I can divide my forty-nine years into two parts. The first thirty was spent in reading, listening, thinking, observing, and experiencing, and also in finding a goal in life. My thoughts are the products of reasoning of all those years of intellectual activity. Then I set my goal to strive in the path of truth, to propagate its cause, and to bring my vision into reality.1
Mawdudi’s Jihad in Islam received numerous accolades, which no doubt prompted Mawdudi to forgo journalism as a career and seek a higher vocation, especially in terms of writing more scholarly works. He left Delhi in 1928 and went to stay in the capital city of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. It is possible that Mawdudi found this environment more suitable for his studies, given its reputation as rich in history, its culture and inspiring architecture, and the strong Muslim presence that it has to this day. He spent two years there working on a history of the Seljuq dynasty.2 Mawdudi also translated from Arabic to Urdu a history of the Fatimid dynasty3 written by Ibn Khallikan (1211–82). Khallikan was a Kurdish Muslim scholar whose historical writings are still regarded as containing a high degree of accuracy and thorough scholarship. It is interesting that while Mawdudi comes across in his own writings as ideologically conservative and Sunni, he has always been prepared to study the beliefs of other religious traditions, adhering to his own view that in order to criticize your enemy, you need to understand them. Mawdudi’s familiarity with other traditions was not just in the religious sense, and not just with Islamic or ‘pseudo-Islamic’ (Ahmadi, Ismaili, etc.) beliefs. At the time of his studies in Hyderabad he would spend a great deal of time at the renowned Translation Institute (Darul-Tarjumah) at Uthmaniyah University in Hyderabad. Mawdudi’s brother, Abu’l-Khayr, taught there and was also a member of the Translation Institute which at the time was renowned for its translation into Urdu of a number of important works by British philosophers and other scholars. But the Institute did not just translate; it encouraged lively intellectual debate that arose from these translations of western texts, which Mawdudi was certainly a part of. What becomes apparent is that Mawdudi’s educational inheritance was immense and varied. As we have seen, he was well acquainted with not only the Sunni Islamic sciences of sharia, Qur’anic interpretation, fiqh, Islamic philosophy, and was himself a trained alim, but he was also a student of Shi’a Islam and Sufi mysticism. In addition, he was familiar with the legal, political and philosophical debates in western thought.
Like his brother, Mawdudi became an affiliate of the Translation Institute and, in 1931, he started work on translating the Al-Asfar al-arba’ah (‘Four Journeys’) of the great Persian philosopher Mulla Sadra (1572–1640). It is a curious fact that, despite a lack of political philosophy in Mulla Sadra’s writings, Mawdudi cites him as a major influence, and it is interesting that in more recent times Sadra has been regarded as the ‘philosopher of the Revolution’ by those involved in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 such as Ayatollah Khomeini and Mortaza Motahhari. However, this should not be so surprising for anybody who has made a closer study of Sadra for his seemingly grand, abstract Heideggerian intellectual exercise was also meant to be translated into communal and individual action on an everyday level.4 Mulla Sadra, or Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Qawami al-Shirazi to give him his birth name, was certainly a remarkable intellectual and is rightly considered to be one of the most influential philosophers in Islamic thought. His works represent a synthesis of one thousand years of Islamic thought which preceded him, and he was expert in Islamic philosophy, theology, mysticism, Qur’anic interpretation and history. Sadra’s literary output is considerable with over 50 works attributed to him. He wrote insightful commentaries on the works of the founder of the Illuminationist (ishraqi) school of philosophy Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (1154–91) as well as on possibly the greatest philosopher the Islamic tradition has produced, Ibn Sina, (better known in the west as Avicenna, 980–1037). He also wrote original short treatises on theological and philosophical topics, on Islamic jurisprudence, Qur’anic commentaries and hadith scholarship. His major works are al-Mashha’ir (‘Apprehensions’), Kasr Asnam al-Jahiliya (‘Breaking the Idols of Paganism’) and al-Asfar al-arba’ah al-’aqliyyah (‘Transcendental Wisdom’, better known as ‘The Four Intellectual Journeys’).
In his ‘Four Journeys’, Sadra argues for the compatibility of philosophy with that of religion, and was no doubt a reflection of a concern at the time that philosophy was not ‘Islamic’. Sadra’s ‘synthesis’ is that both philosophy and religion represent a single truth that was revealed to the first man, Adam, and was then transmitted to the prophet Abraham and the other prophets, the Greek philosophers, the Prophet Muhammad, the Muslim mystics and finally the philosophers of more recent times. However, by not making a distinction between prophets and philosophers in terms of having access to truth, it can be seen how this might offend the more orthodox Muslims. For Sadra, such philosophers as Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus are all, in his words, ‘pillars of wisdom’ who have received the ‘light of wisdom’ from the ‘beacon of prophethood’, hence his view that they all share the same outlook on such issues as the unity of God (Tawhid), the creation of the world and of resurrection.5 Sadra presents an imaginative philosophical history with a synthesis of Sunni, Sufi and Shia Islam. Although the prophetic stage of history comes to an end with the death of Muhammad as the Seal of the Prophets, what follows is the Imamate stage of the 12 Shia imams which will continue until the 12 imam returns from his temporary occultation (ghaybah). Sadra stresses that these imams are not prophets, but are ‘executors’ in that they execute the truth that has been revealed by the prophets. In fact, these ‘executors’ have a history that goes back to before the twelve Shia imamas, going right back to Sheth who was executor to Adam. When the Twelfth imam, the Mahdi, comes out of occultation at the end of time, humankind will return to a pure monotheistic state that existed at the time of Abraham.
Mawdudi had gone from being a journalist to a scholar, but he was also a political activist. Mawdudi was not one to sit in some ivory tower, but felt a need, probably inspired by the views of Mulla Sadra among others, to put religion into the realm of politics. We have seen in the previous chapter how Mawdudi’s upbringing affected his views on the state of Islam in India; his feeling that the very existence of Islam was threatened and that Jinnah and the Muslim League were nothing more than symptoms of ‘jahiliyya’, of ignorance. A jihad was required if Islam were to be revived, and someone was needed to lead this jihad. Hyderabad seemed a natural destination for Mawdudi for his ancestors had done much to build up and preserve Nizamic rule in this state and its decline at this time reflected Mawdudi’s concern with the decline of Islam’s greatness in India and beyond more generally:
This city [Hyderabad] has for some 200 years been the seat of Islamic culture and civilisation. Great ulama, men of virtue, generals and courtiers are buried here … What a pity that their legacy is alive in stone and dead in the people … In this old Islamic settlement my eyes have searched and found neither a great man of God nor a skilled traditional craftsman … Every search of mine attests to the death of that nation.6
This concern with Hyderabad was given a boost when he had the opportunity to do something concrete about it. Nawab Salar Jung (1889–1949) was the Prime Minister for the seventh Nizam-ul-Mulk (‘Administrator of the Realm’) of Hyderabad. The Nizams were some of the wealthiest people in the world and considered themselves patrons of the arts. Nawab Jung himself has a museum named after him, the Salarjung Museum, which is the third largest museum in India and houses the biggest one-man (Jung’s) collection of antiques in the world. Jung took it upon himself to approach Mawdudi and requested he work on promoting Islam in Hyderabad. Such a request seems reminiscent of Dion’s request for Plato to go to Syracuse and create a Platonic state. However, like Plato’s efforts, these were over-ambitious and doomed to failure. Jung paid little attention to Mawdudi’s ideas and Mawdudi for his part became disillusioned with Muslim Indian monarchy: a model he saw fit not to try and emulate in his own political views.
However, this was all good practice for later on. In 1932 Mawdudi wrote Towards Understanding Islam which outlines the basic beliefs and tenets of Islam, and this short work established his name among students at colleges across India. Towards Understanding Islam, which Mawdudi wrote in 15 days, outlines the basic beliefs and tenets of Islam, and it was written at the request of Hyderabad’s director of education, Manazir Ahsan Gilani. It is divided into seven sections, covering the meaning of Islam, knowledge of God, prophethood, the five articles of faith, prayer and worship, din, and sharia. In a preface to the Khurshid Ahma translation in 1960, Mawdudi states the aims of this text:
My object in writing this book has been to provide all those – Muslims and non-Muslims alike – who have no access to the original sources with a brief treatise giving a lucid, comprehensive and all-embracing view of Islam. I have avoided minute details and endeavoured to portray Islam as a whole in a single perspective. Apart from stating what we Muslims believe in and stand for, I have also tried to explain the rational bases of our beliefs. Similarly, in presenting the Islamic modes of worship and the outlines of the Islamic way of life, I have also tried to unveil the wisdom behind them. I hope this small treatise will go far towards satisfying the intellectual cravings of Muslim youth, and that it will help non-Muslims to understand our real position.7
In this respect, Towards Understanding Islam was highly successful and, in the context of the time, there was nothing else of its kind although, by today’s standards of what is available on Islam, it would not be able to keep its head above water. It is, on the whole, uncritical in its presentation, starting off with the view that the pursuit of knowledge and that of faith are compatible. Having considered the need for prophecy, Mawdudi provides a brief history of the Prophet Muhammad whom he describes poetically: ‘In brief, the towering and radiant personality of this man, in the midst of such a benighted and dark environment, may be likened to a beacon-light illumining a pitch-dark night or to a diamond shining in a heap of dead stones’.8 Upon receiving the revelation of the Qur’an, Mawdudi goes on to describe the Prophet Muhammad’s career in equally eloquent and grandiose terms:
He expounded the complex problems of metaphysics and theology. He delivered speeches on the decline and fall of nations and empires, supporting his thesis with historical fact. He reviewed the achievements of the old reformers, passed judgements on the various religions of the world, and gave verdicts on the differences and disputes between nations. He taught ethical canons and principles of culture. He formulated laws of social culture, economic organisation, group conduct and international relations whose wisdom even eminent thinkers and scholars can grasp only after lifelong research and vast experience of men and things. Their beauties, indeed, unfold themselves progressively as man advances in theoretical knowledge and practical experience. This silent and peace-loving trader who had never even handled a sword before turned suddenly into such a brave soldier that he was never known to retreat however fierce the battle. He became such a great general that he conquered the whole of Arabia in nine years, at a time when the weapons of war were primitive and the means of communication very poor. His military acumen and his ability to transmit the skills of war to a motley crowd of Arabs (who had no equipment worth the name) meant that within a few years he had overthrown the two most formidable military powers of the day and become the master of the greater part of the then known world.9
Although undoubtedly the Prophet Muhammad was a remarkable person, and his achievements are quite astounding, Mawdudi’s particular image of the Prophet is hugely important in trying to understand his view on the Islamic state and the need for genuine Muslim rulers, given that the Prophet always remains a paradigm in this respect. The problem with such paradigms is that human beings, being what they are, rarely can live up to such seemingly perfect models. Mawdudi’s portrayal of Muhammad is like that of Plato’s Philosopher-King:
His is the only example where all the excellences have been blended into one personality. He is a philosopher and a seer as well as a living embodiment of his own teachings. He is a great statesman as well as a military genius. He is a legislator and also a teacher of morals. He is a spiritual luminary as well as a religious guide. His vision penetrates every aspect of life. His orders and commandments cover a vast field from the regulation of international relations down to the habits of everyday life like eating, drinking and personal hygiene. On the foundations of philosophy he established a civilisation and a culture without the slightest trace of a flaw, deficiency or incompleteness. Can anyone point to another example of such a perfect and all round-personality?10
Mawdudi stresses the need to adhere to sharia, stating that the four law schools are ‘correct and true’,11 and is critical of Sufis who argue that adherence for sharia is not important:
They polluted the pure spring of Islamic Tasawwuf with absurdities that could not be justified by any stretch of the imagination on the basis of the Qur’an and the Hadith. Gradually a section of Muslims appeared who thought and proclaimed themselves immune to and above the requirements of the Shari’ah. These people are totally ignorant of Islam, for Islam cannot admit of Tasawwuf that takes liberties with the Shari’ah. No Sufi has the right to transgress the limits of the Shari’ah or treat lightly primary obligations (Fara’id) such as daily prayers, fasting, Zakah and the Hajj. Tasawwuf, in the true sense, is an intense love of Allah and Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and such love requires a strict obedience to their commands as embodied in the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Prophet. Anyone who deviates from the divine commands makes a false claim of his love for Allah and His Apostle.12
What is interesting when reading Towards Understanding Islam is that Mawdudi comes across as very conservative in his views that would not look out of place among the ultra-conservative ulama. However, Mawdudi was at pains to distance himself from the ulama and the image they portrayed, as has already been mentioned in his ‘secret’ qualification as an alim. However, he also distanced himself by way of his appearance, preferring to adopt western-style dress and, to the distress of a number of the ulama, he was at that time clean-shaven, which was considered a sign of a lack in religious commitment.13 But this presentation of himself tells us a lot of the inner contradiction that was Mawdudi: on the one hand a man who was well educated and versed in Muslim and western traditions and, on the other, a man concerned with reviving Islam as it once existed at the time of Muhammad and stressing the need for an obedience to God. This is why, in Towards Understanding Islam, he emphasizes that there is no contradiction between the pursuit of knowledge and faith in God, and he refers to such atheist philosophers as Bertrand Russell on more than one occasion in his footnotes to support his own views. In Masudal Hasan’s biography he states that Mawdudi’s faith in Islam, at least of the more orthodox kind, wavered during this time,14 and he seemed to be undergoing a period of religious uncertainty, expressed with a greater interest in mysticism and poetry. He wrote poetry in the style of Sufi verse and used the pen-name of ‘Talib’ which is a word often used in Sufi to refer to a ‘seeker’. While much of his poetry, which he kept hidden and was not published until after his death, are questionable in terms of literary merit, they do show another side of Mawdudi where he makes full use of Sufi imagery, with references to wine and taverns (not usually in a literal sense, but the experience of being a Sufi, of spiritual ecstasy, is often compared to being drunk with wine; the moth and flame metaphor is one of the most loved in Sufism).15 They give us a rare picture of Mawdudi undergoing something of a crisis and an uncertainty that we all experience at some stage in our lives, in which ‘friendship is reciprocated with betrayal’ and where ‘in the robe of success, failures are hidden’. The world is seen as impermanent where a drop can ‘bring commotion’.16 Mawdudi here shows his anger over what he sees as an unjust world but, unlike many Sufis, he does not choose to retire from the world, to seek seclusion, but instead engages actively within it. Mawdudi’s life stages include, then, an education in Islamic orthodoxy, followed by a period of doubt, then a return to Islam but of a different kind from that of the orthodox ulama:
There was a time when I was also a believer of traditional and hereditary religion and practiced it … At last I paid attention to the Holy Book and the Prophet’s Sunnah. I understood Islam and renewed my faith in it voluntarily. Thereafter I tried to find out and understand the Islam system in detail. When I was satisfied in this I began to invite others to the truth.17
What comes across here is something of a ‘reconversion’, but with its foundations within the Qur’an and Sunna rather than the institutions built up over the centuries by Islamic scholars and jurists. It is a ‘return’ and a ‘renewal’, hence: ‘There was a time during my early childhood when I myself acquiesced in the traditional orthodox religion and conventionally followed it, but when I gained direction, this dormant practice of “we follow upon where we found our father” (Qur’an 2:17) struck me as completely meaningless.’18 How successful Mawdudi was in divorcing himself from the ulama is another matter that will be explored in some detail in this book. Suffice to say for now that in some senses Mawdudi was radical, but in others he does not entirely escape his upbringing in traditional Islamic teaching. Mawdudi’s writings are very much a product of the whole of his diverse upbringing and his own sense of confused identity.
In September 1932, Mawdudi bought the journal Tajuman’l-Qur’an19 (‘Qur’anic Interpretation’), which was published in Hyderabad by Abu Muhammad Musih Sahsaram. Mawdudi devoted a great deal of time and energy on this journal, doing all the editing, and writing most of the articles himself. However, its status was helped by contributions from some of Hyderabad’s most eminent scholars and would probably not have survived long if the Hyderabad government subscribed to what was half its circulation during its early years. In fact, its circulation was never huge, perhaps never getting beyond the 600 mark. Aside from half of these going to government offices, the rest found their way to libraries and various Muslim institutions, with about 100 as individual subscriptions. It was not a money-spinner, and had limited influence despite contributions from some notable Muslim figures. This certainly disappointed Mawdudi who had hoped for a massive response, though it no doubt reinforced his view that most Muslims were suffering from apathy. The journal was not, originally anyway, a supporter of any political programme as such, although Mawdudi’s articles would often reflect his concerns for a renewal of Islam as well as his anti-colonial sentiments. Despite this lack of response, however, Mawdudi remained the editor of Tarjuman until 1979.
If nothing else, Tarjuman did provide Mawdudi with a focus for his energies and a platform for his views. However, it was not until 1937 that Mawdudi, after a visit to Delhi, decided to put his political views into action. Mawdudi had not been to Delhi since 1930 and he was shocked by what he experienced there: on the social level, Muslims no longer seemed concerned with observing such things as purdah and appeared secularized in outlook and practice while, on the political level, power had shifted considerably from Muslims to Hindus. If Mawdudi thought Hyderabad was bad, then Delhi was considerably worse. This experience is perhaps reminiscent of the Muslim Egyptian reformer and founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Bana (1906–49) who, when he went to Cairo in 1923, was shocked by the sights of the big city; by the dominant British presence, the neglect of Islamic morality, the streets rife with gambling, the consumption of alcohol, and the general indifference shown towards religious matters.20
Mawdudi’s writings, in Tarjuman especially, became much more focused politically, as opposed to the previous rather random pronouncements on the sad decline of Islamic values. Now he became increasingly critical of the Congress party, accusing them of neglecting the rights of Muslims over the preference for an independent India. Despite his brother’s advice to tone down his political statements, Mawdudi took it upon himself to serve the Muslim cause in direct conflict with his former employers, the Jam’iat-i ’Ulama-i Hind. The leader of this party at the time was Mawlana Husain Ahmad Madani (1879–1957). Madani was a learned Islamic scholar, educated in the Islamic sciences as well as a Sufi pir. He was actively involved in India’s freedom struggle and remained president of Jam’iat-i ’Ulama-i Hind until his death in 1957. He was anti-British, although he was, however, against the two-nation theory, believing that Muslims could thrive within an independent pluralistic Indian society. It is on this point especially that Mawdudi disagreed: in line with the writings explored so far in this book, a Muslim is not a Muslim unless he lives in an Islamic state. To be a ‘Muslim’ in a pluralistic society is a contradiction in terms because Muslims are not able to live according to God’s laws. While this was seen as divisive by the Jam’iat and many members of the Congress party, it also won Mawdudi a great deal of support from many Muslims, including some within the Congress Party.
Keeping in mind that Tarjuman provided little income for Mawdudi, it is perhaps surprising why he refused the offer, in 1935, of a teaching position at the ’Uthmaniyah University, and how he was able to support himself. It also comes back to an issue that plagued quite a few of those suspicious of Mawdudi’s true intentions and beliefs. This was not only because of his western-style dress and his clean-shaven appearance, but in 1937, Mawdudi went to Delhi to find himself a wife and married his distant cousin Mahmudah Begum. Mahmudah was quite modern and liberal in many respects, riding a bicycle around Delhi (a rare sight to see women do this) and not observing purdah. It is curious that Mawdudi wrote of his demands of purdah among others, yet this was not the case in his own household; even when he first met Mahmudah. But she was, however, from a very wealthy family descended from the Bukhari family of Delhi, who to this day serve as the hereditary imams of Delhi’s impressive Jami mosque. The family’s wealth derived from, most notably, money lending, and it has been said that Begum Mahmudah was the daughter of Delhi’s ‘biggest Muslim usurer’.21 Again, given Mawdudi’s views on usury, this does smack rather of double standards. However, Mawdudi’s marriage meant that he no longer had to concern himself with financial issues, allowing for comfortable housing with servants, as well as owning large tracts of land elsewhere.
Newly married and financially secure, Mawdudi purchased some land in Hyderabad with the intention of setting up an Islamic institution. What this institution was to be, exactly, was unclear in the mind of Mawdudi, but certainly something that promoted his own ideals, his ‘dawa’ (‘mission’) to promote Islamic identity in some form or other. The starting point was in approaching a retired civil servant whom Mawdudi knew, Chaudhri Niyaz Ali, who had wanted to establish a waqf. A waqf is a religious endowment, such as a building or a plot of land, that is to be used for charitable purposes. Mawdudi persuaded Ali to establish the waqf for his organization at Hyderabad.
There now enters the scene of one of India’s greatest Muslim scholars, poets and writers: Muhammad Iqbal (1873–1938). In his younger days, Mawdudi had voraciously digested the poetry of Iqbal. To this day, Iqbal’s writings remain an important influence not only in South Asia but also in the Middle East. He is renowned and admired for his passionate poetry, for which he has inspired millions, but he was also a philosopher, political thinker and spiritual father of Pakistan. As Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr eloquently states:
Iqbal has become the most popular poet of Pakistan and an infallible and omniscient philosopher and sage. His name bestows a legitimacy on all ideas and programs associated with him. He has gained an almost prophetic reputation in Pakistan, far exceeding the claims of the modest poet and thinker of Lahore. His ideas and sayings are invoked to legitimate various policies, sanctify sundry views and decisions, and silence opposition and criticism. In short, for Pakistani people all across the political spectrum, from Left to religious Right, Iqbal became a figure larger than life, a repository of great wisdom and charisma.22
No wonder Mawdudi would want him on his side! Iqbal’s life bears a number of parallels with that of Mawdudi. Although not perhaps of such noble Moghul stock, Iqbal was born, in Sialkot, in the Punjab, to a middle-class family whose origins lay in Kashmir. His father was a tailor by trade, but was well versed in Islamic theology and mysticism. Not unlike many Islamic reformers, including Mawdudi, Iqbal’s education consisted of a mix of both Islamic and western. He went to modern schools and attended the grammar school the Scotch Mission College in Sialkot, the Murray College, and then Lahore’s Oriental College. He was a particular expert in Arabic and English and obtained a Master’s in Philosophy in 1899. He was appointed to the McLeod Readership in Arabic at the Oriental College, but soon gave this up to teach philosophy at the Government College in Lahore. While teaching there he met and became good friends with the noted British Orientalist T. W. Arnold who encouraged Iqbal to travel to Europe. This he did between 1905 and 1908, where he studied in both Britain and Germany. In London he qualified for the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and then went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge with the Sufi specialist R. A. Nicholson and the neo-Hegelian John M. E. McTaggart. He then went to Heidelberg and Munich where he completed his doctorate in 1908 entitled ‘The Development of Metaphysics in Persia’. In the same year he returned to Lahore to teach briefly, but he had already established a reputation as a poet and preferred to devote his energies to this while pursuing a profession in law, although he also pursued a path in politics. In 1924 he joined the National Liberal League of Lahore and, in 1926, he was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council. He was an active member, speaking on land revenue and taxation and advocating compulsory education and better sanitation for the villages. In 1930 Iqbal became president of the Muslim League and in his presidential address he talked of the need for Pakistan. He attended the second and third round-table conferences on the future of Pakistan held in London in 1931 and 1932 respectively. In 1932, Iqbal was knighted.
While in Europe, Iqbal also continued to write his poetry in between his studies. He wrote a eulogy to the Prophet Muhammad which describes the golden age of the Islamic empire and laments its subsequent decline. His eulogy argues that the Muslims need to free themselves, rather than rely on external forces. His poem Portrayal of Pain (Tasweer e Dard) expresses his anger over the sufferings of the Indian people under colonial rule. In particular, his nationalist poems are concerned especially with the Muslim community in India and hopes of ending not only colonialism, but also the conflict between Muslims and Hindus in India itself. Iqbal’s poetry is a synthesis of eastern and western influences, combining the thoughts of Muslim reformers, jurists and mystics such as the Sufi poet Rumi, with that of western philosophers such as Hegel, Bergson and Nietzsche. Like Mawdudi, his underlying concern, which was reflected in all his output, was with the revival of Islam. His writings were often political and he regularly published poems on subjects related to nature, religion and politics in the Urdu journal Makhazan, which was founded in 1901. Again, like Mawdudi, he was highly critical of the complacency among Muslims in India especially and, more broadly, in other colonized lands. In his controversial poem, The Complaint (‘Shakwa’) Iqbal levels a complaint against God for allowing Muslims to be subjected to poverty and humiliation. However, he still lays the blame squarely on the Muslims themselves for the political unawareness, factionalism and lack of activism in the political sphere. Because of the controversy the book raised, Iqbal made a point of writing another poem, The Answer to the Complaint (Jawab-i-shakwa) in which he attempts to reply to those critics who accused him of complaining to God.23
In perhaps his greatest work, Secrets of the Self (‘Asrar-i-Khudi’), Iqbal writes of the need for Muslims to re-awaken their soul and act. Just as Mawdudi saw the Prophet Muhammad as a paradigm of the ideal Muslim and leader, Iqbal too saw the Prophet as the perfect Prophet-Statesman who founded a society based on freedom, equality and brotherhood reflected in the central tenet of ‘unity’ (tawhid). In the practical sense, Iqbal believed that a requisite of being a good Muslim was to live under Islamic law which acts as the blueprint for the perfect Islamic society, as envisioned by the Prophet Muhammad.
He believed democracy was the best form of government in terms of allowing the individual to emerge, whereas aristocracy suppressed such individuality. When he looked to Indian Muslim society, he saw only sectarianism and a caste system that he believed outdid Hindu society. He also argued that democracy was not merely a pragmatic form of government but was also rooted in Islam itself and he looked to the early years of Islam, the time of Muhammad and his companions, when the small society, in Iqbal’s eyes, operated on the basis of largely egalitarian principles and unity. Iqbal argues that this system was soon destroyed as Islam expanded, rapidly resulting in factionalism and the adoption of non-Islamic forms of government. While Iqbal did stress the importance of equality and democracy, in reality it would not be unlike Mawdudi’s concept of ‘theo-democracy: democracy is only for those who are sufficiently learned to know what they are voting for. The logic of this was based on the belief that the best person to rule the Islamic state should be the best Muslim, not someone who may be particularly good at rhetoric or play the popularity card. Therefore, only those who have a degree of expertise in what it means to be a good Muslim, i.e. have a knowledge of Islamic law, history, and so on, are equipped to vote. Therefore, Iqbal argues for the need for education so that Muslims are informed enough to partake in the affairs of the state.24
Iqbal’s views can often come across as confused and contradictory. He talks of egalitarianism and democracy, but is elitist in terms of who has the right to be enfranchised. Further, he often talked of pan-Islamism, at least in his writings, yet he devoted his political energies to the formation of an independent Muslim state separate from India. There is considerable debate over how much Iqbal actually supported the creation of Pakistan. Consider this quote from Edward Thompson:
In the Observer I once said that he (Iqbal) supported the Pakistan plan. Iqbal was a friend, and he set my misconception right. After speaking of his despondency at the chaos he saw coming ‘on my vast undisciplined and starving land’ he went on to say that he thought the Pakistan plan would be disastrous to the British Government, disastrous to the Hindu community, disastrous to the Moslem community. ‘But I am the President of the Moslem League and therefore it is my duty to support it.’25
We will later consider Iqbal’s pan-Islamism and what he actually meant by this, but it is worth noting that in his letter to Edward Thompson, Iqbal said that he was opposed to ‘a separate federation of Muslim provinces’, but preferred a ‘Muslim province’ in a ‘federated India’.26 Iqbal’s statements are important in understanding Mawdudi’s views, for there was obviously at the time a number of options that were being considered, not only by Iqbal, but by many other Indian Muslims. Iqbal seemed open to the possibility of Indian Muslims forming a ‘province’ in a federated India, but equally the possibility was not ruled out of an amalgamation of the Muslim majority provinces of Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan into what effectively would be a separate state. An important study by Ayesha Jalal27argues that until 1946 the idea of Pakistan was not seriously considered but was rather presented as a bargaining tool by Jinnah and the Muslim League to pursue other political possibilities. Seen in this context, much talk on Pakistan by Iqbal and the like should be seen as playing the political game, rather than being entirely sincere in a desire for a separate Muslim state.
It is also interesting to consider whether Mawdudi, who was genuine in his desire for an Islamic state, believed that Iqbal was also. Certainly, Iqbal saw an important starting point to be the education of Muslims, which is also something Mawdudi could agree on, and Iqbal actively supported the creation of a model darul ulum28 to lay the foundation for a Muslim revival in whatever form this may eventually take. Iqbal wrote a letter to the rector of the prestigious Islamic university al-Azhar in Cairo, Sheikh Mustafa al-Maraghi, asking for someone to be the director of this new educational institution. Iqbal stressed that the candidate needed to be not only well educated in the Islamic sciences, but could also speak English and had studied the natural sciences, economics and politics. The Sheikh replied by stating he could not think of anyone who could fill such a position. Iqbal persevered and assigned Niyaz Ali to find someone. It seems, however, that Mawdudi was not Niyaz Ali’s first choice as he first of all turned to the renowned Deobandi alim Mawlana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (1863–1943),29 but he rejected the offer, so only then did he turn to Mawdudi.
Mawdudi was at first reluctant, not least because the waqf was to be located in the Punjab rather than Hyderabad. However, he was persuaded by Niyaz Ali to write formally to Iqbal for the position, as the Hyderabad project was having little success and no doubt Mawdudi saw the advantage of being aligned with Iqbal. Iqbal had met Mawdudi only once, in 1929 in Hyderabad, where he was lecturing, although he was well aware of Mawdudi’s name through his writings, especially in Tarjuman. While Iqbal was unlikely to be in full agreement with Mawdudi’s views on an Islamic state, he seemed agreeable to Mawdudi coming to the Punjab to help in the development of the school. As this school did not at present exist, however, Iqbal offered Mawdudi the position of imam at the Badshahi (‘Emperor’) mosque in Lahore on a salary of 100 rupees a month. This in itself would have been quite an accolade, for the Mughal Badshahi mosque is Lahore’s most famous landmark and is the fifth largest mosque in the world. Mawdudi, however, refused the post, stating that a salaried position would restrict his freedom, remembering that at this time in Mawdudi’s life he had his own independent financial means.
In October 1937, Mawdudi went to Punjab to act as the newly appointed unpaid overseer of the development for a new darul ulum. With Niyaz Ali, Mawdudi met Iqbal at Lahore and the appointment was officially confirmed. It is interesting to speculate, and to some extent it has to remain speculation, as to the extent to which Iqbal and Mawdudi were in agreement over the agenda for this new waqf. The school was to be based at Pathankot in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab. It is a major city of Punjab and is ideally located as it is the meeting point of three northern states: Punjab, Himachai Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir. In Hyderabad, Muslims were becoming increasingly marginalized, and so Mawdudi realized that the future for Muslims was to be mainly in the northern provinces. Even though he was offered the prestigious and lucrative position of head of the Department of Islamic Studies at Uthmaniyah University, Mawdudi decided that his future lay in the northern provinces. The geographical location together with the backing of Iqbal were good enough grounds for Mawdudi to take the appointment, despite his own reservations and his strong political agenda, but it must be seen as a compromise for both parties. Mawdudi was certainly not Iqbal’s first choice and he had his own reservations concerning the appointment, describing Mawdudi as ‘just a mullah’.30
Mawdudi’s first task was to establish a well-defined curriculum for the new school which would include Islamic law as well as modern subjects. Although Mawdudi harboured great political ambitions for this project, Iqbal stressed that its primary task was in education. However, it is perhaps significant that the name for this new school was Darul-Islam (‘Land of Islam’). Mawdudi was now named on the school’s governing committee, the Darul-Islam Trust, and Mawdudi had considerable independence in what would be the form and nature of the school, although Niyaz Ali warned him against making any political associations with the school. Mawdudi agreed to this arrangement and he moved formally to Pathankot on 16 March 1938. One year later, Sir Muhammad Iqbal was dead.
The death of Iqbal eliminated one of the reasons Mawdudi had taken on the project in the first place, that is, to be associated with Iqbal but, at the same time, it gave, in theory anyway, Mawdudi more independence to do what he wanted with the project. It was Mawdudi’s intentions for the project to be not only an intellectual, but also, in time, a political force; the latter now seeming more possible with the death of Iqbal. However, even the former objective, the Darul-Islam as an intellectual force, had a number of obstacles. At its inception it had 12 members of staff who were mainly from nearby towns and villages and possessed little education at all. None of them were of any standing, although the Trust could claim membership of the Muslim scholar Muhammad Asad (1900–92), this was largely a backseat role for him.31 Despite this, Mawdudi launched into the project with great energy and enthusiasm. In October, 1938, he wrote numerous letters to Muslim scholars across India inviting them to take part in the project. Eleven, about a quarter of those Mawdudi wrote to, responded by visiting Pathankot for discussions. Among the significant participants was Muhammad Asad and the Deobandi scholar Muhammad Manzur Numani (1905–97). Although Numani attended, he chose not to join the project, apparently displeased with what he regarded as Mawdudi’s lack of Islamic purity.32 This observation by Numani is an interesting one and it comes back to what was said earlier in this chapter concerning reservations certain of his peers had concerning Mawdudi’s religious credentials. It might seem strange for a modern audience to consider Mawdudi as particularly irreligious, but this is an indication of just how conservative so many were at that time and how radical Mawdudi was.
The meeting that took place between 14–16 October 1938 is a turning point. Perhaps surprisingly, given Mawdudi’s own independence and stubbornness, he took to heart Numani’s observations and began to reform himself by, to begin with, growing a beard. But this was also an important occasion in that, in many respects, it signifies the beginning of what was to become the Jamaat-e-Islami, for many of those who responded to Mawdudi’s Pathankot call were also to become leading members of the Jamaat. Also, soon after the Pathankot meeting, Mawdudi organized his ‘school’ into the tripartite organization that was to be the basis for Jamaat: the rukn (member), shura (consultative assembly of five men) and sadr (president). It seems Mawdudi was now well on the way to succeeding in his aims of a political community, even though this would have horrified Iqbal if he were still alive.
However, although Iqbal was no longer alive, the man who was initially given the role of finding an overseer for the Darul-Islam, Niyaz Ali, was still very much alive and active and was none too happy with the direction the waqf was going, in particular he was not impressed with Mawdudi’s reference to the Darul-Islam as ‘Islami hukumut’ (Islamic government). It wasn’t just this, however, but Mawdudi’s now active engagement in the production of books and pamphlets in the name of Darul-Islam, and which spoke of it as an ‘Islamic community’. He propagated this material to educational centres across India. Niyaz appealed to the members of the Trust, but Mawdudi would not budge. In time the members of Darul-Islam supported Mawdudi, declaring him to be their sadr and voting that the Darul-Islam should move to Lahore, away from Niyaz’s influence. In January 1939, Mawdudi resigned his position as overseer of the Pathankot Darul-Islam and headed off to Lahore to found a new holy community, a new umma.