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| Abul Ala Maududi |
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 American 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.
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-Pakistan, 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. |
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.
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
Russian 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.
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.
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| The young Maududi (1927) |
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.
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.
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?
