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Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi (Urdu: سید ابو الاعلىٰ مودودی - alternative spellings of last name Maudoodi, and Mawdudi) (- ), also known as Mawlana (Maulana) or Sheikh Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi, was a Sunni Pakistani journalist, theologian and political philosopher, islamic revivalist and is considered an influential 20th century Islamic thinker. He was also a political figure in his home country(Pakistan), where he founded the Jamaat-e-Islami Islamic revivalist party.

Biography

Timeline

1903 - Born in Aurangabad
1918 - Started career as journalist in Bijnore newspaper
1920 - Appointed as editor of the daily Taj, Jabalpur
1925 - Appointed as editor daily Muslim
1925 - Appointed as editor Al-jamiat, New Delhi
1927 - Wrote Al- Jihad fil Islam
1930 - Wrote and published Deenyat
1932 - Started Tarjuman-ul-Quran from Hyderabad
1938 - Moved to “Pathan kot”, established Darul Islam
1941 - Foundation meeting of Jamaat-e-Islami, appointed as Amir
1942 - Jamaat headquarters moved to Pathankot
1943 - Started writing Tafheem ul-Quran
1948 - Campaign for Islamic constitution and government
1948 - Sentenced to jail
1949 - Government accepted Jamaat resolution for Islamic constitution
1953 - Sentenced to death for his alleged part in the agitation against the Ahmadiyah sect. He was sentenced to death by a military court, but the sentence was never carried out;
1953 - Death sentence commuted to life imprisonment and later canceled.
1955 - Released from jail
1958 - Martial law, ban on Jamaat Islami
1964 - Sentenced to jail
1964 - Released from jail
1971 - He ordered his followers to fight against Bangaldeshi independence.
1972 - Completed Tafheem-ul-quran (quran translation)
1972 - Resigned as Ameer Jamaat
1979 - Died

Early life

Abul Ala Maududi was born on September 25, 1903 (Rajab 3, 1321 AH) in Aurangabad, then part of the princely state of Hyderabad (presently Maharashtra), India. Maududi was born to Ahmad Hasan, a lawyer by profession, and was the youngest of the three sons. His father was "descended from the Chishti line of saints; in fact his very name, Abul Ala, derives from the first member of the Chishti silsiah" (a Sufi `Order`)

At an early age, Maududi was given home education, he "received religious nurture at the hands of his father and from a variety of teachers employed by him. He soon moved on to formal education, however, and completed his secondary education from Madrasah Furqaniyah. For his undergraduate studies he joined Darul Uloom, Hyderabad. His undergraduate studies, however, were disrupted by the illness and death of his father, and he completed his studies outside of the regular educational institutions. His instruction included very little of the subject matter of a modern school, such as European languages, like English.

Journalistic career

After the interruption of his formal education, Maududi turned to journalism in order to make his living. In 1918, he was already contributing to a leading Urdu newspaper, and in 1920, at the age of 17, he was appointed editor of Taj, which was being published from Jabalpore (now Madhya Pradesh). Late in 1920, Maududi went to Delhi and first assumed the editorship of the newspaper Muslim (1921-23), and later of al-Jam’iyat (1925-28), both of which were the organs of the Jam’iyat-i Ulama-i Hind, an organization of Muslim religious scholars.

Founding the Jamaat-e-Islami

In 1941, Maududi founded Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in British India as a religious political movement to promote Islamic values and practices. After the Partition of India, JI was redefined in 1947 to support an Islamic State in Pakistan. JI is currently the oldest religious party in Pakistan.

With the Partition of India, JI split into several groups. The organisation headed by Maududi is now known as Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. Also existing are Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, and autonomous groups in Indian Kashmir, also in Sri Lanka.

Maududi was elected Jamaat’s first Ameer (President) and remained so until 1972 when he withdrew from the responsibility for reasons of health.

Political Struggle

In the beginning of struggle for Pakistan Maudidi and his party were against the idea of creation of Pakistan. He used very insulting language about Muhammad Ali Jinah, founder of Pakistan and other leaders of Muslim league. But when he saw that struggle for Pakistan is going to succeed he took a U-turn and saw some opportunities in the new state and started to support the idea to gain different adavantages.Maududi moved to Pakistan in 1947 and tried to turn it into an Islamic state, resulting in frequent arrests and long prison spells. In 1953, He was sentenced to death on the charge of writing a seditious pamphlet about the Ahmadiyya issue. He turned down the opportunity to file a petition for mercy, expressing a preference for death rather than seeking clemency. Strong public pressure ultimately convinced the government to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment. Eventually, his sentence was annulled.

Last Days

In April 1979, Maududi's long-time kidney ailment worsened and by then he also had heart problems. He went to the United States for treatment and was hospitalized in Buffalo, New York, where his second son worked as a physician. During his hospitalization, he remained intellectually active.

Following a few surgical operations, he died on September 22, 1979, at the age of 76. His funeral was held in Buffalo, but he was buried in an unmarked grave at his residence in Lahore after a very large funeral procession through the city.

Islamic beliefs and ideology

Maududi wrote over 120 books and pamphlets and made over a 1000 speeches and press statements. His magnum opus was the 30 years in progress translation (tafsir) in Urdu of the Qur’an, Tafhim al-Qur’an (The Meaning of the Qur'an), intended to give the Qur’an a practical contemporary interpretation. It became widely read throughout the subcontinent and has been translated into several languages.

Islam

Mawdudi saw Muslims not as people who followed the religion of Islam, but as everything, "Everything in the universe is 'Muslim' for it obeys God by submission to His laws." The only exception to this universe of Muslims were human beings who failed to follow Islam. In regard to the non-Muslim:

His very tongue which, on account of his ignorance advocates the denial of God or professes multiple deities, is in its very nature 'Muslim' ... The man who denies God is called Kafir (concealer) because he conceals by his disbelief what is inherent in his nature and embalmed in his own soul. His whole body functions in obedience to that instinct… Reality becomes estranged from him and he gropes in the dark.

Sharia

Maududi believed that without Sharia law Muslim society could not be Islamic:

That if an Islamic society consciously resolves not to accept the Sharia, and decides to enact its own constitution and laws or borrow them from any other source in disregard of the Sharia, such a society breaks its contract with God and forfeits its right to be called 'Islamic.'

Islamic state

Maududi also believed that Islam required the establishment of an Islamic state. The state would be a "theo-democracy, and underlying it would be three principles: tawhid (unity of God), risala (prophethood) and khilafa (caliphate).

In Mawdudi's system, the caliphate is not an individual ruler, it is "Man," i.e. Muslim men. Man "is the representative of God on Earth, ... within the limits prescribed.

The "sphere of activity" covered by the Islamic state would be "co-extensive with human life ... In such a state no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private.

The state would follow Sharia Islamic law, a complete system covering

family relationships, social and economic affairs, administration, rights and duties of citizens, judicial system, laws of war and peace and international relations. In short it embraces all the various departments of life ... The Sharia is a complete scheme of life and an all-embracing social order where nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking.

Consequently, while this state has a legislature which the ruler must consult, its function "is really that of law-finding, not of law-making.

Mawdudi believed that the sovereignty of God (hakimiya) and the sovereignty of the people are mutually exclusive. Therefore, he declared Islamic democracy to be the antithesis of secular Western democracy which transfers hakimiya(God's sovereignty) to the people.

Jihad

Because Islam is all-encompassing, Maududi believed that the Islamic state should not be limited to just the "homeland of Islam". It is for all the world. 'Jihad' should be used to eliminate un-Islamic rule and establish this Islamic state:

Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which Nation assumes the role of the standard bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State.
It must be evident to you from this discussion that the objective of Islamic 'Jihad' is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of State rule. Islam does not intend to confine this revolution to a single State or a few countries; the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution.

Non-Muslims

The rights of non-Muslims are limited under Islamic state as laid out in Maududi's writings. Although non-Muslim "faith, ideology, rituals of worship or social customs" would not be interfered with, non-Muslims would have to accept Muslim rule, as according to Maududi, non-Muslim rule was "evil".

Islamic 'Jihad' does not recognize their right to administer State affairs according to a system which, in the view of Islam, is evil. Furthermore, Islamic 'Jihad' also refuses to admit their right to continue with such practices under an Islamic government which fatally affect the public interest from the viewpoint of Islam.

Non-Muslims would also have to pay a special tax known as jizya. This tax is applicable to all able adult Non-Muslims, except old and women, who do not render military service. Those who serve in military are exempted. It must be noted that all adult Muslim men are subject to compulsory military service, whenever required by the Islamic State. Jizya is thus seen as a protection tax payable to the Islamic State for protection of those those Non-Muslims adult men who do not render military service.

Maududi believed that copying cultural practices of non-Muslims was forbidden in Islam, having

very disastrous consequences upon a nation; it destroys its inner vitality, blurs its vision, befogs its critical faculties, breeds inferiority complexes, and gradually but assuredly saps all the springs of culture and sounds its death-knell. That is why the Holy Prophet has positively and forcefully forbidden the Muslims to assume the culture and mode of life of the non-Muslims.

Criticism and controversy

A general complaint of one critic is that Maududi's theodemocracy is an

ideological state in which legislators do not legislate, citizens only vote to reaffirm the permanent applicability of God's laws, women rarely venture outside their homes lest social discipline be disrupted, and non-Muslims are tolerated as foreign elements required to express their loyalty by means of paying a financial levy.

On a more conceptual level, journalist and author Abelwahab Meddeb questions the basis of Maududi's reasoning that the sovereignty of the truly Islamic state must be divine and not popular, saying "Mawdudi constructed a coherent political system, which follows wholly from a manipulation." The manipulation is of the Arabic word hukm, usually defined as to "exercise power as governing, to pronounce a sentence, to judge between two parties, to be knowledgeable (in medicine, in philosophy), to be wise, prudent, of a considered judgment." The Quran contains the phrase `Hukm is God's alone,` thus, according to Maududi, God - in the form of Sharia law - must govern. But Meddeb argues that a full reading of the ayah reveals that it refers to God's superiority over pagan idols, not His role in government.

Those who you adore outside of Him are nothing but names that you and your fathers have given them. God has granted them no authority. Hukm is God's alone. He has commanded that you adore none but Him. Such is the right religion, but most people do not know. [12:40]

Quranic "commentators never forget to remind us that this verse is devoted to the powerlessness of the companion deities (pardras) that idolaters raise up next to God…

Maududi is said to have received "sustained hostility" from the [ulama]. Muhammad Yusuf Banuri, Rahmatullah alayh (d. 1397/1977) is quoted as saying

"Great Muslim scholars of India of every madhhab congregated at Jamiyyat al-'Ulama' in Delhi on the 27th of Shawwal, 1370 (August 1, 1951) and reached the conclusion that Mawdudi and his Al-Jamaat al-Islamiyya caused the destruction and deviation of Muslims and published this fatwa (decision) in a book and in papers." And the scholars of Pakistan passed a resolution that Mawdudi was a heretic who tried to make others heretics; this resolution was edited once again in the Akhbar al-Jamiyya in Rawalpindi on the 22nd of February, 1396 (1976)."

He has been criticised by some Deobandi scholars, such as Allamh Yusuf Ludhyanwi, for what was seen as disrespect towards the Prophets of Islam, Sahabah (Companions of the prophet Muhammad) and the Mahdi.

Maududi has been criticised by salafist author Jamaal Ibn Fareehaan al-Haarithee for "rejection of The Dajjal" allegedly claiming in his book Rasaa‘il wa Masaa‘il (p. 57), that the prophet Muhammad "used to think that the Dajjaal (Anti-Christ) would come out in his time, or close to his time. However, 1350 years passed away and many long generations came and went, yet the Dajjaal did not come out. So it is confirmed that what the Prophet (sallallaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) thought did not prove true!!” Maududi allegedly believed this erroneous belief was explained by its being an "opinion and analogical deduction" of Muhammad while al-Haarithee considers this shirk as the Quran says “And he does not speak from his own desire. It is revelation inspired to him.” [Sooratun-Najm 53:3-4]

Others criticizing Maududi were Shaykh Safi ur Rahman Mubarakpuri rahimahullah - Shaykh Hammaad al-Ansaaree and Al-Albaanee, Sanaullaah Amritsari

In an article entitled Fatwa about the Deviation of Mawdudi, one critic complains that "Mawdudi was a CIA agent"; that he strove to solve "the main principles of Islam" using "his own reason," departing from "Islamic knowledge"; that while he preached revolution, "Islam would spread not through revolution but through knowledge, justice and morals.