Updated Jan 01, 2015 04:51pm
To most Pakistanis and to those who have been
associated with various Islamic political outfits in countries like Egypt,
Indonesia, Syria and Malaysia, Abul Ala Maududi is to 'Political Islam' what
Karl Marx was to Communism.
Both western and South Asian historians have
described him as one of the most powerful Islamic ideologues of the 20th
century, whose ideas and writings went on to influence a vast number of Islamic
movements in the Muslim world.
For example, the well-known British journal, The
New Statesman, in its July 2013 issue, suggested that the impact of
Maududi's ideas can be found in modern Islamic movements such as the Muslim
Brotherhood (first formed in Egypt) and similar outfits across the Muslim
realms, all the way to the more aggressive postures of men like Osama Bin
Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda and once the most wanted terrorist in the world.
Ambitions and
achievements
In Pakistan, Maududi is mostly remembered as
an Islamic scholar who founded the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI). But he also still
remains a controversial figure here. To the left and liberal segments, he is
remembered as the man who let the US use JI (during the Cold War) to undermine
leftist and progressive politics in Pakistan, whereas many Islamic parties
opposed to the JI once went on to declare him to be a religious innovator who
attempted to create a whole new sect.
Also read: Maududi’s Children
He arrived in Pakistan from India as a migrant and
scholar with the ambition to turn what to him was a nationalistic abomination
into becoming a 'true Islamic state' based on the laws of the shariah.
Maududi had formed his party in 1941 like a
Leninist outfit in which a vanguard and select group of learned and 'pious
Muslims' would work to bring an 'Islamic revolution' and do away with the
forces of what Maududi called modern-day jahiliya(socialism,
communism, liberal democracy, secularism and a faith 'distorted by
innovators').
To that end, he began to lay down the foundations
of what came to be known as 'Islamism' — a theory that advocated the
formation of an Islamic state by first 'Islamising' various sections of the
economy and politics so that a fully Islamised polity could be built to launch
the final Islamic revolution.
Maududi's theories in this context attracted
certain segments of Pakistan's urban middle-classes and was also adopted by
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which tried to jettison the process through a
'jihad' within Egypt.
Not only did Maududi and his party face resistance
from leftist groups, it also entered into a long tussle with Ayub Khan's
secular/modernist dictatorship (1958-69), and with the ZA Bhutto regime, which
was based on populist socialism (1971-77).
Maududi was also taken to task by the Jamiat
Ulema-i-Islam, which accused the JI of creating a separate Muslim sect called
'Maududiat'.
Nevertheless, Maududi's ideas were eventually
adopted by General Ziaul Haq, who had pulled off a successful military coup in
July 1977 and then invited Maududi to help him shape policies to help make
Pakistan a 'true Islamic country' run on 'Nizam-e-Mustafa.'
The course charted by Zia eventually mutated into
becoming a destructive and highly polarising legacy that the state, politics
and society of Pakistan has been battling with till this day.
But the irony is that none of what went down in the
name of faith and 'Islamisation' during and after the Zia dictatorship was
witnessed by the ideologue who had first inspired it, because Maududi passed
away in 1979.
Not an all-out
conservative — Maududi's existential journey
In all the noise that Maududi's career as a
scholar, ideologue and politician generated, what got lost was the crucial fact
that unlike most of today's Islamic scholars and leaders, Maududi did not
emerge from an entirely conservative background.
His personal history is a rather fascinating story
of a man who, after suffering from spats of existential crises, chose to
interpret Islam as a political theory to address his own dilemmas.
He did not come raging out of a madressah, swinging
a fist at the vulgarities of the modern world. On the contrary, he was born
into a family in the town of Auranganad in colonial India that had relations
with the modern and enlightened Muslim scholar, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.
Syed Ahmed Khan was one of the earliest architects
of Muslim Nationalism in India — a nationalism that attempted to create a
robust Muslim middle-class in India that was well-versed in the sciences, arts
and politics of Europe, as well as in the more rational and progressive
understanding of Islam. It was for this very purpose that he formed the MAO
college (later known as Aligarh University).
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The
Aligarh University that was formed by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to modernise Muslim
education in India.
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Syed Ahmed convinced Maududi's father, Ahmed
Hassan, to join the college against the wishes of Maududi's conservative
paternal grandfather.
Incensed by the fact that his son had begun to wear
'Western clothes' and play cricket, Hassan's father pulled him out of the
college and got him lectured by various clerics and ulema on how he was going
against his faith by 'being overwhelmed by western lifestyle.'
Hassan soon renounced everything that had attracted
him at the college and became extremely conservative and religious. When
Maududi was born (1903), Hassan pledged not to give his son a western
education.
So Maududi received his early education at home
through private tutors who taught him the Quran, Hadith, Arabic and Persian. At
age 12 Maududi, was sent to the Oriental High School whose curriculum had been
designed by famous Islamic scholar, Shibli Nomani.
Read on: Mistaking Maududi for Mao
Apart from teaching Islamic law and tradition to
the students, the school also taught Mathematics and English. Maududi then
moved to an Islamic college, Darul Aloom, in Hyderabad. But he had to cut short
his college education when his father fell sick and he had to travel to Bhopal
to visit him. In Bhopal, the young Maududi befriended Urdu poet and writer,
Niaz Fatehpuri.
Fatehpuri's writings and poetry were highly
critical of conservative Muslims and the orthodox Muslim clergy, and on a
number of occasions, various ulema had declared him to be a 'heretic.' But
Fatehpuri soldiered on and had already begun to make a name for himself in Urdu
literary circles when he met Maududi.
Inspired by Fatehpuri's writing style, Maududi too
decided to become a writer. In 1919, the then 17-year-old Maududi moved to
Delhi, where for the first time he began to study the works of Syed Ahmed Khan
in full. This led to the study of major works of philosophy, sociology, history
and politics by leading European thinkers and writers.
Maududi is said to have spent about five years
reading books and essays authored by famous European philosophers, political
scientists and historians, and he emerged from this vigorous exercise a man who
claimed to have found the reason behind the rise of the West (and the fall of
Muslim empires).
By now, he had also begun to write columns for Urdu
newspapers. In one of his articles, he listed the names of those European
scholars whose works and ideas, according to him, had shaped the rise of
Western civilisation. The scholars that he mentioned in his list included
German materialist philosopher, Hegel; British economist, Adam Smith;
revolutionary French writers, Rousseau and Voltaire; pioneering evolutionist
and biologist, Charles Darwin and many others.
With this article, he began to shape a narrative
through his columns in which he emphasised the need (for Muslims) to study and
understand Western political thought and philosophy and to 'master their
sciences.' He said that one could not challenge anything that one did not
understand.
Look through: Political Islam: Theory and reality
It was also during this period that Maududi began
to exhibit an interest in Marxism. At age 25, he became an admirer of the
time's leading Marxist intellectual in India, Abdul Sattar Khairi, and then
befriended famous progressive Urdu poet, Josh Malihabadi.
By the early 1930s, Maududi was living the life of
a studious young man and journalist who also enjoyed watching films in the
newly emerging cinemas of India and listening to songs. He married an
independent-minded girl, Mehmuda, who was educated at a missionary school in
Delhi, wore modern dresses and owned her own bicycle! There was no bar on her
to wear a burqa.
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The
young Maududi (1927)
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Despite all this, Maududi did retain some link with
his past as the son of a very conservative man. In his quest to revive the lost
tradition of Muslim intellectualism, he had also come close to India's main
party of Sunni Deobandi Muslims, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind (JUH).
But at the same time, he also expressed admiration
for the political and spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi. Though he never joined
Gandhi's Indian National Congress (INC) himself, he did urge other Muslims to
join it in his articles. He also authored biographies of Gandhi and another
Congress ideologue, Pundit Malaviya.
Maududi was greatly dismayed by the breakup of the
Ottoman Empire in Turkey, and he blamed Turkish nationalists for it. When INC
began to talk about an 'Indian Nationalism', something snapped in Maududi.
He had devoured every book on Western philosophy
and history, but when the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the hands of Turkish
nationalists, Maududi realised he had been highly underrating the power of
modern nationalism all this time. This was one European concept he was not too
familiar with.
Disenchanted by the Congress' Indian Nationalism
and JUH's alliance with the party, Maududi retreated to the life of a husband
who spent most of his time with his family, books, the occasional film and
classical and semi-classical songs performed on stage.
In 1938, he bumped into Manzoor Nomani, a prominent
Islamic scholar, who admonished him for distancing himself from his father's
legacy, for not having a beard and living the life of a rudderless Muslim.
Already disappointed with the way the concept of
nationalism was taking root in the minds of the Hindus and Muslims of India,
Maududi retired back to his library, but this time to study Islam.
He now emerged with the theory that it wasn't
really the greatness of modern Western thought that had been entirely
responsible for the rise of European political power, but it was due to lack of
conviction of the Muslims to practice their faith in the right manner that had
triggered their fall and made room for European powers to enter.
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In 1937, he vehemently attacked the INC's
nationalism, accusing it of trying to subjugate the Muslims of India, but by
the early 1940s he was being equally critical of Jinnah's All India Muslim
League and of Muslim Nationalism.
He declared the League to be 'a party of pagans'
and 'nominal Muslims' who wanted to create a secular country in the name of
Pakistan.
Maududi's vehement attacks could not stop the
sudden momentum that the League gained in 1946 and that helped it form an
independent Muslim country in 1947.
In another ironic move, Maududi decided to leave
India and head for a country that to him was an abomination and abode of
nominal Muslims and the jahiliya. He began his political career in
Pakistan in 1949, and it lasted on till 1979, when he passed away from illness
in a US hospital. His funeral in Lahore was attended by thousands of admirers.
The many Maududis
Writing in the 'Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic
Political Thought', Irfan Ahmed suggests that there was not one Maududi but
many.
By this, he meant that as a scholar and ideologue,
Maududi's views were often derivatives of phases in his existential journey;
one that saw him depart from the conservatism his father had tried to impose
upon him and wholeheartedly embrace the freshness of European philosophical and
political thought.
Maududi then bounced between Indian Marxism and the
anti-colonial stances of Gandhi and Deobandi ulema (JUH), before settling for a
quiet urban middle-class family life. But incensed by the rise of Muslim
Nationalism, Maududi finally found his calling in the project of interpreting
Islam's holy texts in a political light, and emerging with a complex theory
that we now call Political Islam (aka 'Islamism').
Elements of organisational Leninism, Hegel's
dualism, Jalaluddin Afghani's Pan-Islamism and various other modern political
theories can be found in his innovative thesis, and that's why his thoughts not
only managed to appeal to modern conservative Muslim movements such as the
Muslim Brotherhood and populist youth outfits such as the Islami Jamiat Taleba,
but even the mujahideen who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan all the way to
the more anarchic (if not entirely nihilistic) ways of men such as Osama Bin
Laden.
But the question is, had Maududi been alive today,
which one of the many Maududis out there would he have been most comfortable
with?
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