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How Mawdudi Hijacked Jinnah’s Pakistan

By A G Noorani
hroughout the campaign for Pakistan, Sayyid Abbul-Ala Mawdudi opposed it, pouring scorn on
the concept and coarse invective against Jinnah. Yet, this is the very man who entered it. He
initially refused to swear allegiance to it, only to jump into the political arena with his divisive
politics and rancourous rhetoric on an Islamic State. He died in 1979 but the poison he injected
into Pakistan’s political discourse survived to hold the State at ransom. Mawdudi tried to hijack
Jinnah’s Pakistan and came very close to success. – Author)
“What the League has done is to set you free from the reactionary elements of Muslims and to
create the opinion that those who play their selfish game are traitors. It has certainly freed you
from that undesirable elements of Maulvis and Maulanas. I am not speaking of Maulvis as a
whole class. There are some of them who are as patriotic and sincere as any other; but there is a
section of them which is undesirable. Having freed ourselves from the clutches of the British
Government, the Congress, the reactionaries and so-called Maulvis, may I appeal to the youth to
emancipate our women. This is essential. I do not mean that we are to ape the evils of the West.
What I mean is that they must share our life not only social also political.” Quaid-e-Azam
Mohammed Ali Jinnah said on 5 February 1938 at the Aligarh Muslim University Union.
(Jamiluddin Ahmed (Ed.) Speeches and Writings of Mr. Jinnah; Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf,
Lahore; Vol 1, p. 43). This was Jinnah the rational modernist keen on exclusion of a certain class
which had performed a parasitical role in the political life of Muslims of India since the
Khilafat movement. This stand included his concern for the emancipation of women.
The speech reflected an outlook which he had consistently and fearlessly expressed throughout
his career. It did not inhibit Muslims from accepting him as their leader.
He said in the Central Legislative Assembly on 7 February 1935 “religion should not be allowed
to come into politics … Religion is merely a matter between man and God … but … is this a
question of religion purely?… No, Sir, this is a question of minorities and it is a political issue.”
(ibid.; p.6). On 1 February 1943 he repeated at the Ismaili College at Jogeshwari in Bombay
“religion is strictly a matter between God and man” (ibid.; p. 469).
Jinnah reverted to the theme at the Aligarh Muslim University Union on 2 November 1941 when
he replied to the Congress leader K.M. Munshi’s warning that Pakistan would be “a religious
State pledged to rule according to the teachings of that religion”. Far from agreeing with him
Jinnah angrily refuted him. “Is it not an incitement to the Sikhs and Hindus? Telling them that it
would be a religious State, excluding them from all power, is entirely untrue. He seems to
suggest that non-Muslims in Pakistan will be treated as untouchables. Let me tell Mr. Munshi
that untouchability is only known to his religion and his philosophy and not ours. Islam stands
for justice, equality, fairplay, toleration and even generosity to non-Muslims who may be under
our protection. They are like brothers to us and would be the citizens of the State.” (ibid; p. 314).
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Talking to journalists in Kashmir, on 24 May 1944, Jinnah said: “A vexed question was put to
me: “Among Muslims who can become a member of Muslim Conference?” and this question
was particularly in reference to Qadianis. My answer was that so far as the constitution of the
All-India Muslim League was concerned, it is laid down there that any Muslim, irrespective of
his creed or sect, if he wishes to join the All-India Muslim League, he can do so, provided he
accepts the creed, policy and programme of the All-India Muslim League and signs the form of
membership and pay his subscription of two annas. I would appeal to Muslims of Jammu and
Kashmir not to raise any sectarian issues….” (ibid; Vol.2; p. 147).
At his last press conference in New Delhi, on 14 July 1947 a month before the partition, Jinnah
was pointedly asked “Could you as Governor-General make a brief statement on the minorities
problem?” The answer was clear. “Minorities to whichever community they may belong, will be
safeguarded. Their religion or faith or belief will be secure. There will be no interference of any
kind with their freedom of worship. They will have their protection with regard to their religion,
faith, their life, their culture. They will be, in all respects, the citizens of Pakistan without any
distinction of caste or creed. They will have their rights and privileges and no doubt, along with
it goes the obligation of citizenship. Therefore, the minorities have their responsibilities also and
they will play their part in the affairs of this State.” (Jinnah: Speeches and Statements 1947-
1948; Oxford University Press, Karachi; p. 13). It was an explicit assurance: “they will play their
part in the affairs of this State”.
Note this exchange moments later. “Q. Will Pakistan be a secular or theocratic State? A. You are
asking me a question that is absurd. I do not know what a theocratic state means.” A
correspondent suggested that a theocratic state meant a state where only people of a particular
religion, for example, Muslims, could be full citizens and non-Muslims would not be full
citizens. “A. Then it seems to me that what I have already said is like throwing water on a duck’s
back. When you talk of democracy. I am afraid you have not studied Islam. We learned
democracy thirteen centuries ago.”
The teachings of Islam mandate, not a theocratic or a “theo-democracy” (a la Mawdudi), but a
full-fledged democracy. On this issue Jinnah went so far as to part company with one whose
father had appointed Jinnah as his guardian, the young Raja of Mahmudabad, who wrote : “My
advocacy of an Islamic state brought me into conflict withJinnah. He thoroughly disapproved of
my ideas and dissuaded me from expressing them publicly from the League platform lest the
people
might be led to believe that Jinnah shared my view and that he was asking me to convey such
ideas to the public. As I was convinced that I was right and did not want to compromise Jinnah’s
position, I decided to cut myself away and for nearly two years kept my distance from him, apart
from seeing him during the working committee meetings and on other formal occasions. It was
not easy to take this decision as my associations with Jinnah had been very close in the past.
Now I look back I realise how wrong I had been.” (C.H. Philips and Mary Doreen
Wainwright; The Partition of India; George Allen and Unwin; pp. 388-9). Could this record have
been more explicit?
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Jinnah was, unquestionably, the founder of Pakistan. He expounded his vision for that State in
advance – the character of its polity being its foremost feature. If Pakistan was intended to be an
Islamic State, why did he and the Muslim League accept the Cabinet Mission’s Plan of 16 May
1946 under which the Pakistan provinces were to function under an All-India Centre confined to
defence, foreign affairs; and communications? As he told the All-India Muslim League Council
at Bombay on 29 July 1946, “The League, throughout the negotiations, was moved by a sense of
fairplay and sacrificed the full sovereign state of Pakistan at the altar of the Congress for
securing the independence of the whole of India. They voluntarily delegated three subjects to the
Union, and by doing so did not commit a mistake. It was the highest order of statesmanship that
the League displayed by making concession.” (Ahmad; Vol. 2; p. 315).
Against this background, Jinnah’s famous address at the inaugural session of Pakistan’s
Constituent assembly in Karachi on 11 August 1947 reflects an unwaveringly consistent outlook.
“We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one
community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are
starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State….
“Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of
time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the
religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense
as citizens of the State.” (Ahmad (Ed.) Vol. 2; pp. 403-404). (italics mine, throughout).
This was the Pakistan Jinnah and the Muslim League had fought for. The Lahore Resolution of
23 March 1940 did not envisage an Islamic State. Indeed, there is not a single resolution of the
League which envisaged an Islamic State. Pakistan was intended as a solution to the communal
tangle; when a national approach failed, a bi-national or international solution was devised.
Throughout the campaign for Pakistan, Sayyid Abbul-Ala Mawdudi opposed it, pouring scorn on
the concept and coarse invective against Jinnah. Yet, this is the very man who entered it. He
initially refused to swear allegiance to it, only to jump into the political arena with his divisive
politics and rancourous rhetoric on an Islamic State. He died in 1979 but the poison he injected
into Pakistan’s political discourse survived to hold the State at ransom. Mawdudi tried to hijack
Jinnah’s Pakistan and came very close to success.
This tragic story is told with a wealth of detail and stupendous scholarship by Sayyid Vali Reza
Nasr in two richly documented volumes to which this writer is greatly indebted. The Vanguard of
the Islamic Revolution: The Jamaat-i-Islami of Pakistan; University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1993 and Mawdudi & The Making of Islamic Revivalism; Oxford University Press,
New York; 1996).
Mawdudi hated Jinnah because, in his egoistic perception, he had usurped the leadership of the
Muslims of India. Never mind the fact that Jinnah had presided over the Muslim League’
Lucknow session in 1916 when Mawdudi was 13 years old. His Jamaat-e-Islami, set up on 26
August 1941 with 75 members, was to be a “counter-League”. Nasr writes that he “had simply
decided that he should be the one to found and lead the Muslim State of Pakistan if there had to
be one … he distrusted Jinnah’s intentions and even more the secularist inclinations of the
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League’s program … He demanded nationalism and hated secular politics as blasphemy (kufr)
… His program was no longer to save Islam in India but to have it conquer Pakistan” (Vanguard;
pp 6-7).
But not before he had denounced the very concept of Pakistan. After the Lahore Resolution
“Jinnah’s conception of Pakistan would be the single subject of Mawdudi’s invective” …
Mawdudi said of Jinnah’s enterprise: “No trace of Islam can be found in the ideas and politics of
Muslim League [Jinnah] reveals no knowledge of the views of the Qur’an, nor does he care to
research them yet whatever he does is seen as the way of the Qur’an. All his knowledge comes
from western laws and sources. His followers cannot be but jama’at-I jahiliyah (party of
pagans).” The term jama’at-I jahiliyah was no doubt coined to make the contrast between the
Muslim League and the jama’at-I Islam more apparent (ibid.; p. 20). As early as in 1942 he
developed plans to operate in Pakistan if it materialised.
But some Leaguers and later men at Pakistan’s helm of affairs began helping Mawdudi. “Soon
after the formation of the Jama’at in 1941, Qamaru’ddin Khan, the Secretary-General of the
Jama’at, was dispatched to Delhi to meet with Jinnah. Through the good offices ofRaja
Mahmudabad – a deeply religious and generous patron of the League – a meeting was arranged
between Qamaru’ddin Khan and Jinnah at the latter’s residence. During the meeting, which
lasted for forty-five minutes, Qamaru’ddin Khan outlined the Jama’at’s political platform and
enjoined Jinnah to commit the League to the Islamic state. Jinnah responded astutely that he saw
no incompatibility between the positions of the Muslim League and the Jama’at, but that the
rapid pace at which the events were unfolding did not permit the League to stop at that point
simply to define the nature of the future Muslim state: “I will continue to strive for the cause of a
separate Muslim state, and you do your services in this regard; our efforts need not be mutually
exclusive.” Then he added, “I seek to secure the land for the mosque; once that land belongs to
us, then we can decide on how to build the mosque.” The metaphor of the mosque no doubt
greatly pleased Qamaru’ddin Khan, who interpreted it as an assurance that the future state would
be Islamic. Jinnah, however, cautioned Qamaru’ddin Khan that the achievement of an
independent Muslim state took precedence over the “purification of souls.” (ibid.; p. 113).
Mawdudi realised that he could not rope in Jinnah. “In October 1945, Mawdudi issued what
amounted to a religious decree (fatwa) forbidding Muslims to vote for the “secular” Muslim
League in the crucial elections of 1945. Muslim League leaders were understandably irritated at
such behaviour from the head of a party that was not even taking part in the elections and
concluded that the move proved the Jama’at’s pro-Congress sentiments. But, unperturbed by the
implications of its anti-Muslim League campaign, the Jama’at pushed ahead with its line of
attack, which by 1947 became caustic vituperations. Mawdudi himself set the tone when in
Kawthar in January 1947 he referred to the “Pakistan of the Muslim league” as “faqistan” (the
land of the famished) and “langra” Pakistan (crippled Pakistan). While these insults were
directed at the secular nature of Jinnah’s program for the new state they incensed Muslim League
leaders and rank-and-file members alike; they were having enough trouble defending their cause
against the Congress party. They began to retaliate.” (ibid.; p. 114). In May 1947, on the eve of
Pakistan’s establishment, Mawdudi issued an edict against the League’ “secular, irreligious
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nationalist democracy” – and stopped further attacks. But he had correctly understood the
League’s secular credentials.
Nasr’s assessment is accurate. “The League was Mawdudi’s bugbear and, as such, an important
influence on his views. So was its leader. Muhammad Ali Jinnah (d. 1948), whom Mawdudi
viewed as a rival in his drive to win over Muslims. He was drawn into politics by Jinnah’s
example. Mawdudi believed that Jinnah’s popularity emanated from his appeal to Islamic
symbols. If a secular Muslim could sway the masses in the name of Islam, surely Mawdudi
could, and ought to, do better. Leadership in the Muslim community would be meaningful only if
it was tied to the very roots of the community, Islam.” (Nasr; Mawdudi; pp. 40-41). (Vide
Mawdudi Ham ne Tahrik-e-Pakistan ke Saath Nahi Diya Tha; Nara-e-Waqt; 15 August 1975.
“We did not support the Pakistan Movement”). For a few months he refused to pledge loyalty to
Pakistan on religious grounds.
In February 1948 Mawdudi opened his account with a speech at the Law College in Lahore with
a four-point formula whose essence was that the shariah “shall form the inviolable basic code for
all legislation in Pakistan”. One gets a very revealing glimpse of his mindset in the evidence he
gave to the Munir Commission. “Q. Is a country on the border of dar-ul-Islam always qua an
Islamic state in the position of dar-ul-harb? A. No. In the absence of an agreement to the
contrary, the Islamic State will be potentially at war with the non-Muslim neighbouring country.
The non-Muslim country acquires the status of dar-ul-harb only after the Islamic State declares a
formal war against it.”
“Q. What rights have non-Muslims who are taken prisoners of war in a jihad? A. The Islamic
law on the point is that if the country of which these prisoners are nationals pays ransom, they
will be released. An exchange of prisoners is also permitted. If neither of these alternatives is
possible, the prisoners will be converted into slaves for ever. If any such person makes an offer
to pay his ransom out of his own earnings, he will be permitted to collect the money necessary
for the fidya (ransom). 1)Are you of the view that unless a Government assumes the form of an
Islamic Government, any war declared by it is not a jihad? A. No. A war may be declared to be a
jihad if it is declared by a national Government of Muslims in the legitimate interests of the
State” – not Islam. Q. If we have this form of Islamic Government in Pakistan, will you permit
Hindus to base their Constitution on the basis of their own religion? A. Certainly. I should have
no objection even if the Muslims of India are treated in that form of Government as shudras and
malishes and Manu’s laws are applied to them, depriving them of all share in the Government
and the rights of a citizen. In fact such a state of affairs already exists in India. Q. What will be
the duty of the Muslims in India in case of war between India and Pakistan? A. Their duty is
obvious, and that is not to fight against Pakistan or to do anything injurious to the safety of
Pakistan.”
(The Report of the Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to inquire into the
Punjab Disturbances of 1953; Superintendent, Government Printing; Punjab, 1954; known as the
Munir Report after its Chairman Justice M. Munir. Justice M. R. Kayani was the other member;
pp. 221, 225, 228 and 230).The Report’s comments on Mawdudi’s testimony are apt. It notes
that on partition it split into two; three, in fact, with the Jamaat in Kashmir retaining its
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autonomy reflecting the State’s “disputed” character. It is in shambles, thanks to its former Amir,
Syed Ali Shah Gilani’s ways.
The Report notes that the Jamaat was part of the agitation to declare the Ahmadis non-Muslims
and to remove Chaudhuri Zafrullah Khan from office as Foreign Minister. “In his speech at the
Government House on 5th March Maulana Maududi, according to evidence which we see no
reason to doubt or reject, stated that a civil war between the people and the Government was on
and that unless the Government stopped the use of force and opened negotiations with the
representatives of the people, there was no occasion for an appeal for peace.”
The Reports’ comments on ulama were devastating. “The Ulama have frankly told us, without
the blinking of an eye, – to say nothing of tears – that they do not care what happens to Muslims
in other countries, so long as their own particular brand of Islam gains currency here. To quote a
single instance, the Amir-i-Shari’at said that the remaining 64 crores – the figure is his own –
“should think out their own destiny”.Perhaps for those teeming millions, the solution suggested
by Maulana Muhammad Ali Kandhalvi of Sialkot is the most practicable – to change their
ideology and religious views according as they are in Lahore, Delhi or Timbuctoo.” (p.299).
The Report said: “If there is one thing which has been conclusively demonstrated in this inquiry,
it is that provided you can persuade the masses to believe that something they are asked to do is
religiously right or enjoined by religion, you can set them to any course of action, regardless of
all considerations of discipline, loyalty, decency, morality or civic sense. Pakistan is being taken
by the common man, though it is not, as an Islamic State. This belief has been encouraged by the
ceaseless clamour for Islam and Islamic State that is being heard from all quarters since the
establishment of Pakistan. The phantom of an Islamic State has haunted the Musalman
throughout the ages and is a result of the memory of the glorious past. …” (p. 231) All this was
written over sixty years ago.
What is the purpose of an Islamic State? We have a comprehensive statement of Mawdudi’s
scheme in his essays Islamic Law and Government translated and edited by his follower
Khurshid Ahmad (Islamic Publications Ltd., Lahore, 1960). He holds: “Its object is to eradicate
all forms of evil and to encourage all types of virtue and excellence expressly mentioned by God
in the Holy Qur’an. For this purpose political power will be made use of as and when the
occasion demands; all means of propaganda and peaceful persuasion will be employed; the
moral education of the people will also be undertaken; and social influence as well as the force
of public opinion will be harnessed to the task.”
One finds in this shades of ISIS: “A state of this sort cannot evidently restrict the scope of its
activities. Its approach is universal and all-embracing. Its sphere of activity is coextensive with
the whole of human life. It seeks to mould every aspect of life and actively in consonance with
its moral norms and programme of social reform. In such a state no one can regard any field of
his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect the Islamic state bears a kind of
resemblance to the Fascist and Communist states. But you will find later on that, despite its all-
inclusiveness, it is something vastly and basically different from the modern totalitarian and
authoritarian states. …
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“Another characteristic of the Islamic State is that it is an ideological state. It is clear from a
careful consideration of the Qur’an and the Sunnah that the state in Islam is based on an ideology
and its objective is to establish that ideology. The state is an instrument of reform and must act
likewise is a dictate of this very nature of the Islamic State that such a state should be run only by
those who believe in the ideology on which it is based and in the Divine Law which it is assigned
to administer. The administrators of the Islamic state must be those whose whole life is devoted
to the observance and enforcement of this Law, who not only agree with its reformatory
programme and fully believe in it but thoroughly comprehend its spirit and are acquainted with
its details. Islam does not recognise any geographical, linguistic or colour bars in this respect.”
(pp. 154-5). A perfect state run by perfect men.
He adds: “The Qur’an not only lays down principles of morality and ethics, but also gives
guidance in the political, social and economic fields.It prescribes punishments for certain crimes
and enunciates principles of monetary and fiscal policy. These cannot be translated into practice
unless there is a State to enforce them. And herein lies the necessity of an Islamic State.
… “In other words the evils which are not eradicated though the preachings of the Quran need
the coercive power of the State to eradicate them” (p. 175 and 248). In short, a police state.
“Whoever be in charge of any facet of the affairs of the Muslims, deserves to be obeyed and
followed in his own sphere. It is not permitted that one should, by unnecessarily raising issues
with them and creating atmosphere of strife and conflict, disturb the life of the community. The
obedience to the ulul-amr is, however, subject to the following two essential conditions:
(i). These ulul-amr should be from amongst the Muslim community.
(ii). They should themselves be obedient to God and His Prophet and their policies and actions
must conform to the letter and the spirit of the Shari’ah.”
A few pages later Mawdudi throws up his hands in despair. “It is evident that at present we can
hardly expect to have a Head of the State of the same moral calibre and spiritual standard as the
Righteous Caliphs.” (p. 243).
He calls his construct “theo-democracy” (p.148) Arrogance is writ as large as one would expect
of an autocrat and a dictator, the Amir of the Jamaat. “It is not fair for the minorities to ask us to
throw our ideology overboard and introduce laws which are against our convictions merely for
the sake of appeasing them. When we were helpless because of foreign domination, we tolerated
the supremacy of un-Islamic Laws. But now when we are masters of our destiny, we cannot
replace Islamic Laws by those of any other type without conscious apostasy and betrayal of
Islam. Are the minorities really entitled to ask the majority to give up its religion and its way of
life? Have they the right to demand that the majority should give up the principles which it
considers right and adopt others which are against its convictions? Or, is it reasonable that in
a multi-religious country all the communities should become irreligious? If the answers to all
these questions are in the negative, I find no reason why ‘Islamic Law’ should not become the
‘Law of the Land’ in a country where Muslims are in a predominant majority.” Appease is
precisely the one word used by the Jamaat’s counterpart in India for the minorities – the RSS.
The majority community establishes its own state.
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One finds in Mawdudi not a trace of the compassion for which the Chosen One of Allah,
Muhammad (PBUH), was known all his life. It is coercion and coercion alone which attracts
Mawdudi.
His rise was facilitated by two Prime Mininisters, Khwaja Nazimuddin, and Chaudhari
Mohammed Ali. The latter was a personal friend since the thirties in New Delhi. Read this; “This
was reflected in the final shape of the Constitution of 1956, which accommodated many of the
demands of the Jama’at and its allies. Mawdudi was involved in drafting the constitution by his
long-time friend Chaudhari Muhammad Ali, who was Prime Minister at the time. Muhammad
Ali had pushed for accommodation of Islamic groups despite his own precarious position and the
objections of the secular elite led by the President General Iskandar Mirza. Aware of the
opposition of the secularists, Mawdudi lost no time in endorsing the constitution and claiming
victory for Islam, although some aspects of then document had been opposed by the Jama’at
earlier. He was also instrumental in convincing the ulama to accept the new constitution as
Islamic, thus precluding widespread opposition to it. The Islamic groups, led by the Jama’at, then
concentrated their energies on pushing for the Islamization of state institutions.
“Acceptance of the constitution as Islamic paved the way for the Jama’at to become a full-
fledged political party. In 1957, despite reservations in some quarters within the party, Mawdudi
directed the Jama’at to participate in the national elections of 1958.” They were old friends.
Mawdudi had stayed in Chaudhuri Mohammad Ali’s house in 1937 (p. 33).
So powerful had he become that the haughty Zulfikar Ali Bhutto met him twice. On 25
September 1972 Bhutto invited him to Governor’s House in Lahore to discuss recognition of
Bangladesh. He supported the 1973 Constitution only when Bhutto agreed to call it the Islamic
Republic of Pakistan. In the evening of 16 April 1977, a beleaguered Bhutto went to Mawdudi’s
house in Lahore “to solicit the advice and good offices of an elder statesman”. Mawdudi asked
him to resign. (Nasr; Vanguard, p. 185).
Now on the run, only two days after the meeting with Mawdudi, Bhutto announced that in
response to the demands of the Nizam-e-Mustafa, casinos and nightclubs would be closed down,
sale of alcoholic drinks and gambling banned. He reconvened the Council of Islamic Ideology
under the supervision of Mufti Mahmud, the leader of the Jami’at-I Ulama-I Islam and the PNA,
so that it could oversee the implementation of government-sponsored Islamization. The other
two members of the Council were to be Mawlanas Shah Ahmad Nurani of the Jami’at-I Ulma-I
Pakistan and Ihtishamu’l-Haq of the Jami’at-I Ulama-I Islam. The Islamic parties rejected this
and demanded new elections.” (Nasr; Vanguard; p. 186). The Ahmadi’s were to be regarded
outside the pale of Islam by the Second Amendment to the Constitution in September 1974. But
it was, still, ambiguous. Zia’s Third Amendment Order of March 1985 declared them to be non-
Muslims.
Jinnah’s Pakistan suffered multiple injuries. Over the protests of the Hindu members the
Objectives Resolution was passed in 1949. The Islamic Constitution of 1956 and now Bhutto’s
hypocritical concession in 1977. Zia’s coup on 4 July 1977 and his Islamization program, to lend
legitimacy to a usurper regime did the rest. Mawdudi supported the execution of Bhutto and,
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tacitly, the military coup. His acolyte Khurshid accepted a post in Zia’s Cabinet as Minister for
Planning (ibid; pp. 190-191). But Zia ditched Mawdudi and his Jamaat once he had consolidated
his hold on power.
By the time he died on 22 September 1979 in Buffalo, New York, Mawdudi’s political program
was in ruins, his intellectual legacy frayed, and his moral standing diminished. A universalist
program was fitted into a national framework by sophistry.
His hypocrisy, known to close supporters, was public knowledge. Nasr writes: “Despite his
increasingly overt use of Islamic symbols and his open call for a revival of Islam, certain aspects
of Mawdudi’s private life continued to cast doubt on the extent of his commitment to the cause.
For example, in 1937, when Mawdudi went to Delhi to find a wife, he married Mahmudah
Begum, a distant cousin on his maternal side who came from a wealthy family in government
service and who also owned some land. The family descended from the Bukhari family of Delhi,
who continue to serve as the hereditary imams of Delhi’s Jami mosque.
“There is little doubt that the family’s financial resources were considerable, and its effect was
immediately noticeable in Mawdudi’s habits. Begum Mawdudi recollected that when they
moved to Pathankot to establish Daru’l-Islam, there were only three houses, one of which
belonged to the Mawdudis, who also owned a tonga and employed a bearer. Mawdudi’s
comfortable accommodation there generated resentment and was one reason for Mawlana
Manzur Nu’mani’s opposition to Mawdudi’s leadership in 1942. Royalties from books or the
proceeds from Tarjumanu’l-Qur’an would have been too meagre to support his household. His
marriage allowed him to forgo all outside income and devote his time to research and political
action. Shortly after its founding, the Jama’at was able to purchase a large area of land in Attock
District near Rawilpindi for its headquarters.
“From before her marriage, Mahmudah Begum was quite liberated and modern in her ways.
Early on, she rode a bicycle around Delhi and did not observe purdah. Ironically, Mawdudi had
complained of the absence of purdah, which he witnessed during the very trip in which he got
married, as one of the reasons for dismay at Islam’s future prospects. Mawdudi clearly loved his
strong-willed, liberal, and independent-minded wife, however, and allowed her greater latitude
than he did Muslims in general. The standards that prevailed in his household were very different
from the standards he required of others, including Jama’at members.” (Mawdudi; pp. 33-34).
Footnote 45 at p. 152 reads: “Interview with Begum Mahmudah Mawdudi. The wealth of the
family came from its business dealings, notably money lending. Abu’l-Khayr Mawdudi is quoted
as saying that Mahmudah Begum was the daughter of Delhi’s “biggest Muslim usurer
(sudkhar)”; cited in Ja’far Qasmi, “Mujhe yad hey sab zara zara,”
(Nida, April 17, 1990, p.31. ibid.; p. 152; fn. 45). Mawdudi supported Fatima Jinnah’s
candidature in the elections to the Presidency in 1965.
Professor M. Mujeeb wrote in his classic The Indian Muslims: “The latest and most categorical
expression of the traditional insistence on pardah is Maulana Maududi’s book on the subject. It
purports to be historical in its approach, but it is historical only in the sense that the immorality
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which became prevalent in ancient Greece and Rome and is now evident from the reports on
delinquency, prostitution and traffic in women published in Western countries is painted in the
most lurid colours. It assumes that there was no background to the erotic chapters of
the Gulistan of Sa’di or the Baharistan of Jami, that the Alf Lailah, the Arabian Nights, was
never written, that there never was any delinquency or prostitution in any Muslim society and
that the law permitting cohabitation with slave-girls was never taken advantage of. It assumes
that, since the shari’ah has declared that man shall be the pillar of support for woman, nature will
provide every Muslim man with all the moral, social and physical qualities of manliness.
Woman’s function is to be wife and mother, and Maulana Maududi insists on this with such
vehemence that the example of the sufi, Rabi’ah of Basrah, seems to cause him no
embarrassment.” (George Allen & Unwin; pp. 549-550).
Prof. Charles J. Adams discovered interesting facets in Mawdudi’s thinking when they met.
“Mawdudi’s criticism of Pakistan’s government did not rest on evaluation of specific policies or
actions, and, indeed, for all his interest in the political scene, he could not be brought to talk
about such things in specific terms. Political analysis, based on Mawdudi’s premises, must
always be moral and religious judgment upon persons.This is true even when he speaks of a
technical problem such as flood control; he explained to me in a conversation in 1956 that
Pakistan would suffer no more devastation from the overflow of the Indus when he had
succeeded in establishing people in government who care enough to do something about the
matter. No amount of argument could bring him to admit that there are enormous, perhaps
insuperable, technical problems in so major a project of flood control or that the resources to
carry through the project might be difficult to find. In this light.
It is easy to understand why Mawdudi placed so much faith in the Jam’at-i-Islami as his tool for
achieving the Islamic revolution in Pakistan. The Jam’at-i-Islami was intended to create a corps
of disciplined, morally upright, ideologically sound persons who might occupy the crucial
positions in the future Islamic state Mawdudi hoped to bring into being. His program for the
future of the nation was the expansion of the Jam’at-i-Islami until it had absorbed the state, had,
to all practical intents and purposes, become the state.” (In his essay The Ideology of Mawlana
Mawdudi in Donald Engene Smith (Ed.) South Asian Politics and Religion; Princeton University
Press 1966, pp. 389-390). This is the man who aspired to rule.
Prof. Adams perceptively remarked: “What lies behind Mawdudi’s desire to find a system where
none existed is, I believe, the unconscious influence of the type of nineteenth-century philosophy
that has brought about the emergence of “ideologies” in the twentieth century. As evidence,
attention may be called to the great emphasis that Mawdudi lays upon reason, logical
consistency, establishment of truth by deduction, etc. The approach to problems of social life
which appeals to such principles is of a piece with the German idealism that has fathered the
great ideologies of our time. It is possible also to discern behind his quest for a system a
profound, though again perhaps not a conscious, perception of the threat to every religious
orientation posed by modern thought. Mawdudi talks of a “system” that his ancestors felt no
need of because it is reassuring to do so; the system is a kind of fortress whose intellectual walls
 11

will turn aside the arrows of doubt and scepticism.” (ibid.; p. 395). He offered certitude to the
confused.
Nasr noted: “Philosophy, literature, the arts, mysticism, and especially time-honoured customs
and cultural mores were all derided by Mawdudi as a syncretic and impure adulteration of the
Islamic faith, diverting the attention of the Muslims from the divine to the
mundane. Mawdudi accepted only politics as a legitimate vehicle for the manifestation of the
Islamic revelation and as the sole means for the expression of Islamic spirituality, a position that
correlated piety with political activity, the cleansing of the soul with political liberation, and
salvation with utopia.” (Mawdudi; p.59). In his vision, Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi remarked,
“theocracy replaces spirituality as the objective of Quranic revelation”. In Mawdudi’s, Islam
compassion was banished from the faith and reason from the religion.
The great scholar Fazlur Rehman discovered Mawdudi’s true mission in life. “I myself
remember well that after I had passed my M.A. examination and was studying for my Ph.D. at
Lahore, Mawdudi remarked, after inquiring what I was studying, “The more you study, the more
your practical faculties will be numbed. Why don’t you come and join the Jama’at? The field is
wide open.” At that time my reply was, “Somehow, I love studying.” And so it is no matter for
surprise that, when a few years ago Mawdudi decided to retire from active leadership of the
party, his successor was Mian Muhammad Tufayl, an obviously well-meaning lawyer but
without any pretensions whatever to Islamic scholarship.” (Islam & Modernity; The University
of Chicago Press; p. 117).
Fazlur Rahman’s assessment of the man and his party is as accurate as it is devastating. “The
Jamaat has been politically and socially active since the early forties, but its performance from
the perspective of the present all-important problem of Islamic education has been not merely
inadequate, but positively harmful. Not only have its leaders not developed any educational
institutions of their own in the Islamic field, but at the same time, by proclaiming themselves the
representatives par excellence of Islam before the nation, they have successfully impeded the
growth of progressive Islamic education in the private sector. One would not, in fact, be wrong
in saying that the nonexistence of any improved version of Islamic education is directly
attributable to the Jamaat. The reason is not far to seek. The new change of attitude toward Islam
generated by Iqbal and other lesser figures that turned the young generation away from the
traditional ulema (the essence of this change– from which had directly emerged the idea of the
Islamic state – being that Islam is the total way of life and is not limited to the “five pillars” to
which the Islam of the ulema had become practically restricted) had been imbibed by Mawdudi
(d. 1979), the founder and leader of the Jam’at-i-Islami.
Now Mawdudi, though not an alim, was nevertheless a self-taught man of considerable
intelligence and had sufficient knowledge of Arabic to have access to the classical Arabic
literature of Islam. He was by no means an accurate or a profound scholar, but he was
undoubtedly like a fresh wind in the stifling Islamic atmosphere created by the traditional
madrasas, and he represented a definite advance over the ulema in that he had a working
knowledge of English and read some works of Western writers. The lay-educated youth, fired by
 12

Iqbal’s message, became an almost automatic clientele of Mawdudi. But Mawdudi displays
nowhere the larger and more profound vision of islam’s role in the world. Being a journalist
rather than a serious scholar, he wrote at great speed and with resultant superficiality in order to
feed his eager young readers – and he wrote incessantly. He founded no educational institution
and never suggested any syllabus for a reformed Islamic education. If this kind of development
had taken place, his followers, through an enlightened and serious Islamic education, would have
naturally become more independent-minded and could have led the way to the establishment of
new educational institutions. But not one of Mawdudi’s followers ever became a serious student
of Islam, the result being that, for the faithful, Mawdudi’s statements represented the last word
on Islam – no matter how much and how blatantly he contradicted himself from time to time on
such basic issues as economic policy or political theory.” (ibid.; pp. 115-116).
Prof. I. H. Qureshi deserves much blame for encouraging the Jamaat’s student wing Jamiyat-e-
Tulaba in the decade and more that he served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Karachi.
The harm which Mawdudi inflicted on the Muslims of the sub-continent is incalculable, but not
irreversible. The cure lies in the hands of his victims, the Muslims themselves. Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan injected a potent dose of rationalism in Muslim discourse; a task in which Maulvi Chiragh
Ali helped him hugely. Few realised the set back which the Khilafat movement caused by giving
importance to the ulama.
An extract from a letter written by Iqbal to Akbar Shah Mujibabadi and quoted by the late Dr.
Muhammad Ikram, one of the poet’s best admirers, in Modern Muslim India and the Birth of
Pakistan reads:“You are right. The influence of the professional Maulvis had greatly decreased
owing to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s movement. But the Khilafat Committee, for the sake of
political fatwas, had restored their influence among Indian Muslims. This was a very big mistake
(the effect of) which has, probably, not yet been realised by anyone. I have had an experience of
this recently. I had written an English essay on Ijtihad, which was read in a meeting here and,
God willing, will be published, but some people called me Kafir. We shall talk at length about
this affair, when you come to Lahore. In these days, particularly in India, one must move with
very great circumspection”. (M. Sadiq; A History of Urdu Literature; Oxford; p. 460).
Jinnah’s politics since 1937 reversed the trend. But in the 1945 general elections the Muslim
League massively deployed the mullah. Jinnah himself encouraged the advocate of an Islamic
State, Bahadur Yar Khan, to perform at the annual sessions of the League. There was a time
when, on13 November 1939, Jinnah said in a broadcast on All India Radio on Id Day: “In the
pursuit of the truth and the cultivation of beliefs we should be guided by our rational
interpretation of the Quran and if our devotion to truth is single-minded, we shall, in our own
measure, achieve our goal” (Ahmad; Vol. 1; pp. 97-98).
Sadly, Jinnah faltered and died before he could make amends. By then the assailants of his ideals
were preparing to do battle. The results are there for all to see today in Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s
Pakistan. But all is not lost. It is for the people of Pakistan, especially its vibrant youth who can
join the battle and beat back the enemies of their Quaid’s Pakistan. The future belongs to them –
and to none else.
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EDITIOR’S NOTE
In his book, From Jinnah to Zia, which was published in 1979 by Vanguard Books Lahore,
Justice Muhammad Munir recalled: “After the disturbances of 1953 had subsided and Martial
Law withdrawn, a special Act was passed constituting a Court of Inquiry to investigate the
causes of disturbances, the circumstances leading to the imposition of Martial Law and the
adequacy or otherwise of the measures taken to suppress the disturbances. The inquiry was to be
a public inquiry and I was nominated President of the Committee and my friend Mr Justice
Kayani its member” (p. 41).
The Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, was among the several clerics
who appeared before the Committee. When he was asked to define a Muslim, he replied: “A
person is a Muslim if he believes in: (1) tauhid, (2) in all the prophets, (3) all the books revealed
by God, (4) Malaika (angels) and (5) Yauma-ul-Akhira (The Day of Judgement).” This definition
prompted Justice Munir to observe that Maududi “does not exclude the Ahmadis from Islam as
he does not say that our Prophet was Katim-ul-Nabiyeen” – the last of the prophets (p p. 58-59).
A far deeper question is whether anyone has the right in Islam to excommunicate others from the
religion. The answer is an emphatic “No.” This is obvious from the Quranic passage: “(Hence,)
O you who have attained to faith, when you go forth (to war) in God’s cause, use your
discernment, and do not – out of a desire for the fleeting gains of this worldly life – say unto
anyone who offers you the greeting of peace, ‘Thou art not a believer:’ for with God are gains
abundant. You, too, were once in the same condition – but God has been gracious to you. Use,
therefore, your discernment: verily, God is always aware of what you do.” (4: 94).