Although Mawdudi shared with Iqbal the view on the importance of education, Mawdudi was far too impatient to devote his time merely to the establishment of a school. From 1939 onwards his political ambitions grew, and this was no doubt spurred on by moving to the politically vibrant Lahore. In actual fact, soon after arriving in Lahore Mawdudi took a train to the Mewat district of Haryana in north-western India to meet up with a remarkable man: Mawlana Muhammad Iliyas (1885–1944). To this day the Mewat district has a large number of Muslims who are referred to as ‘Mev’ or ‘Meo’, and it was also the centre for a group known as the Tablighi Jamaat which – although it has become controversial in recent years – was founded by Iliyas in 1926 as a voluntary, pacifist and independent movement. Although considered a ‘party’, it remains apolitical. Iliyas set out initially to establish a network of madrasas to educate the Meos about correct Islamic beliefs and practices, but was frustrated by the limited impact this had socially and politically, and so he formally launched the Tablighi in 1926 with the slogan ‘Oh Muslims! Be Muslims’. It proved to be remarkably popular as thousands joined in a relatively short period. Iliyas had a very simple but effective method of propagation: he would organize units (jamaat) of at least 10 people and send them off to various villages where they would gather together the Muslims of that village and educate them in the basic Islamic tenets. When Mawdudi met Iliyas on his visit it is recorded that he was very impressed with this figure, describing him as the heir to such venerable names from Indian history as Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624)1 and Sayyid Ahmad Shahid (1786–1831).2 Undoubtedly this visit is key in reinforcing Mawdudi’s belief in the need for his own ‘jamaat’ and he was not, of course, the only one in Lahore at the time that was discussing this as a real possibility. Whereas the Tablighi had a reasonable following in Mewat it was not, at that time anyway, a major player in India.
In fact, no Muslim group could claim to have much sway in India, unlike the Hindus, Sikhs and even the Ahmadis. As for the Muslim League, Mawdudi continued to be critical of this ‘party of pagans’, yet this was the only national representative for the Muslims in India at the time. At the time if you were a Muslim in India who wanted to engage actively in Muslim renewal there seemed to be a number of options. First, you could join the Congress party. This was founded in 1885 with the primary objective of obtaining a greater share in government for educated Indians, regardless of the religious identity of those Indians. It became more radical, calling for independence for India. In 1907 it split into two factions: the ‘hot faction’ (Garam Dal) and the ‘soft faction’ (Naram Dal), with the ‘hot faction’ more extremist in their attitude against British rule. The Congress Party was important because it was the only mass organization that represented Indian interests and it produced some of India’s greatest leaders, such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah (who was later to become leader of the Muslim League and then first Governor-General of Pakistan), Jawaharlal Nehru and, of course, Mahatma Gandhi who became President of the Congress in 1921. Under Gandhi the party increased in popularity, but was predominantly Hindu. However, it had members from every religious, economic, ethnic and linguistic group, and claimed to represent them all, unlike other parties that represented only Hindu interests, such as the Hindu Mahasabha or Forward Bloc. However, Mawdudi saw the Congress differently. Despite its overtures to Muslims, the predominance of Hindus in the party and its policy of an independent India was, for Mawdudi, a prologue to the creation of a Hindu raj in which Muslim identify would be threatened. Joining the Congress party, therefore, was not an option for Mawdudi.
Second, a Muslim could join the Muslim League. This was founded in Dhaka (now the capital of Bangladesh) in 1906 with the specific aim of protecting Muslim interests in India by representing their needs and problems to the government. The first Honorary President of the Muslim League was Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan (Aga Khan III, 1877–1957), who was the imam of the Nizari Muslims; a branch of Ismaili Shi’ism. The Aga Khan, a man of great wealth, had worked towards Muslim education for many years, and laid the foundations for Aligarh University. However, as the knighthood might suggest, he was pro-British rule and supported reforms introduced by the British. In fact, the first article of the League’s platform was ‘To promote among the Mussalmans of India, feelings of loyalty to the British Government’. The headquarters were established in Lucknow and the principles of the League were contained within what is called the ‘Green Book’ written by journalist and poet Mawlana Muhammad Ali Jouhar, the same person who had invited Mawdudi to work for his paper Hamdard in 1924. The loyalty towards the British deteriorated among members of the League, and among Muslims in India generally, because of the events following the partition of Bengal in 1905. This partition was initiated by the then Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon partly for administrative regions. Bengal was as large as France, but with a much larger population, so by splitting the region into east and west it was hoped that the neglected and under-governed east would benefit with a much more manageable region. However, it also meant that East Bengal would have a Muslim majority which led to protests, some of which were violent, from Hindus. As a result, the British reversed the partition in 1911 and the League altered its platform to one of Indian independence. This appealed to more Muslims, notably Jinnah who joined the League in 1913 and became its President in 1916, although later taken over by Muhammad Iqbal who, in 1930, first put forward the possibility of a separate Muslim state. This was essentially the beginning of the ‘two-nation theory’: the view that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations and could not live in one state. This theory grew in popularity, and with Jinnah’s return to the League it received new impetus. At the League conference in Lahore in 1940 they committed themselves to an independent state called Pakistan.
The creation of Pakistan seemed more and more likely, but Mawdudi did not throw his hat in with the Muslim League either. In fact, his criticisms of them only increased. Why? If Mawdudi did not want Muslims to be a minority in India, then surely it made sense for there to be a separate state for Muslims. As this is what the League was working towards, why wasn’t Mawdudi in support of this? To some extent this can be explained by Mawdudi’s Mughal heritage. Remember he is a product of a golden era of Muslim rule in India, while the League was calling for Muslims effectively to leave India altogether. This would result in ‘handing over’ the dominion of the Mughals to the Hindus and would make it even easier for Islam in India to disappear entirely. Before 1939 the idea of a separate Muslim state was discussed but was not inevitable, and Mawdudi hoped to halt the rise of Hindu power in India by converting the whole of India to Islam, rather than the alternative of creating a relatively small separate Muslim state. His Musalman Awr Mawjudah Siyasi Kashmakash (‘Muslims and the Current Political Struggle’), which consists of three volumes written between 1938 and 1940, argues against the Hindu nationalism supported by the Congress Party and Muslim nationalism argued for by the Muslim League. The Muslims would still, therefore, be in India, but India itself would be a Muslim state. The initial, and rather vague and abstract, motto of the jamaat (with a small ‘j’) was to act as a ‘counter-league’ to the Muslim League, with political and social ambitions that seemed incredibly idealistic! While certainly idealistic, it should not come as a surprise given Mawdudi’s view of Islam. His paradigm, which seemed to be always at the forefront of his mind, was the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad, for Mawdudi, was a historical demonstration of what one man can achieve despite seemingly against all the odds. Muhammad and the first Muslims did not succeed because he had an instant large following, but because he actually had the opposite, a small group of dedicated and disciplined followers who were morally upright and observed the rigours and disciplines of their religion. As Mawdudi himself said, ‘I was of the opinion that the importance [of a party] lies not in numbers of its members, but in the dependability of their thoughts and actions.’3 Given this paradigm, which led to an Islamic empire that spread from the Atlantic to the Indus within 80 years of the Prophet’s death, Mawdudi’s optimism may well be understood. But Mawdudi was no prophet, and he soon realized that the possibility to an Islamic India was simply unrealistic, but he stubbornly refused to side with the League. The Jamaat ultimately became a vehicle for Mawdudi, who wanted to be the one who would be the founder of a separate Muslim state rather than Jinnah.
A third option for Muslims was to join one of the other existing Muslim parties. Mention has already been made of the Tablighi Jamaat, but Mawdudi’s independence and stubbornness explains his unwillingness to join with Iliyas, despite his admiration for him. In addition, Mawdudi believed that the Tablihgi were too religious, and as a result unable or unconcerned with social matters. This is the opposite to another concern he had with the Muslim League, namely, that they were too secular. Talk of a separate state was usually couched in terms of a state for Muslims to live in, rather than a state that has any specific Islamic identity, and Jinnah himself came across as very secular and westernized, far more so than Mawdudi. Essentially, however, Mawdudi wanted to lead, rather than be led. This, then, was the fourth and final option: start up your own party.
This new party was to be led by Mawdudi, and was to be hierarchical in nature. We have already seen how Mawdudi looks to history for examples of Muslims forming groups to battle against adversity. First and foremost is the example of the Prophet Muhammad, but Mawdudi could look to more recent examples in Indian history such as the Khalifat movement which, although unsuccessful ultimately, was the first example of how Muslims could be brought together for a cause. The views of Azad and Hezbollah were also firm in Mawdudi’s mind, and the administration of other Muslim bodies, notably Jinnah’s organization of the Muslim League.4 Mawdudi was impressed by the charisma and organizational ability of Muhammad Iliyas, and another highly successful and well-organized Punjab group under the leadership of Inayatullah Mashriqi (1888–1963), the Tahrik-Khaksar had come to Mawdudi’s attention. The Khaksar movement was phenomenal in it success. Founded in Lahore in 1930, it reportedly had 4 million members by 1942. Its programme was essentially to free India from colonial rule and to revive Islam, although it also aimed to give justice and equal rights to all faiths. Mashriqi, considered by some as something of an anarchist, adopted revolutionary language: ‘Khaksar’ being derived from Persian ‘khak’ (dust) and ‘sar’ (life) and so roughly translated as ‘humble person’. The Khaksars all wore the same khaki uniforms, the colour chosen to represent the colour of the earth. Each member was also given a spade, as symbolic of ‘levelling’ society. Membership was strict and all had to adhere to a charter. Mashriqi himself was a charismatic and highly intelligent figure who was nominated for and offered a knighthood, which he declined. It is interesting to speculate what his organization could have achieved if he had not disbanded it in 1947.5
Mawdudi’s own Sufi background was also an influence in his ideas for the organization of the Jamaat:
Sufis in Islam have a special form of organization … known as khanaqah. Today this has a bad image … But the truth is that it is the best institution in Islam … [I]t is necessary that this institution be revived in India, and in various places small khanaqahs be established. Therein novices can read the most valuable religious sources, and live in a pure environment. This institution encompasses the functions of club, library and ashram [Hindu place of worship] … [The] entire scheme rests on selection of the shaikh [master] … [A]t least I do not know of someone with all the qualifications … [I]f this task is to be undertaken, India should be searched for the right person.6
Although Mawdudi was often critical of Sufism for what he saw as a lack of religious observance in his own time, Mawdudi himself, remember, was a Deobandi and had first-hand experience of Sufi organization. The revival of the khanaqah (a kind of hospice where Sufis take up residence so they can be close to their pir, or master) that Mawdudi speaks of is nothing other than his Jamaat, his own holy community. His conception of Sufism is not that of some mystical branch outside Islamic orthodoxy, but rather what is central to what the umma is. Briefly, a Sufi order (the term used is tariqah) is organized hierarchically in a series of concentric circles which eventually culminate in a pyramidal structure, the top of which is the pir (or shaikh or murshid). The order is essentially secluded from the outside world so that the novice may work his way towards being the master; thus the master is the paradigm for the novice. Sufi orders are strict in their discipline and command total submission and obedience to the pir, involving an allegiance (bai’ah).7 Mawlana Abul Kalam Azad when talking of recruiting people to accept him as their amir-i hind, also used the term bai’ah, and Mawdudi too used the term in comparing it to becoming a member of Jamaat. Therefore, membership of Jamaat is not parallel with, for example, joining a political party in the west. In fact, it is somewhat inaccurate to describe the formation of the Jamaat as a political party at all. Mawdudi had in mind more of a holy community, a new umma, that requires far more than mere membership; it requires commitment, submission, obedience and, in certain respects, a kind of conversion.
It must be remembered that Mawdudi was formulating his political ideas in the 1930s: a time of considerable political upheaval and ideas in Europe and, although there were Islamic precedents and paradigms for Mawdudi to tap into, his uniqueness lies in his ‘Europeanism’. At the time, liberal-democratic parties that represented the people and formed policies on that basis was still a relatively new idea. In fact, democracy itself was still a new idea to which chunks of Europe did not yet subscribe. You had the growth of the Third Reich in Germany, the Spanish Civil War, communism in the Soviet Union, fascism in Italy. When Mawdudi kept a watchful eye on Europe (in fact, it was much more than a watchful eye: it was a careful study), it might be understandable that liberal democracy did not immediately stand out as the only and best option under which a state could be governed, least of all a religious state. The parallels between the structure of Mawdudi’s Jamaat and Lenin’s Bolshevist movement are self-evident. Certainly, the Bolshevist organization was also hierarchically governed, with centralized control and with a quasi-military discipline. Members had to adhere rigidly to a central committee, in the same way Mawdudi insisted on strict obedience to the shura.8 An important difference, however, and which will be examined later in more detail,9 is the ultimate goal in terms of revolution. Although Mawdudi often made use of the word ‘revolutionary’ and utilized the emotive revolutionary language and propaganda with reference to the ‘masses’ and the ‘people’, Mawdudi’s understanding of revolution was more of a gradual nature than Lenin’s concept. Also, Lenin talked of a revolution of the ‘proletariat’ whereas, for Mawdudi, the ‘masses’ could only control the mechanisms of the state when they are fully qualified Muslims. In that sense, the Jamaat is very much a top-down organization, with solid and supreme leaders that must be obeyed. The influence of communism on Mawdudi does help to explain his optimism, which in retrospect may strike the modern reader as unrealistic, that Muslims could, in time, convert the whole of India to Islam, rather than section themselves off in a separate Islamic state. For a time, Mawdudi genuinely believed such a thing was possible because he saw what could be achieved by the communist movements in Europe, and he believed that religion was far more powerful than any political ideology, given the evidential support of the historical paradigm of the Prophet Muhammad and other Islamic events. However, Mawdudi didn’t even need to look to Europe to firm up his convictions: in the 1930s and 1940s he could look to Hyderabad and the communist Telangana movement. The Nizam’s regime in the 1930s was essentially feudal with an extremely wealthy ruling class and a poor peasant class, most notably among the Telangans. The communists emerged within the Hyderabad State Congress during the Second World War as a result of the suffering of the poorer classes who were effectively funding the war effort through heavy taxation. The Communist Party championed the cause of the peasants and gained huge support. Though certainly the economic situation was crucial here, the fact the support also came from Hindus at a time when Nizam was considering the formation of an independent Muslim state was also an important factor.10 This resulted in an armed struggle, but by 1951 it had become obvious that this was ineffective and the party joined the democratic process, although the movement had brought considerable gains for the peasantry.11 This movement certainly impressed Mawdudi, as he said himself: ‘no more than 1/100,000 of Indians are Communists, and yet see how they fight to rule India; if Muslims who are one-third of India can be shown the way, it will not be so difficult for them to be victorious.’12
Originally, although Mawdudi’s notion of what the Jamaat would be were vague, to say the least, it was essentially to be a religious community inspired by historical Islamic paradigms and contemporary revolutionary movements. However, it might be argued that this mixture of a holy community on the one hand and a political party of some form on the other has not always been to the benefit of the Jamaat as it prevents a clear platform from which to launch its political and social agendas. At the same time, the benefits of such a movement has meant it has not fallen foul of the party factionalism experienced by other parties such as the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Muslim League. At first, however, the confusion in its identity – reflected somewhat in Mawdudi’s own personal cultural split in his identity – made it difficult for it to find a place within the changes that were taking place at the time. Mawdudi’s initial statement in 1934 argues for the following: ‘The erection, endurance and success of a social order requires two things: one, that a jamaat [literally, “party” or “society”] be founded on that order’s principles … and second, that there be patience and obedience to that jamaat.’13 Words such as ‘social order’, ‘patience’ and ‘obedience’ suggest that it is revolutionary, gradual and top-down, but says little else. As Nasr clearly points out:
It could not remain abstract for long. The definition of the Jama’at had to be narrowed from an amorphous community to a concrete entity. Although Mawdudi knew this, he failed to appreciate the need to draw a clear line between holy community and political party. Consequently, the Jama’at since its inception remained committed to both its avowedly religious and its essentially socio-political functions.14
We will look in much more detail at the historical and theological notions of an Islamic state in the second part of this book, but Nasr is right to point out further that the reason Mawdudi did not draw a clear line between holy community and political party is because, for Mawdudi, there is no clear line: the two are actually one and the same thing. Again, Mawdudi looks back to his favoured paradigm: the life of the Prophet Muhammad, for which, in Mawdudi’s eyes anyway, he saw an ideal community where there was no division between the religious and the political. What Mawdudi keeps on emphasizing in so much of his writings is that you cannot be a true Muslim unless you are ‘politicized’ in the sense of being an active, participating citizen of an Islamic state. This is how Mawdudi saw his Jamaat, his holy community. The extent to which, in real terms, such a utopic vision can be planted on a social reality is the problem that exists with all such utopias and has its origin at least as far back as Plato’s Republic. It was this problem of welding ideality with reality that caused confusion for those involved in the Jamaat: what was to be the actual role of the Jamaat? What was their agenda? What was their political platform? What concrete actions should they take? It was inevitable that such questions would result in Mawdudi having to be much more of a political animal, whether he wished for this or not. This is another side of Mawdudi; in one respect a highly intelligent scholar who is used to being shut away alone with only books for company, but in another respect the demand was felt not only from others but from himself that he needed to put his words into action in some way. It seems that Mawdudi held the view that as the Jamaat developed into a new ‘umma’ under his leadership, then the political side would sort itself out in some sort of organic process. However, it was not enough merely to attack the inadequacies of the other parties while maintaining an abstract ideal; he would have to take that extra step and formulate a party with a clear platform. No doubt, Mawdudi believed there was a need for another party, especially given the fact that with the beginning of the 1940s the present parties seemed to do little else but fight among themselves. Also, by this time, it was evident that there would be a separate Muslim state, whether Mawdudi liked it or not. Mawdudi did not want to be left out in the cold, with the Muslim League bossing policy entirely, so he gradually changed his views from one of desiring an India that was Muslim, to a kind of grudging acceptance of a separate Muslim state, but one that would be very different from that envisioned by the secularist tendencies of the Muslim League and its leader Jinnah. As Mawdudi’s brother, Abu’l-Khayr, said, ’Abu’l-A’la not only compared himself to Jinnah, but also viewed himself as even a greater leader than Jinnah.’15 Mawdudi saw that Jinnah and the Muslim League had weak credentials in representing Muslims because they themselves were hardly good examples of adherence to Islam. However, although that may well be the case, the Muslim League reflected the religious inclinations of the mass of the Muslim population of India more than Mawdudi did, which is why Mawdudi had to tread a very thin line between being perceived as too religious or too westernized.
Although Mawdudi may well have harboured a desire for a united Muslim India, realism forced him to concentrate his energies on just part of it: the Muslim-majority north-western provinces. From 1938 onwards he began to talk of the ‘two-nation theory’ as a distinct possibility, but presented himself as the rightful leader of a new Muslim nation. In his pamphlets and lectures at schools and colleges, Mawdudi attacked Jinnah and his ‘party of pagans’:
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].16
Having said more than enough in words, Mawdudi now had to engage in some concrete action. Using Tarjuman as his instrument for the new party, in the April 1941 issues, he invited those who would be interested in joining this new party to meet in Lahore. The official date of the founding of the Jama-e-Islami, therefore, is 26 August 1941 when 70 men, most of whom Mawdudi knew already, gathered and professed the Muslim testament of faith (shahadah) to this new umma. This meeting lasted for three days, during which the constitution was developed. Already, however, there were some disagreements, notably over the form of leadership. Some, including not surprisingly Mawdudi himself, wanted one supreme leader, an amir to lead, while others preferred a shura, a ruling council. A compromise was reached: the Jamaat would be led by an amir but with limited powers. Having decided on the mode of leadership, the next decision was who should be the first leader of the party. Although Mawdudi was selected, it was not without some competition. The fact is that the Jamaat was at this point in time a party of intellectuals and, in actual fact, Mawdudi’s audience in terms of his journal Tarjuman and in his lectures – which tended to be at schools, colleges and universities – were educated Muslims. This rather elitist approach has always been a problem for the Jamaat from its very inception, and helps to explain why it has usually done badly in the political arena. It adopted a top-down approach with little regard for those at the bottom, which Mawdudi considered to be lacking in sufficient education to be good Muslims. Mawdudi always associated the importance of education if one wanted to be a morally upstanding Muslim, for to be a good Muslim required an intellectual understanding of the complexities of Islamic law and Qur’anic interpretation. Until Muslims were educated enough to understand Islam for themselves, they must rely on those few well educated enough to understand it for them. If the Jamaat were to be a community of pious Muslims, then, logically, the poor and uneducated were excluded from this community for, in actual fact, they weren’t really proper Muslims at all. But this meant that the Jamaat has through most of its life remained withdrawn and cut off from society; a society rife with inequality, poor education, poverty and suffering. If the Jamaat could not bring itself to get its hands dirty and involve itself more with this ‘underclass’, then it could never win popular support. While it would engage in social work and education, it never really expressed this as an ongoing concern in its political platform, but preferred to engage in intellectual polemic that might well appeal to the middle and upper classes, yet had little to entice the lower classes who saw this as too abstract to be of any real concern. As a party, in this sense, it differs greatly from Lenin’s Bolshevism: this was not a party of the ‘people’ calling for revolution here and now, but a party for the elite working for a gradual trickle-down change in society that could take hundreds if not thousands of years.17 It is not surprising that in its early years especially so much of its membership was made up of young ulama or what are known as the ahl-i hadith; a puritanical, fundamentalist group largely from the educated middle classes who were highly critical of populist Sufi practices. In this sense, Mawdudi’s paradigm of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Islamic community is ill-fitting with Mawdudi’s Jamaat, for Muhammad was considered to be illiterate and many of the first Muslim were likewise so, often from poor uneducated backgrounds, or were even slaves. Mawdudi, on the other hand, inherited an elitist, literati social base that was selected for his Jamaat.
Consequently, among that first gathering of the Jamaat were a number of considerably influential and intellectually well-achieved individuals. While Mawdudi was a scholar of considerable status, he did not stand out above his peers on this occasion. Others there harboured ambitions of leading the new party. Mention has already been made of the Deobandi scholar Muhammad Manzur Numani who attended the initial meeting in Pathankot in 1938 and from whom Mawdudi sought advice. In fact, Numani believed that the Jamaat was conceived jointly by himself and Mawdudi and he had made use of his own journal to garner support for the Jamaat. In fact, Numani could certainly claim some credit for the formation of the Jamaat, for a number of those influential figures at that first meeting would not have been there if it were not for his efforts.
Another possible contender was the eminent scholar Amin Ahsan Islahi (1904–97), who was editor of the journal Al-Islah and teacher at the seminary Madrasatu’l-Islah. Islahi had previously been a prominent pupil of another great scholar, Hamidu’ddin Farahi (d. 1930) and had carried on his work in Qur’anic exegesis, writing a monumental nine-volume work Tafthir, Tadabbur-i-Qur’an (‘Reflecting on the Qur’an’). He was not just a scholar, however, being politically active for a while, but was a resident of his local Congress Party and was an excellent orator. His support for the Jamaat was probably due to his own distaste for politics, hoping that the Jamaat would be a ‘party’ that was not sucked into the political arena in the same way the Muslim League or the Congress Party were.18
Nonetheless, the bulk of these initial members felt that the position should go to Mawdudi, if only because he had obviously put much more effort into its formation than the other contenders, and so he was elected by the majority on 27 August 1941. Once the members dispersed, the next stage was to propagate its message and increase membership. This was done largely through Tarjuman and Numani’s (who still claimed joint leadership) journal Al-Furqan. For the most part, those who joined the Jamaat were like-minded in the sense that they were disillusioned with the current batch of pro-Muslim, anti-British parties on the scene. They remained, on the whole, educated Muslims, including quite a number of the younger ulama. At first, its concern was not in winning elections or even campaigning for elections. Initially, the focus was on the propaganda of its message, which was essentially attacking the laxities of the others’ parties, and on working towards the education of Muslims in line with the initial Darul-islam. In fact, the party, on 15 June 1942, moved its base back to Pathankot. The reason for this must again be seen in the Jamaat’s paradigm of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Muslim community which left Mecca to found a new community in Medina. This hijra has become a powerful symbol of the Muslim need to withdraw from a corrupt, non-Islamic environment in order to renew itself. It was felt that Lahore was too embroiled within politics to be a suitable environment for this new umma.
The Pathankot years were a time for the party to organize itself and develop its unique platform to distinguish it from the other parties. It must have been a vibrant and interesting time, for many of the members would move to Pathankot or spend some time there to discuss and create this new party. Imagine such a collection of intellectuals from so many different schools of Islam: Deobandis, Nadwis, Islahis, the ahl-i hadith, all mingling, arguing, debating within the confines of a quiet provincial Pathankot community. All was by no means peaceful and united, however, and much of the initial disputes had to do with the ambiguity of the role of the amir, coupled with the competing egos of Mawdudi and Numani. Undoubtedly, once again utilizing the model of the Prophet Muhammad and the burgeoning Islamic umma of the seventh century AD, Mawdudi saw himself as the spiritual and ideological head of the Jamaat, whereas others saw him in a less ignoble role as a kind of administrative manager dealing with the paperwork and day-to-day administration that his fellow intellectuals preferred to avoid. Although, of course, Mawdudi would never claim or expect to have the same kind of obedience the Prophet could expect from his followers, he nonetheless constantly reiterated the need for discipline and obedience. The discrepancy arose as to the extent to which that obedience should be towards Mawdudi or towards the Jamaat as a whole. What arose yet again, as it had done at the 1938 Pathankot meeting, was the extent of Mawdudi’s religious piety or, even more specifically, the length of his beard! Given the status of so many members who had religious training this should not be surprising, and it was probably for the best that Mawdudi failed to attract older members of the ulama which would have caused even greater discord. Numani, especially, was still concerned over Mawdudi’s piety and would constantly challenge his authority, not to mention his moral standing. On the latter, Numani did have a point, relative to the image other members presented, in public at least. To begin with, Mawdudi, through his marriage to Mahmudah, was financially secure, and he seemed perfectly willing to display his new-found wealth, maintaining a separate house with a servant, while many other members lived spartan communal lives. Mahmudah’s relative laxity did not go unnoticed either. Numani argued that as Mawdudi had demanded that its members sacrifice their own personal gain for the sake of this new community, then Mawdudi should do the same: at the very least donate his earning from royalties of his books to Jamaat. Mawdudi responded that his royalties were a result of work he had done before the formation of the Jamaat and so it had no proprietary rights over these, which seemed like a rather puzzling argument. Numani also was critical of Mawdudi’s short beard and that he was lax in his attendance for dawn prayers.19 In the belief that he had support from other important figures in the Jamaat, Numani argued that Mawdudi should relinquish his position as amir. In a meeting of the shura in October 1942, Mawdudi offered to resign his position as amir or, alternatively, to dissolve the Jamaat altogether. It was a gamble that paid off, for the shura, in a panic, took Mawdudi’s side. As a consequence, Numani, together with a small number of his followers, resigned from the party altogether. In some ways this was a victory for Mawdudi’s leadership, but it was also a blow to lose some key intellectuals so early on in the gestation of the Jamaat. It was not to end there, for Numani continued his tirade against Mawdudi through his organ Al-Furqan, claiming that he, not Mawdudi, was the true leader of the Jamaat, and campaigning for others to join him by leaving Mawdudi’s party.
Although Numani was not successful in breaking up the Jamaat, or even causing any others to leave, it does demonstrate that the party was not as strong or united as it would like to be, as well as needing to address the very serious concern of the position of Mawdudi within the organization. Mawdudi was certainly in a stronger position now Numani was ousted and his other possible contender, Islahi, had stated: ‘I am not fanatical enough to jeopardise the future of Islam over the length of Mawdudi’s beard’,20 which is tantamount to declaring that regardless of Mawdudi’s public expression of piety, or lack thereof, it was far more important for the Jamaat to be unified under one leader. Having said that, Islahi would on occasion publicly express his concern over Mawdudi’s power over the party.
A further meeting of the shura reiterated the importance of the amir and, in 1945, Mawdudi was re-elected to that position. From then on, Mawdudi could work from a position of greater strength as he spread the word through a series of conventions across the country, which helped the party to grow in membership and stature. At the convention held in Pathankot in 1945, 800 people attended which, though still small by the standards of such parties as the Muslim Party or the Congress, was still significant given its meagre beginning only four years earlier. What was debated at these conventions were such things as Mawdudi’s theory of hukumat-i ilahiyah (‘divine government’ – see Chapter 10 in this volume) and, much more importantly at the time, how the party was to be organized. Despite growing numbers attending the conventions, it seems Mawdudi wished to steer well clear of a ‘populist’ movement, especially given his emphasis on the purity of Islam and the strict adherence to an Islamic code. This led to some dramatic purges, including 300 members – over 50 per cent of the membership at the time, being expelled in 1944 due to their perceived lack of piety! This seems somewhat ironic considering the accusations levelled against Mawdudi on previous occasions, and would not have gone unnoticed. Here was a serious problem for Mawdudi: how was he going to build up huge popular support – surely necessary if the party was to complete with the ‘giants’ – while being so drastically strict over the moral compass of its membership? Coupled with this was the dilemma of Mawdudi’s wish for a gradual transformation of society when the political changes around him were anything but gradual, with the ever-increasing prospect of Pakistan and the growing popularity of Jinnah. Mawdudi still seemed to be of the view that a small group of sincere, faithful and knowledgeable Muslims could somehow band together and a new society would organically ‘emerge’. This idealism got in the way of the political reality of Pakistan, and so it was becoming more and more essential for the Party to act in some concrete way on this matter. Vague ‘two-nation’ statements by Mawdudi were not enough.