10
Jihad and the permanent revolution

It has been said that Mawdudi’s views on revolution are essentially Marxist¹ and are tied in with his views on jihad (see below). However, like so much of Mawdudi’s writings, there is considerable ambiguity here. He hardly appears very ‘Marxist’ when, in the 1950s, he opposed the Pakistan Prime Minister Liaqat ’Ali Khan’s land reform in the Punjab, arguing that it is wrong to punish property and that Islam justifies jagirdari. A ‘jagir’, incidentally, was a small territory granted by a ruler or chieftain granted on a short-term basis (about three years) for services rendered. The receiver of this land could then work the land, but the income was taxed and went to the owner. In effect, Mawdudi seemed to be arguing for a form of medieval feudalism!² Mawdudi was clear that an Islamic state could not occur until the existing political order was removed, and this inevitably would result in some direct action. However, Mawdudi is ambiguous in his writings, but the overall impression is that he was not in support of violent revolution and, instead, saw revolution as a piecemeal thing that is evolutionary in character. Therefore, the word ‘revolution’ might seem a misnomer when referring to Mawdudi’s political agenda, as it would be an orderly transfer of power rather than a spontaneous overthrowing of the existing order. As we have seen, Mawdudi looks back to the prophetic era as his paradigm, with the Prophet extolling such virtues as patience and pacifism. In this respect, Mawdudi’s notion of revolution is more ethical in nature, rather than social or political. That is, people’s moral nature needs to change before society can change. As Nasr notes:

what Mawdudi meant by the term revolution was a process of changing the ethical basis of society, which should begin at the top and permeate into the lower strata. It was a process of cultural engineering based on definite criteria and postulates, which not only would shape society in the image of the din, but would also prepare the ground for an Islamic state. Other social dialectics or aspirations, such as changes in the social structure, were not central to this process and, at any rate, could be accommodated within the framework of the Islamic state.³

Yet it is curious that Mawdudi devotes so much of his writings to constructing a utopian vision with a specific political, economic and legal structure. His vision is, of course, hierarchical, and his concern was always very ‘non-Marxist’ in that his revolution did not require the conversion of the hearts and minds of all. Indeed, as has been evident in the foregoing chapters, Mawdudi had little faith in the majority of the population ever changing all that much. What mattered was what occurred at the top; with the leadership of the Islamic state. As he states, ‘It is not the people’s thoughts which changes society, but the minds of society’s movers and leaders.’⁴ The emphasis on education, then, is to train an elite, a ‘vanguard’, that would lead the rest. This begs the question as to whether it was either possible or, for that matter, desirable, that such an education would, in time, be open to all. Again, there is ambiguity here, for at times he talks of revolution being a gradual and peaceful process in which the Muslim people would, presumably over a number of generations, become more in line with Mawdudi’s notion of din, but, as has been shown, at other times Mawdudi talks of the need to obey the rulers, and the use of force to impose an Islamic order was not ruled out. This is borne out when one looks at the structure of the Jamaat, which was effectively Mawdudi’s ‘mini-state’ in action.

As Lapidus rightly notes, ‘Pakistan was born as an Islamic state to differentiate it from the rest of the [Indian] subcontinent, but Muslim identity [did] not prove adequate to unite the country internally.’⁵ Not only has it not proved adequate, it has often been the case as considered unnecessary and as something of a hindrance, at least so far as the ruling parties were concerned. Pakistan was to be, politically, a non-religious body with ‘Islam’ perceived as a rather superficial concept that could be used as a term of communal spirit, although in effect devoid of any real power; the constitution and important institutions being British in nature. The 1956 constitution, although declaring Pakistan to be an ‘Islamic State’ in an attempt to placate religious leaders (Mawdudi included), was paid little heed by the rulers; partly due to the pre-occupation with the conflict between West and East Pakistan. The issue of an Islamic state did not really achieve any dominance until January 1972 when Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was sworn in with the question of an Islamic state high on the agenda. However, Bhutto’s preference for a secular constitution, not to mention his own personal preference for alcohol and various other forms of non-Islamic activities, resulted in his use of the term ‘Islam’ – more specifically, ‘Islamic Socialism’ – merely as a way of placating the religious parties. The next chapter will go into more detail on this, but it is worth bearing in mind that, in actuality, Pakistan polity has on the whole acted according to its own secularized agenda. In June 1980, General Zia ul-Haq – who deposed Bhutto in a military coup in July 1977 – introduced a legal code that was stated to be consistent with sharia, repealing all existing non-Islamic civil laws and creating religious courts. The intention was for sharia to cover personal law (including women’s rights), the economy and the education system. However, not only was the military regime maintained – and, thus, political authority maintained through force – but, most significantly, the imposition of sharia resulted in women’s groups and human rights organizations condemning this proposed Islamization as a curtailment of freedom, while minority groups, such as the Shia, resisted the application of Hanafi laws by setting up a political party in opposition.⁶ This is significant because it shows that, even among Muslims themselves, their very diversity results in objection to the setting up of one sharia school.⁷

Benazir Bhutto, elected to office in November 1988, had to tread a thin line between avoiding the same mistakes as Zia, while avoiding being labelled ‘godless’ like Ali Bhutto. Sharia laws are rarely put into practice, and trials have been frozen for many years. The controversy in early 1995 over the introduction of the mandatory death sentence for blasphemy – introduced by Nawar Sharif during his brief period in power – is an example of how difficult it is to introduce Islamic law: the case of the two Christians accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, which was overturned in the High Court at the beginning of 1995, led to riots and the increased persecution of minority – specifically Christian – groups. It also raises the question of whether or not it is, in fact, ‘Islamic’ to sentence to death for blasphemy. For example, Ziauddin Sardar commented at the time that, ‘Islamic law does not recognise blasphemy. Indeed, the classical jurists could not even define it … The Koran unequivocally states that the punishment or reward for insulting God lies with Him alone – Muslims, mullahs and the courts have nothing to do with it. The ‘“penalty” for blaspheming or abusing the Prophet, even though it affects every fibre of a believing Muslim, is forgiveness.’⁸

Pakistan is by no means within the category of Mawdudi’s pure Islamic state; there still remains a clear separation between the polity and religious organizations. Added to this, the situation in Pakistan has highlighted the difficulties of attempting to Islamize a relatively modern state. Among Muslim themselves, particularly women and the Shia minority, there is conflict over the imposition of sharia law. In fact, violence and confusion has resulted from the difficulties of defining and imposing Islamic law, the blasphemy law being a typical example. Also, minority groups – Christians, Hindus and the Ahmadi, for example – have suffered persecution and been accused of heresy. These are all problems that Mawdudi failed to address adequately.

Other historical precedents?

It is worth considering whether an Islamic state is really possible and if there are any precedents in Islamic history that Mawdudi could have appealed to, apart, of course, from the golden age narrative which, it has been shown, was not really that much of a ‘golden age’ at all. To what extent, as one example, did Muammar Qaddafi’s Islamic revolution result in the formation of a pure Islamic state, or is it just another case of using Islam as a means to legitimize authoritarian rule? Qaddafi deposed the conservative monarchy of King Idris – who had himself legitimated his rule on the basis of his descent from the nineteenth-century revivalist leader Muhammad ibn al-Sanusi – in September 1969 and installed his new government along the lines of what he described as Islamic socialism. Qaddafi immediately banned alcohol, gambling and nightclubs. Criminal penalties, the hudud, were reinstated, including amputation of the hand for theft and stoning for fornication and adultery. In his Green Book, Qaddafi proposed a new political and social order that would be a third alternative to capitalism or communism. Such exclamations are not unlike Mawdudi’s claims that his theo-democracy was a distinctive alternative to current world ideologies, but it is hardly likely that Mawdudi would approve of the populist state (jamahiriyah) that was based, ‘not on the divine guidance of the Qur’an or the example of the Prophet, but the iconoclastic thought of Qaddafi’.⁹ Libya’s Al-Jamahiryah was to be a people’s state, with a decentralized, participating government of people’s committees which would control government offices, schools, the media and many corporations. Private land ownership was, in principle, abolished, as was private retail trade. Qaddafi also denied the authority and binding force of many hadith, changed the date of the Muslim calendar, declared that the pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj, was not obligatory, and equated zakat with social security. He also denounced the ulama as ‘reactionaries’ and rejected their perceived role as guardians of Islam, stating: ‘As the Muslims have strayed from Islam, a review is demanded. The [Libyan revolution] is a revolution rectifying Islam, presenting Islam correctly and purifying Islam of the reactionary practices which dressed it in retrograde clothing not its own.’¹⁰ Not surprisingly, Qaddafi earned the condemnation of many Muslims both inside and outside Libya for such an unorthodox interpretation of Islam. He was condemned by the ulama and by Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Liberation Organization who – though sharing Qaddafi’s criticisms of the religious establishment as decadent – perceived Qaddafi as an opportunist who has manipulated and diluted Islam for his own purposes. However, Qaddafi had many admirers, at least during the early period of the revolution, and his Green Book is, in many respects, a stimulating and intelligent proposition, but this is far removed from considering it to be Islamic or offering a possible model for an Islamic state.

Significantly, the first volume of his Green Book, entitled ‘The Solution to the Problem of Democracy’, makes no mention of Islam (or, for that matter, religion). The second volume, ‘Solution of the Economic Problem: Socialism’, also makes no mention of Islam. The third volume, ‘Social Basis of the Third International Theory’, states that, ‘every nation should have a religion’, but emphasizes that the ‘national factor’ should be the ‘driving force of human history’, and that a state established on religion is a ‘temporary structure which will be destroyed’.¹¹

In explaining his lack of attention to religion, Qaddafi states that:

the Third International Theory is based on religion and nationalism – any religion and any nationalism … We do not present Islam as a religion in the Third Theory. For if we do so, we will be excluding from the Third Theory all the non-Muslims, something which we evidently do not want. In the Third Theory, we present the applications of Islam from which all mankind may benefit.¹²

Learning from the examples of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal, Qaddafi uses Islamic rhetoric to portray himself as the leader and hero of the Arab world, and, indeed, the Third World, but this rhetoric, though often using Islamic terminology, seems more secularizing and closer to communism than in any way religious. Qaddafi’s type of political reform is really a secular ideology, using ‘Islam’ interchangeably with ‘nationalism’ or ‘socialism’. This has had its appeal, especially among many modern Muslims who have had little contact with doctrinal Islam and were disillusioned with the material promises of the twentieth century. However, as Lisa Anderson so rightly points out:

Qaddafi’s claims were merely those of an individual, idiosyncratic and – in the context of the debates on Islam and Islamic reform – insignificant. His visibility was due to his having captured political power in a wealthy oil-producing country, not to the sophistication, utility, or representativeness of his philosophy as an example of modern-day Islamic thought. His was not a religious reformation; it was, in terms of religious history, a heresy, and as such it is not likely to represent much more than a footnote to the worldwide debate on Islam and Islamic reform.¹³

If it is indeed as mere ‘footnote’, we had best look elsewhere, and another possible candidate for the kind of Islamic revolution Mawdudi was looking for would surely be likely in Egypt. As John Esposito has pointed out, Egypt ‘had offered a barometer for modernization which was predominantly Western and secular in orientation … Today Egypt provides a remarkable example of the diverse and complex impact of Islam on socio-political development.’¹⁴

Upon Gamal Abdel Nasser’s death in 1970, Anwar Sadat relied upon Islam heavily to obtain legitimacy, declaring himself ‘The Believer President’: building mosques, increasing Islamic education in schools and adopting typical Islamic rhetoric. However, he was criticized – by the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood – for his pro-western stance and his fondness for western products and way of life, as well as the failure of his government to implement the Islamic laws. In February 1979, by calling for a separation between religion and politics, he angered Muslim organizations even more, and was conflicting with his media in statements such as, ‘Islam is the religion of the state’ and the sharia is ‘the main source of legislation’ when it obviously was not.¹⁵ As opposition to Sadat grew, so did his authoritarianism and suppression of dissent. On 6 October 1981, he was assassinated by the Jamaat al-Jihad (‘Organization for Holy War’) who proclaimed that jihad was the sixth pillar of Islam, and that ‘We have to establish the rule of God’s Religion in our own country first, and to make the Word of God supreme … There is no doubt that the first battlefield for jihad is the extermination of these infidel leaders and to replace them by a complete Islamic Order. From here we should start.’¹⁶ However, Egypt has paid little heed to the more militant elements of Islamist groups and has pursued a process of secularization since the 1952 revolution. In the past, the Egyptian ulama had some influence in respect of which rulers seriously consulted them, and even forced the Mamluk ruler to give into them on at least one occasion.¹⁷ At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the ulama played a leading role in the rise to power of Muhammad Ali Pasha,¹⁸ although Pasha then proceeded to break their power by removing their independent sources of income and turning them into ‘propagandists for his regime’ in return for ‘high positions’.¹⁹ Such has been the situation since; acting as ‘yes-men’ for Nasser, with the topic for Friday prayers being prepared by the government:²⁰ ‘When Nasser established a highly statist economy under the rubric of Arab socialism, he had no trouble obtaining a plethora of statements from the religious establishment that Islam, correctly understood, has always called for socialism.’²¹

Sadat, in his turn, also used government control of nationalized mosques and religious institutions – as well as the dependence of the ulama on the government for its salaries – to dictate and control sermons and mosque activities.²² Sadat’s successor, Husni Mubarak, has avoided the flamboyance of Sadat and has generally pursued a path of greater political liberalization and tolerance for moderate Islamic organizations. As a result, the Muslim Brotherhood has become a major force; although Mubarak has not allowed the Brotherhood to become a political party.

Socially, there has been something of a ‘quiet revolution’ by the Brotherhood, with an increase in Qur’an study groups (led by men and women), mosques and private associations: ‘Islamic identity is expressed not only in formal religious practices but also in the social services offered by psychiatric and drug rehabilitation centres, dental clinics, day-care centres, legal-aid societies, and organizations which provide subsidized housing and food distribution or run banks and investment houses.’²³ The polity comes across among many in Egypt as little concerned for the Egyptian people, and more preoccupied with tourism. In the Cairo earthquake of 1992, it was the Muslim Brotherhood who responded more quickly than the government, providing food, shelter and medical aid.²⁴

While society is developing a form of moderate Islamic morality, any attempt by religious organizations to become involved in state politics is perceived as a threat to state security. Islamic revolutionaries have become more marginalized in their appeal, but this is largely because Mubarak has clamped down hard on any form of ‘fundamentalist’ group through the power of the emergency laws that allow the imprisonment of anyone without charge for up to 60 days if they are suspected of threatening state security. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) has frequently accused the government of using torture.²⁵ Mass arrests, closed military trials and executions of suspected terrorists are now the norm. A state that relies on force to maintain its legitimacy is not a legitimate Islamic state and, although a superficial appearance may be of a state that maintains a balance between the polity and society, this so-called balance is delicate indeed.

In the case of Pakistan, the Objectives Resolution of 1949 has rarely seen the light of day, although it has at least attempted ‘to blend Islamization with the existing long-established infrastructure and momentum of a modern state’,²⁶ which has certainly been a fact noticed by such ‘modernized’ states as Turkey and Algeria. Its Islamization has, at least by Iran’s standards, been quite moderate; but this may also be seen as merely tentative, making generally quite harmless concessions to Islamists – such as the setting up of various Islamic committees and a zakat administration – but failing to break down the old order to any real extent. Nor does it offer much in the way of an attractive model of an Islamic state for other nations. In the case of Libya, though perhaps the most radical of alternatives, Qaddafi’s exclusion of the hadith and most of the sharia law allows for little prospect of attracting the Islamists. The highly personal nature of the Libyan revolution and the charismatic authority of Qaddafi, for that matter, probably allows for little in the way of a solid base for his successor. Egypt is a nation that has exerted an influence over Muslim nations for centuries and which continues to possess a prolific and rich degree of intellectual activity. However, for the last three decades at least, the balance between the religious organizations and modernist society has been upset, which has resulted in violence and political oppression. In the past, this balance has relied on the ulama remaining quiet and being ‘paid off’ for its acquiescence. But, in the future, should a new dialogue be established between the religious and the secular, it is difficult to see how this could promote a model of an Islamic state where one body is dominant (the polity) while the other (the religious groups) ‘toes the line’. The goals of the Muslim Brotherhood most likely do not rest in the social sphere, as it continues to support the principles of its founder, Hassan al-Banna, and one of its most notable members, Sayyid Qutb (see Chapter 6 in this volume). Qutb, influenced by Mawdudi, believed that Islamic ideology: ‘provides the individual with a goal greater than himself, the goal becomes the society in which he lives and humanity of which he is a member’.²⁷ His liberationist ideology stresses that: ‘Muslims must combat oppression and injustice wherever they are found, even though it is the oppression of the individual against himself, the oppression of society against itself, or the oppression of the government against its constituents.’²⁸ Like Mawdudi, Qutb uses the terms jihad and jahiliyya to describe the struggle against the ‘irreligious’, whether these be communist countries, polytheist countries, or any government, laws, values or traditions within Egypt itself that do not come under the Islamic banner. Consequently, the present Egyptian government does not fulfil Qutb’s, the Muslims Brotherhood’s or Mawdudi’s concept of an Islamic state.

Ideology versus human will

An issue that always emerges is the extent to which it is possible to implant a religious ideology upon a state and still maintain any degree of human free will. By its nature divine law must be obeyed and if it can indeed be demonstrated that God has something to say on all matters – political, social and otherwise – then little seems to be left for human beings to decide for themselves. For Mawdudi, this was just as well, as he had little faith in human beings to make the right decisions anyway, but such a cynical view of human nature surely must rob the individual of any sense of self-determination. The extent to which it is possible to have an Islamic state and still allow for free will is a topic that has been hotly debated by many scholars. For example, Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss), in his book The Principles of State and Government in Islam²⁹ states that Islam does imply the establishment of God’s will on earth. Asad seems to fit within the ‘Mawdudi mould’ to the extent the Muslim must submit completely to the sovereignty of God and that the Qur’an and Sunna provide a complete code of life. Asad rejects all forms of secularization, although he seems somewhat more flexible than Mawdudi in his emphasis on the use of itjihad in areas that are not covered in the other sources. Asad is also not so willing to rely upon the judgements of earlier scholars. According to Asad, every generation has the right to exercise ijtihad in areas that are not covered by the Qur’an: ‘A rediscovery of the “open road” of Islam is urgently required at a time like this, when the Muslim world finds itself in the throes of a cultural crisis which we may affirm or deny … Set as we are in the midst of a rapidly changing world, our society, too, is subject to the same inexorable law of change.’³⁰

Asad’s use of the term ‘open road’ is a reference to the Qur’an, sura 5:48, ‘For every one of you We have ordained a Divine Law and an open road.’³¹ While Asad asserts the supremacy of the Qur’an and Sunna, he places them as the foundations for change and development. An ‘open road’ seems considerably more flexible than Mawdudi’s state would be, at least in principle. Asad differs from Mawdudi in that the former is not as attached to the past as the latter and he believes that the Qur’an and Sunna do not prescribe any particular form of government. Asad refers to the basic principle of consultation (shura) being adhered to, referring to the Qur’an, sura 42:38, ‘Their [the Muslims’] communal business [amr] is to be [transacted in] consultation among themselves.’ Another significant difference is that Asad calls for suffrage for men and women with a widely elected assembly, as well as allowing for different political parties. However, Asad’s allowance for differences of opinion only goes so far: ‘One must … frankly admit from the outset that without a certain amount of differentiation between Muslims and non-Muslims there can be no question of our ever having an Islamic state or states in the sense envisaged in Qur’an and Sunna.’³² Although Asad goes somewhat further than Mawdudi in allowing non-Muslims to seek employment in the state service and even the army, it is supposed that ‘differentiation’ would limit the extent of integration.

In Khalifa Abdul Hakim’s book Islamic Ideology,³³ he states that, ‘The highest organization of society is the state. Islam had to found a state to give to the world in practical form the ideals of statehood.’³⁴ However, Hakim rightly points out the limitations of the Qur’an, consisting as it does of only around 10 pages that are legal in nature. Aside from adherence to these legal precepts, Hakim argues that Muslims should be free to legislate according to changing situations, so long as it is within the spirit of Islam, i.e. principles of equity and justice.³⁵ Hakim goes a step further in stating that even the laws as specified in the Qur’an, although they must be adhered to, are nonetheless open to a degree of interpretation, offering broad guidelines that should not be taken too literally. Hakim certainly comes across as more progressive in his views than Mawdudi. However, although he talks of equal rights for women and men, Muslims and Muslims, and even says that the zimmis can hold ‘key posts’,³⁶ he is nonetheless quick to condemn polytheism and atheism, for which there would be no place in Hakim’s Islamic state. Also, this following quote from Hakim would not look out of place in one of Mawdudi’s works: ‘The learned men in the state should continue to reinterpret and revise the laws; they shall not be changed merely by the vote of the ignorant masses creating brute majorities.’³⁷

What Mawdudi, Asad and Hakim all share is the utilization of no doubt praiseworthy principles such as ‘justice’, ‘consultation’ and ‘equality’, but in all cases a little digging reveals a concern that these principles would conflict with the ideological tenets of Islam and divine law. It seems that provided that Islam does proclaim the state as its vehicle for salvation then it is inevitable that those citizens of the state who do not conform to its ideology are ‘damned’ both in the hereafter and on this earth.

There is the other option of going down the opposite extreme and arguing that Islam does not, in fact, prescribe for any kind of Islamic state at all. S. M. Zafar in Awam, Parliament, Islam³⁸ argues that there is little reference in the Qur’an to political affairs and, therefore, it is up to the community to decide the extent to which a state should be ‘Islamic’ or not, although it is hoped that the Islamic spirit of equality and justice would nonetheless permeate throughout the state. Zafar, therefore, places a much greater stake on humankind’s own reasoning capacity to determine the nature of laws than Mawdudi would ever countenance. Zafar, then, sees no conflict between ideology and free will, but he achieves this only by denying, or limiting, the ideology. Humankind is essentially free to adopt any state system it so wishes, and Zafar has sufficient faith in human nature to be led by certain principles such as justice and equality that are not only ‘Islamic’, but universal. Whereas Mawdudi looks to Medina as the perfect political system, Zafar sees this paradigm as irrelevant to the needs of his contemporary world. He does, however, stress shura as part of the essence of Islam, and he interprets this in modern terms as accountability, free legislation and democracy.³⁹ Modern political forms such as territorial nationalism, political parties, democratic elections, and so on, are not contrary to the spirit of Islam, but are different expressions of its essence of consultation.

Zafar believes that the reason why Muhammad did not himself appoint a Caliph to succeed him was that he did not wish any divine status to be assumed by the next leader,⁴⁰ and that it would also lead to some form of consultation in the choice of the next leader. Exactly how democratic this process was we can never know for sure, but Zafar believes that Muhammad had hoped that it would at least lay the seeds of some form of democracy as far as was possible in that period and under the circumstances at the time. Further, Zafar is a proponent of political parties, which he states have been around since Muhammad’s time of the separate ‘parties’ of the Quaraysh, the Ansar and the Hashim. Of course, these parties are not the same as in the modern sense, although it does suggest that competing political interests and groupings was encouraged and was not seen as ‘un-Islamic’.

One cannot ascertain whether Zafar adopts a modernist stance in relation to women and non-Muslim, as he does not make reference to them, although it is rather encouraging that Zafar recognizes the diversity of Islam by stating that territorial nationalism is not contrary to it: he perceives the umma more as a federal structure, rather than one monolithic entity. This more ‘progressive’ strand of political Islam is also emphasized by Professor Muhammad Usman in Islam Pakistan Mein:⁴¹

For example, at one stage in history the system of slavery was commonly practised. Islam also accepted it in a mild form. But now the morality of no civilised society can tolerate it. The result is that not only in Europe and America but also in the Muslim world the system of slavery has been abolished. The idea of giving equal status to women is also a product of the ‘Spirit of the Time’.⁴²

The ‘Spirit of the Time’ is probably about as basic as you can get in terms of providing a framework for a government apparatus, and to say that morals should be determined according to what can or cannot be ‘tolerated’ by society denies the necessity of divine law. Usman goes much further than Zafar in arguing that even the principle of shura, of consultation, does not necessitate a democratic government, for even dictators ‘consult’ to some extent. This is not to say that Usman condones dictatorship, for his ‘Spirit of the Time’ includes such fundamental principles of equity and justice. It is open to debate whether any form of dictatorship could also inculcate these principles successfully.

Mawdudi had little time for any twentieth-century political theories of mass empowerment, and nor did he perceive democracy as it existed in his time as anything but evil and corrupt, or having the potential to be better than it was. However, a political theory when put into practice must surely take account of prevailing social-economic conditions. Mawdudi seems both aware of that fact while at the same time ignorant of it. A community cannot function isolated from the rest of the, non-Islamic, world, and so to discriminate against women and non-Muslims, to ban political parties, as well as to discourage, if not ban entirely, secular thought, would only result in the need to set up protective barriers which would lead to isolation and stagnation. Mawdudi had a very different vision of his gradual Islamic revolution in that those societies that are non-Islamic would in time become part of the umma and so there would be no need for barriers at all.

The fact is, it is notoriously difficult and complicated in determining what an ‘Islamic’ act even is, as Richard Antoun has so succinctly noted:

How are we to determine, for instance, whether the building of new mosques, the establishment of government-sponsored religious publishing houses, the setting aside of special places in parliament for prayer, the establishment of religious political parties, or the establishment of bureaus to safeguard the Holy Qur’an are indications of religious-mindedness, indications of a shift in the attitudes of elites only, or simply an increase in political action in the name of Islam? Is an increasing use of Arabic, an increase in veiling, an increase in attendance at the Friday congregational prayer, or an increase in pilgrimage to be taken as an increase in piety, religious-mindedness, or hypocrisy?⁴³

The very nature of Islam, and the result of its success in history, has surely been its flexibility and its allowance of a diversity of expression, as demonstrated in this observation of a Persian Muslim village by the anthropologist Reinhold Loeffler:

In this village, Islam can take the form of a bland legalism or a consuming devotion to the good of others; an ideology legitimizing established status and power or a critical theology challenging this very status and power; a devotive quietism or fervent zealotism; a dynamic political activism or self-absorbed mysticism; a virtuoso religiosity or humble trust in God’s compassion; a rigid fundamentalism or reformist modernism; a ritualism steeped in folklore and magic or a scriptural purism.⁴⁴

Mawdudi on jihad

To understand what Mawdudi means by an Islamic revolution, it is also important to see it within the context of his views on jihad. In Al-Jihad fi al-Islam, (‘Jihad in Islam’; first edition, 1930), Mawdudi begins by attacking those Muslims who respond to criticisms of jihad by being apologetic. In reply to western critics who, when they think of jihad, it conjures up ‘the vision of a marching band of religious fanatics with savage beards and fiery eyes brandishing drawn swords and attacking infidels wherever they meet them and pressing them under the edge of the sword for the recital of the Kalima’⁴⁵ the apologists respond by saying that Islam has never known war.⁴⁶ So ‘taken aback’ were they when they saw ‘this picture of ours painted by foreigners’ that they ‘started offering apologies in this manner – “Sir, what do we know of war and slaughter. We are pacifist preachers like the mendicants and religious divines”.’⁴⁷ These apologists, Mawdudi states, admit of only one crime: ‘we plead guilty to one crime, though, that whenever someone else attacks us, we attacked him in self-defence’.⁴⁸ For Mawdudi, the apologetic approach to seeing jihad in what has become known in so many introductory textbooks as the ‘greater jihad’ of internal struggle or pacifist preaching is really surrendering to the enemy: ‘Islam requires the earth – not just a portion of it – not because the sovereignty over the earth should be wrestled from one or several nations and vested in one particular nation – but because the entire mankind should benefit from the ideology and welfare programme or what should be truer to say from “Islam” which is the programme of well-being for all humanity.’⁴⁹

This is echoed nine years later in an address he delivered entitled ‘War in the cause of Allah’ (Jihad fi sabil Allah) on Iqbal Day:⁵⁰

the objective of the Islamic Jihad is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system, and establish in its place an Islamic system of state rule. Islam does not intend to confine this rule to a single state or to a handful of countries. The aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution. Although in the initial stages, it is incumbent upon members of the Party of Islam to carry out a revolution in the state system of the countries to which they belong, their ultimate objective is none other than a world revolution.⁵¹

This address was given in 1939 and, as Bonney points out: ‘How can such an astonishing claim be made? In 1939, Islam could hardly have seemed on the march. It was the secular ideologies, Nazism, fascism and Marxist-Leninism, which seemed to be making progress at the expense of the world’s religions.’⁵² The question is, of course, how immediate this ‘world revolution’ Mawdudi expected it to be, and here Mawdudi is thinking in the long term. Mawdudi’s understanding of jihad is not as ‘war’ but rather as ‘liberation’. In the historical context, Muslims were ‘liberated’ from jahiliyyah; the state of ‘ignorance’ that existed among the Arab peoples before the coming of the Prophet Muhammad. The state of jahiliyyah is symptomatic of atheism, immoralism, injustice and violence. In that sense, jihad is perceived as the opposite of these states. Jihad is a ‘struggle’ for peace and justice against a Hobbesian conception of humankind as living a life that is ‘brutish and short’. The original goal of holy war, Mawdudi argues, was not to force people to convert to Islam, but rather to liberate people from injustice (fasd) and civil war (fitnah). In order to achieve this, of course, there needs to be a political structure, and so Mawdudi’s views on jihad connect very closely with his views on the Islamic state which will be explored in much more detail later. Suffice to say for the moment, that Mawdudi’s revolution called for the eradication of all governments and the eventual establishment of one united people, an umma, under the rule of Gods and His laws. This would, of course, mean that people could choose to not be non-Muslims, but would nonetheless be living under Islamic rules. This is a logical consequence of a belief in one God with the existence of absolute, universal, perfect moral values.

Mawdudi does, however, fall into apologetics himself in his attempts to exonerate the acts of Muslim armies in the past, and prefers to condemn the actions of the west, arguing that Muslims were as humane, if not more so, than western equivalents. He believes that jihad is an essential duty for all Muslims and defines it most clearly in his 1939 address:

Islam is not the name of a mere ‘Religion’, nor is Muslim the title of a ‘Nation’. The truth is that Islam is a revolutionary ideology which seeks to alter the social order of the entire world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals. ‘Muslims’ is the title of that ‘International Revolutionary Party’ organised by Islam to carry out its revolutionary programme. Jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle and utmost exertion which the Islamic Nation/Party brings into play in order to achieve this objective.⁵³

Importantly here, Mawdudi is getting rid of the concept of an offensive or defensive jihad by arguing that such a distinction is irrelevant. Jihad is, rather, a ‘revolutionary programme’ rather than a conflict between states:

those who affirm their faith in this ideology become members of the party of Islam and enjoy equal status and equal rights, without distinction of class, race, ethnicity or nationality. In this manner, an International Revolutionary Party is born, to which the Qur’an gives the title hizb-Allah.⁵⁴

This ‘party of God’, the Hezbollah, was therefore engaged in a jihad against those who resist what Mawdudi saw as a logical and inevitable revolution. Azad, mentioned earlier, in his journal Al-Hilal, had also promoted the idea of Hezbollah which, although it did not actually amount to much in real terms at the time, the notion of a ‘party of God’ that is charged with Islamic revivalism is one that stuck in Mawdudi’s mind all his life and would eventually lead to the creation of the Jamaat-e-Islami. In fact, Azad’s ideas are very important in understanding Mawdudi and his Jamaat, for his party relied heavily on a ‘top-down’ organization. Interestingly, in 1920, Azad proposed that Muslims should select an amir-i shariat (‘leader of holy war’) for each Indian province, which was to be aided by a council of ulama to oversee the religious affairs of Muslims. These amir-i shariat would select an amir-i hind (leader of India), which Azad rather hoped would be him. While Azad’s attempts at having himself chosen to be this amir were unsuccessful, Mawdudi had this notion of a single leader of all Muslims in India in mind when formulating the hierarchical structure of the Jamaat.⁵⁵

Mawdudi argued that there exists a tension in every society between the abode of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the abode of war (Dar al-Harb) which would continue unless there is submission and acceptance of the will of God. Mawdudi, therefore, could not conceive of the possibility of a pluralistic state because the tension between Muslims and non-Muslim is synonymous with the tension between right and wrong: a state must strive towards being either morally good (living under the laws of God) or morally bad (living under secular laws). There cannot be two or more systems of beliefs or political parties:

Apart from reforming the world, it becomes impossible for the Party itself to act upon its own ideals under an alien state system. No party which believes in the validity of its own ideology can live according to its precepts under the rule of a system different from its own. A man who believes in Communism could not order his life according to the principles of capitalism whilst living in Britain or America, for the capitalistic state system would bear down on him and it would be impossible for him to escape the power of the ruling authority. Likewise, it is impossible for a Muslim to succeed in his aim of observing the Islamic pattern of life under the authority of a non-Islamic system of government. All rules which he considers wrong, all taxes which he deems unlawful, all matters which he believes to be evil, the civilisation and way of life which he regards as wicked, the education system which he views as fatal … all these will be relentlessly imposed on him, his home and his family, that it will be impossible to avoid them.⁵⁶

Mawdudi’s major contribution to the topic of jihad is in his contemporizing of the concept and contrasting it with a modern notion of jahiliyyah. While utilizing the paradigm of the Prophet Muhammad’s jihad against the jahiliyyah of pagan Arabia, Mawdudi places this paradigm upon contemporary events by calling Jinnah’s Muslim League a ‘party of pagans’ (Jamaat-i jahiliyya):

No trace of Islam can be found in the ideas and politics of the 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 … ⁵⁷

This novel approach takes jihad and jahiliyyah out of its pure historical context and places it within a recurring struggle of good versus evil. The ‘good’ always remains the same, submission (islam) to God, but the ‘evil’ can change from one place to another, from one age to another. In the section on jihad in his Let Us Be Muslims, Mawdudi states that: ‘the real objective of Islam is to remove the lordship of man over man and to establish the kingdom of God on Earth.’ ‘To stake one’s life and everything else to achieve this purpose is called jihad.’⁵⁸ For Mawdudi, Islam and the Islamic state are synonymous, and his concept of jihad is not equivalent to ‘war’:

jihad denotes doing one’s utmost to achieve something. It is not the equivalent of war, for which the Arabic word if qital. Jihad has a wider connotation and embraces every kind of striving in God’s cause … ’Jihad in the way of God’ is that strife in which man engages exclusively to win God’s pleasure, to establish the supremacy of His religion and to make his word prevail.⁵⁹

The implications for those Muslims who do not live in an Islamic state, or, in other words, in the ‘abode of war’, is that they are not really Muslims at all, but sinners. It is the collective duty of all Muslims to engage in jihad against un-Islamic systems and have it replaced by an Islamic way of life. It is therefore not possible to be Muslim and a minority in a non-Islamic country. While Mawdudi may well have been thinking specifically of India at this time, this would nonetheless include all Muslims across the world who find themselves in a similar situation. Those who do not set out to fulfil their duty of overthrowing a non-Muslim regime cease to be Muslims⁶⁰ Mawdudi’s views on jihad never wavered, in fact they probably became more excessive. As late as 1960 he referred to jihad as ‘the supreme sacrifice of life’ which ‘devolves to all Muslims’.⁶¹ If an Islamic state is attacked by a non-Islamic state then all Muslims, no matter where they are from, should come forward and engage in jihad:

the Muslims of the whole world must fight the common enemy. In all such cases jihad is as much a primary duty of the Muslims concerned as are the daily prayers of fasting. One who shirks it is a sinner. His very claim to be … a Muslim is doubtful. He is a hypocrite whose ‘ibadah and prayers are a sham, a hollow show of devotion’.⁶²