been separated. Maulana Maudoodi said these were realities which could not be contradicted. But it was a matter of misfortune that the Head of State by putting these realities in the wrong perspective, wanted to wash the blackened face of India. Some of the people who had turned separatists due to some misunderstanding were now repenting over the break-up of Pakistan. After having experienced difficulties and untold miseries at the hands of India, our recognition to the separation at this moment would deal a shattering blow to their hopes.²⁴

Once I asked Maulana Maudoodi why the Jama’at-e-Islami is so intensely involved in political activity. The Maulana replied that preaching, printed literature and even education is of little avail unless Islam can be implemented practically in a full-blooded Islamic state. He went on to explain that if the governments of the Muslim countries are not controlled by the Islamic forces then they will be in the hands of the anti-Islamic forces. In the Muslim world, he told me, nationalism does not have any of the patriotism associated with its manifestations in European history. Rather among the Muslims, nationalism always fans nothing but dissention, chaos, anarchy, disruption and demoralization which is so evident in the struggle of the Arab

57

world against Zionist imperialism. For a Muslim country to adopt nationalism as the basis of its policy is suicide. Secularism does not mean non-interference of the State into religious affairs as is understood in Western countries but rather absolute control of the State over all religious activities, making it virtually impossible for any independently minded ulema who refuse to be bought by the Government to function in any capacity. In the Muslim world, secularism means anti-religion and state-sponsored persecution of all religious elements. What has happened in Turkey under the Kemalists is before us to witness. Without the influence of Jama’at-e-Islami, he concluded, there is no reason to assume that conditions in Pakistan would be any better.

Why does Maulana Maudoodi regard politics as his most important field of action?

Our complete submission to our creator and the effort to ward off hypocrisy along with the struggle to rid our lives of contradictions and to become true Muslims necessarily demand a revolution in the social set-up in which we live. This system stands on the foundation of unbelief and atheism as well as on the worship of false gods, on sin and immorality. And the thinkers who designed this system and the statesmen who run it are all people who have turned away from Allah and broken the bounds of His laws.

As long as the leadership remains in their hands, as long as they direct, control and lead in the fields of science and learning, in literature and art, in education, information and broadcasting, law-making and law-enforcement, finance, industry, trade, administration and international relations, it will be very difficult to live as a Muslim in this world and impossible to leave behind to our future generations even a minimum of belief in Islam. As long as the immoralists, the rebels against Allah, the disciples of Satan remain as leaders and guides in the world, there is no chance that oppression, immorality and misguided ventures will come to an end. That would be against reason and nature.

Hence the fact of our being Muslims demands that we put an end to the leadership of the wayward and the astray, wipe out the dominance of unbelief and the worship of false gods and replace them with the true Faith.

The objective of Islamic Jihad is to put an end to the dominance of the un-Islamic systems of government and replace them with Islamic rule. Islam intends to bring about this revolution not in one country or in a few countries but the entire world.

Although initially it is the duty of every member of the Islamic movement to work for revolution wherever he lives, the final purpose is nothing but a world revolution.

Any revolutionary ideology which upholds the good of all mankind and not of a mere national unit cannot limit its horizons to those of any single country or nation. By its very nature, this ideology has to make world revolution its ideal. Truth and Right on this side of mountain or river is so on the other side as well. No part of humanity should be cut off from it.²⁵

Among weak-minded Muslims, there is a great deal of despair and frustration because in the world today, materialism and westernism are triumphant and everywhere Islamic influence is on the retreat and decline and the tangible results of those who strive for an Islamic renaissance are so meagre. When this subject was raised while Maulana Maudoodi was undergoing medical treatment in London, he replied:

If frustration and disappointment ever overtake the workers of Islam, it is so because they must have begun to expect that their efforts should bear fruit before their own eyes. We do hope that things will change but a Muslim is motivated by only one consideration - to seek the pleasure of Allah. Our eyes are rivetted only to the reward that comes in the Hereafter. Whatever results are produced here are only in the nature of by-products. Our real objective is to fulfil the will of our Creator. Those who are looking to the products of their efforts here and now should reflect over the examples of those who laid their lives in the battles of Badr and Uhud. They applied their blood to fulfil this mission but did they see any fruits of their sacrifices? They looked only to the results that come in the Hereafter. Had they not watered the Islamic movement with their blood and had they not offered those sacrifices, future generations would have never witnessed those changes that transformed the course of history. But they never worked to see those results. They never lived to observe the fruits of their efforts. Their real ambition was to fulfill their duty. This is the attitude which must be cultivated by the workers of Islam.²⁶

While undergoing medical treatment in London in the autumn-winter of 1968, Maulana Maudoodi was interviewed by the editor of the Arabic-language monthly of the Muslim Students Society of the Great Britain—al-Ghuraba—and asked what methods of work he could suggest to the Islamic movement working in different parts of the world under hostile, despotic rule. He replied:

I believe it is the responsibility of the workers and leaders of the Islamic movement in a particular country to intelligently and correctly assess the nature and type of despotism under which they must live and keeping that in view, to discover ways and means to struggle against it and seek out new opportunities to serve the Islamic cause. The nature and extent of despotism in the different Muslim countries is so varied that it is not possible to suggest any one standard procedure. But what I do feel is necessary in all these cases is the need to resist the temptation of resorting to the methods and techniques 60 of secret underground movements and bloody revolutions. They must be prepared to work for the cause of Allah openly and peacefully even if they must court great risks, undergo suffering and even though it may mean prison and the gallows.

And similarly to the editor of the Ikhwan al-Muslimun Arabic monthly - Al-Muslimoon - who asked him whether the recent attempts to crush the Islamic movement in various Muslim lands, inspired by the Great Powers, had spread dismay in the ranks of the Jama’at-e-Islami and made its members despair of any possibility for success, Maulana Maudoodi replied:

People who really love Islam, whose minds are satisfied that it is the truth and have implicit faith in it can never feel dismayed by the present situation or surrender to despair. Such people consider it their duty to struggle for the supremacy of Islam till their last breath whether their struggle succeeds or fails in this world. Even if apparently their efforts fail here, they do not consider it as failure because they believe that the real success is salvation in the Hereafter and this is their purpose. From this point of view, it is not the sincere, dutiful Mujahids who fail; the actual failure and degradation is that of the people who claim to be Muslim and yet do their utmost to obstruct and defeat those who strive for an Islamic order. These are the people who deserve the punishment of God both in this world and in the next. This punishment may be delayed but when the wrath of Allah comes, it is a warning and an admonition for the entire world. However, I am convinced that as sure as the sun rises tomorrow morning, insha’Allah, the forces of Islam will eventually triumph.²⁷

Throughout his career, Maulana Maudoodi has fearlessly criticized the misdeeds of those in power without any consideration for his own personal welfare or safety.

Despite the fact that there have been many attempts on his life, he has never found it necessary to take any extraordinary precautions or have any bodyguard. During the national election campaign of the winter of 1970, self-seeking, opportunistic and ambitious ulema waged a tirade of propaganda against him and slandered not only his person but also his wife, sons and daughters in the mosques during the Friday Khutbah. One of the most dramatic assassination attempts on Maulana Maudoodi is described as follows by The Pakistan Times, Lahore, September 8, 1970.

A teen-age boy of Jauharabad—Zahid Iqbal—on Sunday evening surrendered himself to the Jama’at workers after changing his mind to assassinate Maulana Maudoodi at the Jama’at headquarters in Lahore. Zahid Iqbal, aged 14, told the Press Conference that he had made up his mind to assassinate Maulana Maudoodi after hearing a speech by Maulana Zia-ul Qasim of the Hazarvi group of the Jamiat ul Ulema at a public meeting in Jauharabad in early August which, according to him, the Maulana had alleged that Maudoodi had insulted the Holy Prophet and believed in only half of the Quran. The teen-ager, a class VII student, said that after the Asar prayers, he was “impressed by the way Maulana Maudoodi talked to his party workers when he told questioners that he would never use abusive, dirty language against his opponents whatever invectives they might use against him.” He said that he was also deeply impressed by the Maulana’s “noorani” face and his remarks that “drunkards cannot spread Islam in Pakistan.”

Asked whether a case had been registered with the police, Maulana Maudoodi said that personally he was against reporting the case because Zahid Iqbal had not actually made an attempt but had confessed his guilt which “I have forgiven”. Some of the members of the Jama’at, however, were of the view that a case should be registered

because of the 18 inch long knife which the adolescent boy handed

over to the Jamaat chief. Zahid Iqbal said he had stolen the knife from the shop of an ironsmith in Jauharabad.

When I warned Maudoodi of the great danger to his personal safety during the 1970 election campaign, he replied calmly: “I believe that anyone who has implicit trust in Almighty Allah enjoys His protection and blessing.”

Maulana Maudoodi’s achievements both in quality and quantity have surpassed his predecessors in the struggle for Islamic revival.

He has not only attained a complete mastery of Islamic learning but also a keen insight into modern secular knowledge as well. Although almost entirely self-educated, his erudition is encyclopedic. On religion and philosophy, the arts and the sciences or politics and economics, he can speak and write with equal versatility. He has used his knowledge accumulated during his forty-year career most effectively to dispel every doubt of his adversaries on the superiority of the Islamic order over all other ways of life. Not only has his scholarship accurately portrayed every aspect of Islam in specific detail in relation to modern materialist ideologies in more than a hundred books and pamphlets capable of attracting the sympathies of modern-educated youth,

but in the conduct of his private and public life, he has demonstrated to the public how he has put into actual practice everything he has preached. Like all genuine servants of the Islamic cause, past and present, he is a completely dedicated man, selfless, fearless and of impeccable moral character. Always humble, modest and kind, he abhors flattery, shunning pomp, riches and luxury and insisting upon simplicity in his home for himself and his family.

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Maulana Maudoodi is not only himself a dedicated Muslim but also has succeeded in influencing his wife, six sons and three daughters in the same direction. For many years his wife has been the leader of the women’s branch of the Jama’at-e-Islami in West Pakistan. She is not only an excellent housewife and mother but spends much of her spare time studying Quran and Hadith and giving frequent lectures to groups of women of all ages who gather at her home. His eldest son, Umar Farouq, assists in the management and publication of the Tarjumanul Quran and helps his father with his work in other ways. All the other children are obedient to their parents, support their endeavours, observant of their faith, intelligent and educated both in Islamic and modern subjects. Every afternoon Maulana Maudoodi makes himself available to the public where, seated together in a circle on the lawn of his house, men of all ages from every station in life come and discuss with him anything they want to know about Islam and its relevance to national and international affairs. Maulana Maudoodi also spends considerable time replying to letters addressed to him from every part of the world from Muslims and non-Muslims eager to know more about Islam.

Few, if any, other workers for Islamic revival, past or present, have combined writing, preaching and practical work on such an impressive scale as Maulana Maudoodi.

Though a Mujaddid is not a Prophet, yet in spirit he comes very close to Prophethood. He is characterized by a clear mind, penetrating vision, unbiased straight thinking, special ability to see the light path clear of all extremes and keep balance, power to think 64 independently of the contemporary and centuries-old social and other prejudices, courage to fight against the evils of the time, inherent ability to lead and guide and an unusual competency to undertake Ijtihad and the work of reconstruction. Besides these qualities, he must have acquired a thorough and comprehensive grasp of Islam, must be a perfect Muslim in thought and deed, must have the acumen to distinguish Islam from un-Islam in the finest details and must possess the ability to extract the Truth from the welter of long established falsehood.

These are the very qualities that characterize a Prophet only on a far higher scale. The basic fact that distinguishes a Mujaddid from a Prophet is that a Prophet is fully aware of his appointment as such and he receives Revelation. He starts the work of his mission with a claim to Prophethood; he has to invite the people to himself and the acceptance or rejection of his invitation by the people determines their being believers or unbelievers. On the contrary, a Mujaddid does not hold any of these positions.

He is not appointed by anyone and often he is not even aware of his being a Mujaddid but people recognize him to be a Mujaddid after his death on account of the quality of work accomplished by him. He does not start his work with any claim nor is he entitled to do so for it is not incumbent on the people to believe in him for remaining Muslims. The following are the various aspects of the programme of Islamic revival undertaken by the Mujaddid:

1. Diagnosis of the current ailments: to examine thoroughly the circumstances and conditions of the time and ascertain exactly where, how and to what extent ignorance ²⁸ has crept in, what and where are its roots and what position Islam occupies at the time.

2. Scheme for reformation: to determine exactly where to strike the blow so as to break the power of un-Islam and enable Islam to take hold of life as a whole.

3. Estimation of one’s limitations and resources: to weigh and estimate power at one’s disposal and determine the line of action for proposing about reform.

4. Intellectual revolution: to shape the ideas, beliefs and moral view-points of the people into the Islamic mould, reform the system of education and revive the Islamic sciences and attitudes in general.

5. Practical reforms: to eradicate evil customs, cleanse morals, regenerate the spirit of practicing the Shariah and prepare men capable for Islamic leadership.

6. Ijtihad: to comprehend the fundamental principles of religion, judge contemporary culture and its trends from the Islamic view-point and determine the changes to be effected in the existing patterns of social life under the Shariah with a view to attaining its ends and enabling Islam to assume world-leadership in the reformed social order.

7. Defence of Islam: to encounter political forces seeking to suppress and destroy Islam and break their power in order to make Islam a living force.

8. Revival of the Islamic system: to wrest authority from the hands of un-Islam and practically re-establish government on the system described as Khilafat after the pattern of the Holy Prophet.

9. Universal revolution: not to rest content with establishing the Islamic order in one or more countries inhabited by Muslims but to initiate such a strong universal movement as may spread the revolutionary message of Islam among all mankind and enable Islam to become the predominant cultural force in the world and capture the moral and intellectual leadership of mankind. Even if a person is able to perform work of distinction in one or several of these aspects, he may be regarded as a Mujaddid but such a Mujaddid will only be a partial Mujaddid and not an ideal one. The ideal Mujaddid (or Imam al-Mahdi) can be only such a person who successfully achieves all the objectives detailed above so as to make himself a true successor of prophethood.

Maulana Maudoodi has these achievements to his credit.

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It is not opinion but fact that Maulana Maudoodi has succeeded in six points of this programme and is now working hard on the others.

Yet with all these accomplishments to his credit he does not seek personal power. On more than one occasion he has declared that he would be happy to serve a genuine Islamic state in the humblest capacity but under no circumstances would he accept even the most important position under a nationalist secular regime.

Maulana Maudoodi has studied all earlier Islamic movements with the utmost thoroughness, taking careful note of their weaknesses as well as their strengths so he can profit by their mistakes as well as their achievements.

For a man with such scanty formal education, the range of Maulana Maudoodi’s knowledge and learning is astonishing. One can converse with him on almost any subject be it religion, philosophy, politics, economics, the arts and sciences and Maulana Maudoodi can always offer a stimulating, intelligent opinion. Combined with his broad knowledge, is an unsurpassed mental balance. He never permits his emotions to disturb his reason and never once have I seen him, even under the most provocative circumstances, not in complete control of himself. His thinking as revealed in his writings and speeches, also reveals his mental balance, a perfect equilibrium between realism and idealism, never over-optimistic or excessively pessimistic. He declares his struggle against many fronts simultaneously—against backwardness as well as modernity, rigid conservatism as well as indiscriminate innovation.

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It is rare to find in a single man such a distinguished combination of extensive literary activity, religious leadership and statesmanship. Unlike most Muslim scholars, Maulana Maudoodi has not been content merely to write and preach but felt impelled to practically implement all that he has taught in establishing what is in the form of the Jama’at-e-Islami, the largest, best-organized, highly disciplined, strongest and most active Islamic organization in the world today. Now that increasing ill-health and the infirmity of advancing age have made it impossible for Maulana Maudoodi to continue leading an active life, he can rest with the inner satisfaction that no single individual during this century has contributed more to the Islamic cause than he has done.

Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi (1903-1979) the great contemporary Mujaddid and founder of the Indo-Pak Jama’at-e-Islami, had maintained strong links with the Islamic movement all over the world in the struggle for a full-blooded Islamic state against colonialism, imperialism and all other anti-Islamic ideologies. Although not a graduate of any religious school, he singlehandedly created the largest body of Islamic literature in the modern age which, translated into all important languages, has inspired the Islamic movement in many countries, both East and West, under different names.