The transformation of Maulana Abul A'la Maududi
Maulana Abul A'la Maududi was one of the most influential and famed Islamic scholars of the Muslim world. He was a prolific author and thinker of his time. With his ideas, he gave birth to the term, “Political Islam”. Though this term was coined by another man after his demise but Maududi’s ideas were exactly centered on what that man defined in this term. However, he described the political expression of Islam as “Islamic Ideology”, insisting that politics was inherent in Islam, and therefore could not be separated from the faith. This vision nonetheless contradicts with that of Ibn Taymiyyah (the thirteenth-century Islamic scholar, who had had a great influence on Maulana Maududi) which says that both can be separate entities. Not only Ibn Taymiyyah, but Muslim modernists also oppose this blend on account of its more propensity for totalitarian theocracy. All in all, to many, Maulana Maudid is largely considered a conservative Muslim scholar, not well-known for modernist views regarding Islam.
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Transformation in Maududi- as a person
Maududi was born in 1903 in Aurangabad, then British India, into a family having relations with Sir Syed Ahmed khan, a famed Muslim modernist. Professor Irfan Ahmed in his treatise, 'Princeton Encyclopaedia of Islamic Political Thought', writes that Sir Syed convinced Maududi's grandfather to enroll his son ( Maududi's father) into Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO) in Aligarh. Maududi's father became an ardent supporter of Sir Sayed's Modernist ideas after spending some time in MAO. But that rankled the grandfather, as he had abhorrence towards liberal and westernized lifestyle. In this way, Maududi's father had to retreat and became fervently religious under his father's supervision. It had had its impact on his son (Maududi) as well, who was to be tutored at home rather than traditional madrassah. He continued his high school, and later on his father's death, he became a journalist. Though he worked in the newspaper owned by JUI-Hind, but he never showed his liking for the religion.
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Further, Professor Irfan tells that Maududi was moderate during his adolescence, he would go cinema and love music. What is more, Vali Nasr, in his book 'Maududi and the making of Islamic Revivalism', asserts that Maududi's wife, Mahmudah Begum, was quite liberated. She didn't observe purdah (Veil) and rode a bicycle in public. Moreover, according to Leonard Binder's 1961 book 'Religion and Politics in Pakistan', Maududi translated many Arabic books into Urdu books, one of them was critical of purdah. Besides this, Leonard maintains that all of a sudden Maududi developed interest in reading Islamic books and history. At that time, he was also disturbed by the surge of nationalist sentiments in the subcontinent, and was bothered by the way in which Muslim modernists had interpreted 'Jihad' merely as an internalized personal struggle. Soon in 1932, Molana Maudidi wrote his first book named 'Towards understanding Islam', and chastised those Muslim modernists for their vague interpretations, giving an impression of orthodox scholars. And this is how he went through the transformation- the journey from a moderate Muslim to a rhetoric.
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| -Towards understanding Islam |
Maulana Maududi laid the stone of his party, famously known as Jama’at-e-Islami (JI), in 1941. Though the party initially opposed the creation of Pakistan, later on, played a substantial role in the politics of the newborn state. Molana Maududi argued that Islam was a universal religion not subject to national boundaries. It is also said that Molana Maududi had not favorable views about Muhammad Ali Jinnah and dubbed him as ‘kaafir-e-Azam”, instead of Quaid-e-Azam. But this stance soon changed. Nowadays, Jama’at-e-Islami is the most popular religious party in the country. Unlike other religious parties, it has a wide mass support in the lower and middle class of Urban Pakistan. it also remained a dominant political force in Karachi before the rise of the Mutahida Qomi Movement (MQM). Perhaps it is the only party in Pakistan that holds intra-party elections on a regular basis, thus sticking to the fundamentalism of democracy.
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| -Maulana Abul A'la Maududi |
The JI envisions a Pakistan governed by Islamic Shariah where Westernized-born capitalism, socialism, and the banking system has no place. At the moment, Jama’at-e-Islami is heavily dependent on the slogan of "Pakistan ka matlab Kia? La Illah Illalah". All its politics encircles on this slogan. Ironically, the same party that categorically opposed the idea of Pakistan soon became its so-called contractor. By and large, Maudid's JI got ideological transformation, just as he got himself.
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| - The flag of Jamaat e Islami |
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