Gandhi had for some years struggled to keep Muslims within the Congress Party, the latter of which was becoming more secularist in outlook. He hoped for a united India that was pluralist in religious outlook, but the opposite was occurring as religious factions fought against each other with the possibility of civil war increasing unless something was done. On 16 August, the Week of the Long Knives began with massive riots in Calcutta in which over 4,000 people were killed. Jinnah, calling for a separate Pakistan, declared 16 August to be Direct Action Day; effectively a general strike by Muslims which would involve a series of processions starting with Calcutta. But with such influential newspapers as the Star of India labelling the day a ‘jihad’ which – coinciding with the holy month of Ramadan – was a re-enactment of the paradigm of the Prophet Muhammad’s conflict with polytheists and his subsequent conquest of Mecca, it was inevitable that these processions would not go peacefully. Hindu papers and politicians were equally antagonistic. The rioting only ended after a week with the intervention of British troops.1
On 18 July 1947, the British government passed the Indian Independence Act, following on from the report known as the Radcliffe Line which divided Pakistan into two enclaves, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan which consisted of the majority Muslim areas. It was left to the 625 Princely States to decide whether to remain part of India or join with Pakistan. The events that followed are much documented and need not preoccupy us here.2 In terms of Mawdudi, he took the side of favouring a Pakistan, but distanced himself and the Jamaat from the policies and pronouncements of Jinnah and the Muslim League. The Jamaat was split into two bodies, the small Indian Jamaat (Jamaat-e-Islami Hind) which continued with Mawdudi’s original mission to build a society in India based on Islam, and the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. Mawdudi chose to be amir for the Pakistan Jamaat only which also had the majority of Jamaat members.
The Jamaat returned to Lahore where it became a much more tight-knit, well-organized unit as numbers increased. Mawdudi saw his party as the natural leader of Pakistan and believed it was only a matter of time before it took over the political reigns of the new nation. Pakistan would be Islamized in opposition to Jinnah’s view of Pakistan as primarily secularist in nature. Although now better organized, it was still unclear as to what actions to take. Its platform still focused primarily on the ‘long revolution’ of educating Muslims before there could be a change in the social and political structure of the country. Somewhat bizarrely given the incredible changes that were occurring at this time and place, the Jamaat went through something of a relative hibernation, shutting itself away from day-to-day politics and instead engaged more in religious work. It is curious that Mawdudi saw the Jamaat as the natural leader of Pakistan, yet it failed to take advantage of the opportunities that arose by being politically opportunist. Its approach seemed to be very much like that of the ulama which saw politics as essentially a dirty business. In fact, Mawdudi seemed more on the side of the ulama, certainly in the call for an Islamic constitution for Pakistan. After the creation of Pakistan, the Jamaat urged Muslims to refuse to pledge allegiance to the state on the basis that it was not Islamic, and that a Muslim’s only allegiance should be to God. This was a direct challenge to the Pakistani government’s legitimacy, which was tested even more with the growing crisis of Kashmir.
During partition, Princely States were given the right to side with Pakistan or India. Kashmir was in a curious position in that the majority of the population was Muslim and so it was expected to join with Pakistan. However, the Hindu maharaja was reluctant to do this and instead acceded his territory to India. Pakistan supported insurgents in Kashmir and, in 1948, the government called for a jihad in the territory to drum up support. However, Mawdudi, who had of course written and talked a great deal on jihad, stated that the state was not in a position to declare a jihad as they were not Islamic: its only options were either to accept the terms of a ceasefire or to call their action a war, not a jihad, which Mawdudi perceived as two entirely different things. The government, in response, stated that the Jamaat was pro-Indian and anti-Pakistan, and so arrested a number of its leaders, including Mawdudi, on the charge of sedition.
While continuing to attack the Muslim League, Mawdudi portrayed the Jamaat as the moral guardians of Pakistan: a holy community that did not dirty its hands in the mud of political wrangling. This was, of course, politically naive of Mawdudi. However, the actions of the government against the Jamaat to some extent catapulted the party into the political arena and, in hindsight, it may have been better for the government if it had simply ignored the statements of the Jamaat as inconsequential rather than imprison its leaders. The next step, then, was to get more involved in politics by actually running in an election, and the occasion was the March 1951 elections in Punjab. While Mawdudi was in prison, the two acting amirs, Abdul Hasan and Abdul Ghazi, put the proposal before the shura that the party should start participating in elections. The motion was passed, though with some opposition. However, it was not so straightforward, given the general ethos of the party that offering to be a part of a government for a state that it sees as un-Islamic seemed somewhat hypocritical. Instead a compromise was reached by which the Jamaat would not have its own candidates but would give its support to candidates that it considered to be ‘virtuous’ (salih): in this way the Jamaat could argue that its actions might prevent the election of a candidate that they considered to be of insufficient moral and religious integrity. It was thus ‘sanitizing politics’ rather than engaging directly in it. Perhaps this distinction was lost on the electorate, for those candidates the Jamaat supported had little success. Despite that, however, the Jamaat were now more within the political circle than before, which caused some discord among its members as they were divided over the role of the party. Should it engage in further elections in a more direct manner, or should it ‘withdraw’ once more and concentrate on its religious role? Mawdudi, released from prison in 1954, was now more inclined to become engaged politically, which resulted in dissension with many members arguing that the Jamaat had strayed from its original mandate of religious education, or ‘upholding the truth’ (haqq-parasti) to that of political opportunism (maslahat-parasti).3 The division that developed seemed to be among the largely younger, more politically inclined members, as opposed to the older, more ulama-oriented faction. In November 1956 the shura met to resolve this issue and proved to be the ‘longest and liveliest session in its history’4 lasting for 15 days. Some within the party argued that the Jamaat needed to return to its original activities, which caused Mawdudi to threaten his resignation. The result of the meeting was a four-point resolution: one, the Jamaat had veered from its original and proper course; two, the party should desist from its involvement in political elections; three, the platform of the Jamaat was based on Islamic principles, not on those of any particular individual or faction (an attack on Mawdudi); and, four, a new committee was to be established to ensure the resolution was carried out. In terms of Mawdudi’s authority, this resolution was significant, for it challenged his position within the party and essentially asserted that the party comes before the man. Mawdudi did not take this lying down, however, but called for the resignation of the members of the new committee established to enforce the resolutions. These committee members, Mawdudi argued, were exceeding their powers and were factionalizing the Jamaat, as well as acting against the Jamaat’s constitution. These were, frankly, somewhat unfounded accusations, given that the shura had appointed the committee members in the first place, and Mawdudi himself had been instrumental in that approval. Mawdudi went even further by resigning from the Jamaat altogether. This was a gamble, but a calculated one by Mawdudi given that he was now a national figure and something of a hero for many, having served a prison sentence. With his resignation, the party as a whole was in danger of collapse as no one else had the same amount of authority and charisma as Mawdudi by this stage. Mawdudi was the party. Ironically, Mawdudi had previously argued that no one man was bigger than the Jamaat, whereas now he was taking advantage of his support within the party to argue for his own authority as greater than that of the shura. Mawdudi was reinstated and he made sure that his opponents either resigned or were expelled. In a six-hour speech, Mawdudi demanded that the Jamaat engage in more political action and he introduced a new agenda to replace the four-point resolution of 1951. While remaining true to its ideals as a religious party, a ‘holy community’, the Jamaat would also engage in electoral politics as a primary aim. This was not only a shift for Jamaat, but for Mawdudi also. Although the Jamaat was ‘purged’ of some of its influential members, it did not suffer terribly in numbers and it meant, of course, that Mawdudi’s power was as absolute as it was possible to be with no dissenting voices of any worth. As the Jamaat became more of a political animal, Mawdudi became more of a politician in reflection of that.
The tables were now turned: instead of the view that you have to start with the individual soul before you can change society, it was now society that came first and would eventually lead to the transformation of the individual. In a way, this u-turn was inevitable if the Jamaat were to survive, and it seems that Mawdudi must be given credit for realizing this. Pakistan was, some 10 years after its creation, a given fact, and the Jamaat had to find a place within this political reality. Jinnah had died soon after partition and so was no longer the target of attack for the Jamaat, and in 1956 it became a republic with a constitution which Mawdudi had helped to draft and which addressed a number of the concerns of the Jamaat. The party needed a new direction and a new target for concern:
By 1956 the Jama’at had lost its intellectual momentum. Its zeal and ideological perspective had been important for the development of contemporary Muslim thought in the Subcontinent and elsewhere, but the party was no longer producing ideas which would sustain its vitality as a religious movement and secure a place for it at the forefront of Islamic revivalist thinking. Most of Mawdudi’s own seminal works, outlining his views on Islam, society, and politics had been written between 1932 and 1948. His worldview and thought had fully taken shape by the time he moved to Pakistan. All subsequent amendments to Jama’at’s ideology pertained to politics more than theology. Its experience over the decade of 1946–56 had shown that its contribution and influence lay not so much in what it espoused but in its organizational muscle and political activism. Its survival as a holy community could no longer be guaranteed; it was in politics that the party had to search for a new lease on life.5
To this end, in 1957, Mawdudi took the decision that the Jamaat would participate in the 1958 national elections. The party now moved away from its ‘ideological’ period to a more pragmatic political phase, with the amir now having much greater control over the platform of the party. However, before these elections could take place, General Ayub Khan initiated a military coup and would remain in power until 1969. One of Ayub Khan’s concerns was the encroachment of religion into politics, opting for a modernizing, secular agenda. This coup was actually quite popular among much of the population of Pakistan, but was a severe blow for Jamaat’s hopes of a religious state. Any talk of an Islamic state was silenced and the Jamaat’s offices were closed down with its funds confiscated. The state-controlled media pursued a propagandist attack against religious parties and members of the Jamaat were unable to function in any effective way. Any activities Jamaat engaged in had to be done surreptitiously through subsidiary organizations that remained as distant from Jamaat as possible. The party relied heavily on its publications, not only financially but also in promoting its message and acquiring new members and supporters. While Ayub Khan was in power, in 1963, the Jamaat set up a subsidiary publishing house in Lahore called Islamic Publications and which actually has become the Jamaat’s main source for its publications in Pakistan. Another subsidiary set up the same year was the Islamic Research Academy of Karachi, the primary role of which was to disseminate, under the guise of a ‘think-tank’, the Jamaat’s policies among the civil service.6
Mawdudi survived one attempt on his life and was imprisoned twice during the Ayub Khan years (1964 and again in 1967). Given the severe restrictions of religious parties, the best that the Jamaat could do was to seek alliances with secular parties, the so-called Combined Opposition Parties, in support of democracy against the military regime. This, curiously, seems opposite to Mawdudi’s views on democracy and, even more of an apparent compromise of his views on women in society, the Jamaat supported the candidacy of Muhammad Jinnah’s sister, the popular Fatima Jinnah (d. 1967) in the 1965 elections.7 These certainly seemed to be examples of political pragmatism taking precedence over ideology, although Mawdudi attempted to justify it, rather unconvincingly for many members, by arguing that it was a warranted evil to combat a greater evil. This simply did not wash with many as it got to the very roots of the extent to which the Jamaat could even be called a religious party, or ‘holy community’ any more. Mawdudi could have appealed to historical and theological precedents and may well have had these in mind as his ‘paradigms’ for behaviour. For example, when Yazid, the son of the fifth Sunni Caliph Mu’awiyah, succeeded he was considered weak and corrupt, but the majority simply accepted that a united umma under an evil Caliph was preferred to a disunited umma. The important thing is the maintenance of the umma, regardless of the piety of its ruler, and shura 4:59 is often quoted as a defence of this doctrine: ‘Believers, obey God and obey the Apostle and those in authority among you.’ For Mawdudi, what was more important was the unity of the Jamaat rather than allowing for ideological debate and dissent. Consequently, Mawdudi would more and more rely upon simply expelling members who disputed his programme. The party, as so often happens when they become ‘political’, ceased to be a diverse and vibrant hotbed for intellectual debate, and instead became a monolithic, pragmatic, reactive political animal: a Platonic ‘large and powerful animal’ instead of a ‘Republic’ of Philosopher-Kings.
Ayub Khan reneged the 1956 constitution and established a new, more secular constitution in 1961 which Khan stated was modelled on the policies of Thomas Jefferson. Although elections were held during his presidency, they were most likely rigged. Undoubtedly, Pakistan experienced a period of modernization and economic prosperity during his Presidency. Khan, for example, introduced the Muslim Family Laws in 1961 which abolished unmitigated polygamy and gave greater powers to the wife who had to consent to a second marriage, and also could not be divorced merely by the husband pronouncing talaq three times. He also allied the country to the US against the Soviet Union which resulted in major economic aid. The economy grew rapidly during this period, but it also resulted in a greater gap between the rich and the poor which resulted in more people, outside the prosperous cities especially, looking to Islam. In fact, Ayub Khan would at times have to look to Islam to legitimize his actions, most notably during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 when he appealed to Mawdudi to declare the war a jihad. However, on the whole, these appeals to Islam were few and far between which resulted in the Jamaat becoming even more politicized. Ayub Khan’s chosen successor, Yahya Khan (1917–80) held elections in December 1970, in which the Jamaat took part. Mawdudi did a tour of Pakistan, declaring that he would be the country’s next leader. The party fielded 151 seats, but won only four seats in the National Assembly. The current amir, Syed Munawar Hassan (elected April 2009) was leader of a group who, in 1970 after defeat in the elections, was highly critical of Mawdudi and argued that they had lost the elections because of him. Essentially this was an indirect attack on Mawdudi as being considered too old and out of touch, and it was a call for new leadership. This defeat had an effect on Mawdudi who, now disillusioned with politics, resorted back to his vision of the Jamaat as a holy community divorced from the political world, but by this time many members of the party simply ignored him as his status had now diminished. Mawdudi, after suffering a mild heart attack, stepped down as amir in 1972 following the election of a rather uncharismatic Mian Tufayl (then secretary general) which led to even greater political activism of the Jamaat, especially as a reaction against the socialism of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the rise of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1928–79), although this time under the banner of Islam rather than an anti-Ayub Khan protest in support of democracy.8
Although Mawdudi had stepped down as amir, he nonetheless remained involved in Jamaat activities. In fact, while Mian Tufayl was in prison in 1977, Mawdudi returned as de facto leader of the party and spearheaded opposition to Bhutto’s leadership. When Bhutto called for fresh elections in the same year, nine seats were taken by the Jamaat and, when General Zia ul-Haqq announced martial law, the General acknowledged the importance of Jamaat and other religious parties, according Mawdudi the status of senior statesman. Much to Mawdudi’s pleasure, Zia began a process of Islamization of Pakistan with the establishment of sharia benches to replace what was essentially British law, which included the controversial Hudood Ordinance that substituted imprisonment or a fine for theft with the amputation of the right hand. The drinking and selling of alcohol by Muslims was banned and, under the Zina Ordinance, anyone married and found to have committed adultery would be stoned to death. Mawdudi also approved of Zia’s decision to execute Bhutto.
Mawdudi, however, would not live to see how far Zia was successful in his Islamization programme, for, in April 1979, he went to Buffalo in New York for treatment for a long-time kidney ailment and heart problems. Following a series of operations he died there on 22 September 1979. The funeral was in Buffalo, but he was then transported to Lahore for another, large funeral procession through its streets.
The way the Jamaat was organized has proved to be an important model for many significant Islamic groups that came after it, both in India and elsewhere in the Islamic world, and so it is important to devote some space to how Mawdudi’a Jamaat was a concrete expression of his own ideology. As we shall see, it was also a reflection of how Mawdudi envisioned the structure of an Islamic state.9
In actual fact, in the party’s early years, it was organized very simply, consisting of Mawdudi as the amir, the majlis-i shura and its members (arkan). In line with Mawdudi’s principles, the Jamaat was strict in its hierarchy for not only its members, but also non-members who were divided into three sections, the lowest being the mutaarif (those only introduced to Jamaat), next the mutaathir (those acknowledged as being influenced by the Jamaat’s policies) and finally the hamdard (sympathizers). This ‘pool’ of non-membership was dipped into to find new members, but also fulfilled a role as helpers, or ‘workers’ (karkuns) for various menial but necessary party tasks (stuffing envelopes and the like). With the upcoming Punjab elections of 1951, the Jamaat hierarchy was revised with the replacement of mutaarif and mutaathir with mutaffiq (affiliates) who actually were considered higher than the hamdard as they were targeted as potential members and had to abide by the code of conduct of the Jamaat.
The problem of membership was heightened as the party became more political: if the party wanted to be popular, then it had to enrol more members, but this conflicted with Mawdudi’s insistence that members should be ‘pure’; that is, as ‘Islamic’ and morally upright according to the party’s codes. Given Mawdudi’s own perception of most people in Pakistan as failing miserably in attaining this level of piety, this did not bode well for a huge membership base. In many ways, the category of ‘affiliate’ resolved this, for, although they were supposed to abide by the party’s code of conduct, the fact that they were not members did not require them to be so pious and committed in all respects. Also, the affiliates were closely scrutinized and sent to training camps to determine if any were suitable to rise to the status of membership.
Commitment was a key aspect of membership, for it certainly was not a matter of simply signing a card and getting on with your life as if nothing had changed. This was a reflection of the fact that you were not merely becoming a member of a ‘party’ but a citizen of a new religious community with a set of values that must be obeyed. To ensure adherence, the Jamaat – which was divided across the country into units – held weekly local meetings to which all members must attend. If a member missed more than two of these meetings without a good excuse, then he would be expelled from the party. At these meetings, discussion and the airing of views were allowed but, by the end of the meeting, all decisions reached must be abided by for all members. There were also regular national meetings, the first in 1945 in Pathankot and, with the creation of Pakistan, the first in this new nation was in Lahore in 1949. These meetings, until 1989, were only open to members and affiliates.
Mention has already been made of how the Jamaat was organized as a series of concentric circles. That is, how the party was structured at national level was reflected at provincial, divisional, district, city, town and village levels.10 At each level, then, the hierarchy of amir, deputy amir, secretary-general and shura was mirrored as much as possible. Obviously, the position of amir is the most important and the supreme source of authority. Mawdudi was originally elected by the shura by a majority vote for five years until 1956 when he was then elected by all members. The shura select three candidates for amir and the members then vote for these in a secret ballot. Although the authority of the amir is immense, there are certain checks and balances. Any matters concerning doctrine, for example, must go before the shura, and the amir can be impeached by a two-thirds majority of the shura. So far, an amir has never been voted out of office and so in all its history it has up until now only four amirs,11 which is quite exceptional when considered along other parties. The position of deputy amir,12 incidentally, at least during Mawdudi’s reign, had little power, except to act as amir when Mawdudi was absent.
More importantly was the majlis-i shura. Originally it consisted of 12 elected members but, again due to the 1951 Punjab elections, membership increased to 16 and, by 1972, that number had enlarged even further to 60 in order to give its members greater representation. By escalating in number this gave the shura greater power, which on the whole did not concern Mawdudi as it also resulted in reducing the power of individual members, usually with the exception of Mawdudi, whose power of personality was sufficient in most cases. The shura would meet normally only once or twice a year, although it could be called to meet at any time by either the majority of its members or by the amir. Its function is to review party activities and to make policy decisions. Consequently it has a number of subcommittees in various areas of policy making. Mawdudi believed that the concept of the shura had its origins in the first Islamic society, with the Prophet Muhammad as the amir. Like the time of the Prophet, the shura of the Jamaat could only decide policy through ijma; consensus. That is, ideally, the whole of the shura must agree to a decision which would, on occasion, involve lengthy debate of persuasion of one party attempting to convince another. The secretary general is appointed by the amir via consultation with the shura. His role is essentially to deal with the bureaucracy, although it is a position of considerable power and has, since Mawdudi, usually resulted in the secretary general becoming the next amir.
So far, no mention has been made of women within the Jamaat but, in actual fact, there has been a women’s wing since February 1948 which, although it has no amir, does have a secretary general and a shura. The majority of its membership consists of the wives and daughters of men who are members of the Jamaat, and it also has its own seminary, the Jami’atu’l-Muhsinat (‘Society of the Virtuous’) which trains women to become religious teachers and even preachers. It also has its own publications, most significantly Batul (this means ‘virgin’ in Arabic and is an epithet of the Virgin Mary), which devotes its pages to articles on women’s roles in Islam, as well as encouraging membership.
Financially speaking, throughout most of Mawdudi’s reign as amir, the Jamaat barely kept itself at subsistence level, relying as it did from the sale of books and from voluntary contributions. This situation changed for the better with the coming to power of Bhutto in 1971 who promoted socialist policies. These policies put private industry in a panic as nationalization came into place, and so private companies and wealthy entrepreneurs would plough money into any parties that were in opposition to Bhutto’s policies. The Jamaat also benefited from such foreign governments as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait who, as monarchies, were not keen to see socialism succeed in a Muslim country. This funding has increased considerably since Mawdudi stepped down.
Mention has already been made of the importance of dissemination of Jamaat’s views through the medium of its publications and institutes. Due to the nature of the material, this tended to appeal to highly educated Muslims, but there were also more populist magazines such as the Urdu Digest13 which, though not officially part of Jamaat, have tended to reflect the ideological views of the party. Unions too have had an extremely important role to play, notably the long-standing student union, Islami Jami’at-i Tulabah (or IJT as it is popularly known), in recruiting younger educated Muslims to its cause. The importance of recruiting young Muslim students (talibs) to a cause cannot be overstated, as has been evidenced historically with such organizations as the Taliban. The IJT was officially formed in December 1947 in Lahore by just 25 students, most of whom were the sons of Jamaat members. The union quickly spread to other colleges and universities across Pakistan. It was unashamedly proselytizing, engaging in missionary (dawa) activity, including such techniques as a ‘study circle’ and all-night study sessions. It has produced a journal, ’Azm, and an English-language magazine, Student’s Voice. Ayub Khan’s socialist policies galvanized the IJT into an anti-leftist body that was not always peaceful, organizing demonstrations against leftist students that resulted in violent clashes. This was not always to the liking of Mawdudi and the Jamaat, who often had to engage in more subtle methods, and the activities of the IJT often had to be reigned in from above, which also meant that members of IJT became more involved in the day-to-day activities and debates of the Jamaat. The more radical and politicized IJT did not always see eye to eye with the relatively more moderate and ideological Jamaat. At other times, however, Mawdudi, becoming more political later on, saw the advantage of a radicalized, militant group of young Muslims, and would actively encourage the demonstrations at opportune moments to express to the government, Ayub Khan’s especially, the unrest among the future leaders of the country. In addition, as was clearly demonstrated in the Paris riots of May 1968, the evidence was there as to what chaos students could cause and what power they had with the right incitement. Later on, in the early 1970s, the IJT even formed paramilitary groups to fight Bengali separatists. As a consequence again of Ayub Khan’s leftist policies and the introduction of socialist unions, Jamaat student unions sprung up in the 1960s to represent such bodies as medicine, law, peasants, female students, and so on.
The identity of the Jamaat was always a problematic one during Mawdudi’s amirship, primarily because Mawdudi was not always sure what ideology the Jamaat was meant to uphold, moving as he did from a more universalist, pan-Islamic outlook, to a particularistic perspective focused on Pakistan. However, the Jamaat, while on the one hand needing to concentrate on the day-to-day political issues that arose in Pakistan, always felt – at least Mawdudi always felt – that whatever it did in Pakistan was a paradigm for how Muslims should behave everywhere. Ultimately, the aim for Mawdudi was the creation of an Islamic society, a new umma, which may, pragmatically speaking, have to start off ‘small scale’ with Pakistan, but ultimately the aim was a Muslim world. Mawdudi, like so many Muslims before and after him, had a dualist view of the world; a bifurcation of the ‘abode of peace’ and the ‘abode of war’, of good and evil. Ultimately, the battles that Jamaat fought in the political arena were symbolic of a metaphysical battle between Islam – the force for good and divine law – and Jahiliyyah – the force of evil and disorder. This is why many Muslims in the Arab world supported the activities of the Jamaat. The fact that this was a Muslim party in a country far removed from the Arab states politically, ethnically, socially, and so on, was entirely irrelevant to the fact that it was a Muslim group and, as such, national borders did not matter. What mattered was the never-ending paradigm of Islam acting upon the world, which had its origins with the Prophet Muhammad and the first Islamic community. To this end, Jamaat’s activities were not limited to Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami sprang up in other countries, in India of course, but also Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, North America (the Islamic Circle), and the UK (Islamic Mission).14 Mawdudi’s considerable writings have also, from the beginning, been propagated across the world by translating his writings into the lingua franca of the Muslim world, Arabic (Mawdudi wrote in Urdu), and then also into English, Turkish and other languages as diverse as Japanese and Swahili. Although the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan has always remained focused on Pakistani affairs, it has also supported Muslims in other parts of the world when necessary.