Mawdudi's Concept of Islam

Author(s): Eran Lerman

Source: Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct., 1981), pp. 492-509
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4282856
Accessed: 12/01/2010 15:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Middle Eastern
Studies.

http://www.jstor.org
 Mawdudi's Concept of Islam
Eran Lerman

The religious and political thought of Mawlana Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi

was, and is, one of the main ideological currents contending for supremacy in
modern Pakistan. Not unlike his Egyptian counterpart and contemporary,
Hasan al-Banna, Mawdudi went beyond the formulation of a new type of
Muslim political theory: they both sought to put such theory into practice
through political and social action, and established political movements for
that very purpose. But while Banna's Muslim Brothers were crushed in their
premature bids for power (Banna himself was assassinated in 1949,
probably by Government agents; and many of the movement leaders
perished under Nasir), Mawdudi and his party, Jamaat-i Islami (The
Community of Islam) had survived several similar clashes with the Pakistani
authorities and seem to have emerged-under Zia al-Haqq's military
regime-as a dominant force. Even after the Bangladesh secession, Pakistan
is a major centre of Sunni Islam (prior to 1972 it was the largest Muslim
state, in terms of population); and it is hard to exaggerate the importance of
its current drift towards Mawdudi's version of Islam.
What is his version of Islam? Mawdudi has been a prolific writer. Jamaat-i
Islami published, since 1941, several dozens of his books in Urdu, English,
Arabic and major Indian languages; and he started his career as a journalist
and essayist as far back as 1918. He has covered an extremely wide spectrum
of subjects: from a critique of Hegel to the religious injunctions concerning
meat. He has undertaken in his writings to outline a programme for the
establishment of a truly Islamic state; and in doing so, he involved himself
(and his party) in a number of controversies-ranging from the making of a
Pakistani constitution to Mawdudi's defence of Purdah (the segregation of
women). All these were of immediate political relevance; and they tended to
draw attention away from the more fundamental differences between
Mawdudi and his rivals-away from his own different answer to the question
'What is Islam?' This paper is aimed at elucidating Mawdudi's answer to this
basic question-and tracing the challenges that brought about his response.
This is, above all, a primary question-and within a rigorously logical
system of ideas, such as Mawdudi's, the answer to it is the cornerstone of the
whole construction. Moreover, much of Mawdudi's intellectual appeal (and
hence much of his political power) derives from his ability to formulate a
coherent answer to that very question. Here 'Fundamentalists' like
Mawdudi or al-Banna succeed, while alternative Muslim interpretations
fail. For the traditional Muslim scholars, the Madrasa-bred Ulama, the
question was almost meaningless: in a world where no real challenges
presented themselves, there was no need to re-define Islam. For the
Westernized elite of Muslim India, on the other hand, the question did arise:
but for them the answer, propagated by the centres of Westernized Islamic
education (such as the 'Anglo-Oriental Mohammedan College', established
by Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan in 1875) was not so much a re-definition of Islam
MAWDUDI S CONCEPTOF ISLAM 493

as much as it was a re-statement of Western values, under the guise of

Islamic terminology. Westernized education often resulted in a scant and
superficial knowledge of the Islamic sources; and it was here that Mawdudi
was able to put forward a system much more consistent with the long
traditions of Islamic thought and jurisprudence-yet new. The different
attitudes were a result of different education. Mawdudi's self-education was
primarily, but not wholly, traditional. But they were also the result of
different challenges: they reflect the transformed face of the
twentieth-century West.
The above-said could be better understood against a short survey of
Mawdudi's early career and the rival currents of modern Indian Islam with
which he had to content. He was born in Aurangabad, Deccan, in 1903; his
father had previously left Delhi, since the latter was declining as a Muslim
centre. Being a lawyer (of non-Shariah law), Mawdudi's father did not raise
his son as a traditional Alim (scholar); but his strong Islamic sentiment led
him to teach his son Arabic and Persian, which gave Mawdudi access to the
sources of Islamic tradition.
The death of his father in 1918 forced Mawdudi to abandon his regular
studies-and the fact that he was never formally educated, neither as an
Alim nor as a Westernized student, accounts for his relative freedom from
both traditions. He started working as a journalist-later as the editor-of a
local paper in Jabalpur, and his considerable talent did not go unnoticed: at
twenty he was invited bylamiat-i Ulama-i Hind to assist in editing its paper,
al-Jamiah.
The Jamiat (the Association of Indian Ulama) identified itself in the early
twenties with the Khilafat movement (led by Muhammad Ali and his
brother Shawkat Ali) which sought to re-establish the Ottoman
Caliphate-and was, above all, an expression of anti-British sentiment. For
a while there was real cooperation between the Ulama, the Westernized
Muslims, and nationalist Hindu leaders such as Gandhi-but it was not to
last. Kemalist Turkey was renouncing old traditions rapidly and with
apparent success; and disillusionment with the Khilafat soon set in. The
Muslim and Hindu communities were falling out over local issues; and as to
the Muslim community itself, the failure of the movement and the looming
conflict with the Hindus gave rise to internal tensions. Mawdudi once wrote
(about a different 'Revivalist' movement) that its failure proved you cannot
expect so-called Muslims to act like real Muslims;' and the demise of the
Khilafat movement seems to have set Mawdudi apart from the romantic and
vague Islamism held by many of its leaders.
This tendency was driven further by an incident that took place in 1924. A
leader of the extreme Hindu movement, Arya Samaj, was murdered by a
Muslim for having allegedly slighted the Prophet Muhammad. Gandhi and
others criticised Islam for its violent components, and most Westernized
Muslims took up an apologetic attitude towards Jihad (Holy War). Mawdudi
refused to do so; and his books on the question of Jihad marked the break
with both Ulama and Westernized intelligentsia.2 In 1927 he went back to
Hyderabad; and after 1932 began publishing there his own periodical,
Tarjumanal- Quran (the translation, or interpretation, of the Quran). Under
494 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

the auspices of the Nizam he published there an exposition of what Islam is;
and the book, Risalah diniyyah (translated into English under the title
Towards Understanding Islam), proved very popular and gained for
Mawdudi the status of Mawlana, a religious teacher, and a reputation as a
major thinker.
This was already a thoroughly fundamentalist (or, in Mawdudi's terms,
Revivalist) book. The following lines are typical:
The law of Islam is eternally applicable, because it is not based on the
customs and traditions of any particular people, and it is not for any
particular period, but it is based on the same principles of nature on
which man has been created.3
Such opinions about the laws of Islam drew towards Mawdudi the
attentions of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, the poet-laureate of modern Indian
Islam. Iqbal, while being a dynamic and activist thinker, often expressed
similar attitudes:
O Thou that art emancipated from the old Custom
Adorn thy feet once again with the same fine silver chain!
Do not complain of the hardness of the Law,
Do not transgress the statutes of Muhammad!4
Through Iqbal's initiative, a Waqf estate was allocated to Mawdudi in
Pathan Kot (Punjab)-which included a Press; in this new setting Mawdudi
let his beard grow (as befits a religious teacher), published several books and
numerous articles on both religious and political issues, and took an active
part in the argument concerning the future of India and of Indian Islam.
It was during this period that he set himself against all other currents in
Indian Islam-doing battle, as it were, on three fronts. Like almost all other
revivalists in modern Islam, he rallied against the Sufi element in popular
Islam. Those who 'misled the Muslims with amulets, intonations and prayer
beads ... and sent them to tombs and Sufi societies so they would intercede
for them and ensure for them eternal happiness'5 are to blame for the
deterioration of Islamic fighting spirit. In this he was a disciple of Arabian
and Indian Wahabiyyah; but unlike the Wahabis, he was highly critical of the
state of Islamic orthodoxy-the responsibility for the atrophy of Muslim
spirit lies also with those 'who distracted the Muslims off the foundations of
Islam and its general, total principles and busied them with questions
concerning the details of Fiqh (religious jurisprudence) . .. until they forgot
what they were created for and ignored the sublime purposes for which
Islam stands'.6
In all this one can detect the influence of the long tradition of Islamic
reform in India: similar things might have been said by Sir Sayid Ahmad
Khan, by the poet Shibli, or by any graduate of Sir Sayid's College at
Aligarh. But it was against these very people-the new Westernized elite of
Muslim India-that Mawdudi directed his most scathing attack. Their
attempts to reconcile Islam to the West led to the loss of its moral authority:

Look at the leaders and chiefs and principals, who profess their belief in
MAWDUDI S CONCEPTOF ISLAM 495

the Book of Allah and in his Prophet but, regrettably, show nothing of
the true code of the Book, or of the Shariah (religious law, The Way)
given by the Prophet, in their own ways-apart from taking, sometimes,
part in the Prophet's birthday festivities, or inviting the reciters of the
Quran to read it once or twice in their house to entertain their relatives,
and, if they feel like it, give a speech extolling Islam and praising its
teaching, much as one would lavishly praise a poet-but to act
according to the Shariah, and struggle to carry it out in this world, of
that they have no inkling. . .

Such religious attitudes had their political consequences. Mawdudi

rejected the positive attitude taken byJamiat-i Ulama-i Hind and its leader,
Madani, towards Gandhi's liberation movement and his call for Indian
unity; he seemed to view this as another proof of the Ulama's passivity. But
his main criticism-up until the very establishment of Pakistan-was
directed against the Westernized leaders, such as Jinah himself, who sought
to cover up their lack of true belief by turning Islam into a national identity.
When Mawdudi finally set up his own political party, Jamaat-i Islami, in
August 1941, he did so, above all, in order to resist the 'Pakistan demand'
(that is, the call for the partition of India) adopted by Jinah's Muslim League
in March 1940. This Pakistan, he claimed, would have nothing to do with the
truly Islamic state: 'In India, the Muslims who have had a Western education
are unable to understand this sublime truth; and they are, even if they
chatter about an Islamic state, forced by their mentality and Western culture
to aspire to no more than a national state.'8 They may use Islamic
terminology, like Ummah or Taat al-Amir (terms denoting, in Islam, the
Muslim polity and the obligation to obey its sovereigns), but 'all these terms
are used by them, because of their basic mentality, only to convey what they
wish to convey-the meanings of their new religion, the religion of
nationalism'.9 Such new religion, he claimed, is in fact Shirk (Polytheism);
Jinah's Pakistan would be pagan and its leaders Pharaohs and Nimrods,
infidel tyrants, he wrote in 1942.10
Such tirades against the major force in Indian Muslim politics, the Muslim
League, and against its beloved Qaid-i Azam (Great Leader) Jinah, drove
Mawdudi into political isolation. Since he opposed both Jinah and Gandhi as
nationalists, he had little to offer by way of solving India's immediate
problems-and he felt little need to do so. Using deliberate anachronisms,
he pointed out the Prophet himself did little-at first-to solve the
immediate problems of Arabia: Byzantine and Persian imperialism,
internecine fighting, infiltration by 'Jewish capitalists'. The Prophet, said
Mawdudi, first addressed himself to the establishment of a dedicated
following, who were willing to sacrifice all for the cause and who were to be
the nucleus of a new society; " the re-creation of a truly Islamic society must
take precedence over all other issues.
Most former attempts to re-invigorate Islamic society were centred
around piecemeal modifications of Islamic law, compromises between the
Shariah and the liberal Western notions that seemed to be the secret of
Europe's success. But once an initially apologetic criterion has been applied
496 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

to the Shariah, claimed Mawdudi, there was no way of averting the final
dominance of Western ideas. In India, 'Western civilization has become the
judge of the merits and "faults" of Islam-not vice versa . . . In Egypt,
Shaykh Muhammad Abduh adopted a similar line of compromise and thus
opened the door wide for the Westernizers in the Arabic-speaking world
who came after him'.12 If Islamic society is to be both free from Western
dominance and a dynamic and powerful society, it is not the body of Islamic
traditions that should be changed: these must be kept intact, if Islam is to
survive. What needs to be established is a new general understanding of
what Islam is, a re-statement of its basic message.

DEFINING ISLAM

Ever since the establishment of Tarjumanal- Quran, Mawdudi saw himself,

above all, as a translator of the Quranic principles-into Urdu and into the
terms of modern reality. His exegetic method led him to express his
definition of Islam by means of etymology: Christianity, he wrote in 1932, is
named after Christ; Buddhism after Buddha; Judaism after the land of
Judea; Zoroastrianism after Zoroaster.
Islam, however, claims the unique distinction of having no association
with any particular person or people. The word Islam does not express
any such relationship, for it does not belong to any people, person or
country . . . 'Islam' is an Arabic word, and signifies submission and
obedience. The religion of Islam is so called because it is submission and
obedience to Allah (God).'3

Here is Mawdudi's Islam in a nutshell. Islam, he points out, is unlike any

other religion; it is universal; its supreme virtue is obedience. The
uniqueness of Islam was further emphasised by Mawdudi's choice of Arab
terminology:
They (the West) thought that Islam is a religion (Nihlah; the English
word'religion' appears in the text as a synonym for Nihlah) in the sense
in which the word 'religion' is often used ... and what is meant by
'religion' is no more than the sum of several beliefs, rituals and
sentiments . . . but this is not the case.'4
All other religions and schools of thought may fall under Nihlah; Islam is
much more than that, it is Din.
Din encompasses the universality of Islam, the sense of submission, the
primacy of religious law: and again Mawdudi demonstrates his attitude by
etymological means. The original senses of Din, he says, were four:

1. Power, authority, rule, the exactment of obedience and the use of

sovereignty ...
2. Obedience and service and servility to one Lord ...
3. Law, statute, mode of behaviour ...
4. Justice, reward and punishment ... .'5
MAWDUDI S CONCEPT OF ISLAM 497

The very use of one word to denote four different meanings was an
indication of the disorderly and primitive state of the Arabs under the
Jahiliyyah; but with the revelation to Muhammad came not only social but
linguistic order. The four meanings of Din were now interwoven:
1. The sublime sovereignty and governance.
2. Obedience and submission to that sublime sovereignty.
3. The theoretical and practical order established under that governance.
4. The judgement passed by sublime sovereignty upon following of that
order and dedication to it-or upon rebellion against it and rejection of
it.'6

The fourth element of Din refers to the Akhirah (the Afterworld, Heaven
and Hell), which Mawdudi sees as central to Muslim ethics; the third refers
to the Shariah as a total order, a total way of life (a notion traceable back to
the early writings of Abu al-Kalam Azad).'7 It was under the first two
headings that Mawdudi developed some of his most original ideas: Islam, he
claims, denotes the very order of creation. In Towards UnderstandingIslam
he put forward a most far-reaching interpretation:
This powerful law which governs and controls all that comprises the
Universe, from the largest stars to the tiniest particle in the earth, is
made and enacted by the Great Governor, whom the whole Creation
obeys. The Universe, therefore, literally, follows the religion of Islam,
as Islam signifies nothing but obedience and submission to God, the
Lord of the Universe. The sun, the moon, and the stars are thus all
'Muslims'. The earth is also Muslim, and so are air, water, and heat.
Trees, stones and animals are all 'Muslims'.'8
Even an infidel is biologically a 'Muslim'-but as a man, he is required to be
more than that to be truly Muslim (Mawdudi, in fact, spent much of his
political career denying others, especially the Ahmadiyyah, the title of true
Muslims). Mankind is different.
'Man has been invested with freedom of will and choice and the power to
use the resources of the world in any manner he likes. In short, man has been
given a sort of autonomy while being appointed God's Viceregent of the
Earth."9 Man is free to choose his basic religious attitude-Mawdudi
distinguishes between Atheism, Polytheism, Asceticism and Islam20-and
this is what was meant by the Quran saying 'there is no compulsion in
religion' (Surat al-Baqarah, verse 256);21 but once the choice for Islam has
been made, man becomes part of an authoritative order, one that reflects the
order of creation.
Since Islam is the reflection of world order, it is also the religion which a
reflective mind should arrive at: it is 'the religion of science and reason'. In
an article of this title (al-Islam din al-ilm wal-aql), published in Tarjuman
al-Quran in 1936, he depicted Islam as based on science-in fact, he
claimed, Islam cannot be truly followed but through science and reason.22It
is the West that is taking up irrational attitudes, forsaking reason in its purity
and enslaving itself to the senses.23 All this was meant to prove that a true
Muslim society could be scientifically and technologically independent; but
498 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

in doing so Mawdudi took up notions that were manifestly apologetic. He

was trying to prove the scientific viability of Islam by the standards of
Western science-and seemed quite ignorant of the fact that the sort of
science he was addressing himself to, the science of 'Natural Laws' and
mechanistic 'World Order', had ceased to exist.24(His treatment of Darwin
was typical. Like the properly so-called Fundamentalists, he took strong
exception to the Ape-Men; but unlike W.J. Brian, he set upon them not with
quotations from the Gospel but with what he took to be a 'scientific'
argument. No Ape-man remains have been found, he claimed (wrongly),
and therefore Darwin's theory is nothing but 'inference and hypothesis'. If
these are 'acceptable as evidence, how can you refute my inference if I said,
on its basis, that the origin of life and of the species of creation lies in the
word of the Omniscient Ruler and according to His plan, and this is much
more reasonable and understandable than Darwin's inference ... and
leaves no question unanswered'.25 The article on Darwin, written in the
Sixties, indicates that Mawdudi never progressed beyond the nineteenth
century notions of what science is.)
But if Mawdudi's knowledge of science is scant, his logic is consistent and
powerful. Islam is in itself a logical system: 'It is a total order, based on wise
and perfect principles; and its great and important pillars, as well as its small
and fine details, all logically derive from these principles.'26W. Cantwell
Smith observed that this drive to turn Islam into a system might prove to be
Mawdudi's most *enduring contribution :27 and much of Mawdudi's
work-including his attempts to establish 'Muslim Science'-was directed
towards this systematization. Like the conservative Ulama, Mawdudi sought
to preserve the Shariah-but while they saw religious law as based on
tradition, Taqlid, he saw it as a branch deriving logically from the roots of
Islam.
The challenge that gave rise to grand schemes of that sort could not have
been that of the often inconsistent Liberalism-certainly not a total
system-that an earlier generation of Indian Muslims took to be the essence
of Western wisdom. It was a new challenge-that of the new, revolutionary
systems of thought emerging in Europe, and above all the challenge of
Marxism and its claim for totality. Mawdudi's response was in the attempt,
described above, to claim similar totality for Islam-and in trying to bring
about what he called an Islamic Revolution.

THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

If Islam is a total-and perfect-system, leaving no question unanswered, it

logically follows that it cannot and should not co-exist with any other system.
It is then the Muslim's duty towards humanity to do his utmost for the victory
of Islam. This duty is as old as revelation itself. As a preface to a book of the
exegesis of the Quran, Mawdudi wrote:
Quran does not contain mere opinions and abstract thoughts so that you
can peruse it sitting in your padded armchair and understand all that it
wants. It is not a book discussing theology ... it is a book of agitation
and movement (Kitab da'wa wa harakah; da'wa being, more or less, the
MAWDUDI S CONCEPT OF ISLAM 499

Islamic equivalent of the Marxist Agitprop), and by its very revelation it

shook a meek and complacent man ... and made him confront the
wayward world, struggling against evil and fighting the chiefs of idolatry
and the leaders of sin and the purveyors of fallacy. This book called
forth every happy spirit and every pure soul from every home and
gathered them under the flag.. .28
Islam, therefore, should be a dynamic force, an avant-garde: 'Since we were
established on this world as the "best of nations" (Khayr Ummah) our
purpose in this world is-being Muslims-to take command and lead, not
trudge along as a rear-guard . '29
The goals of this avant-garde were portrayed by Mawdudi-uninhibited
by apologetic considerations-as the attainment of world supremacy. The
message of the Quran was manifestly universal, directed towards the whole
of humanity and not towards the Arabs or any other nation. It is the duty of
the true Muslim leader 'to initiate such a strong universal movement as may
spread Islam among Mankind at large, and enable Islam to become a
predominant cultural force in the world and capture the moral, intellectual
and political leadership of Mankind'.30 Ummah-the Muslim polity-is not
a 'nation' in the Western sense;3"'Islam demands the earth, and will not
settle for a part or a section of it.'32
Such views of Islam as a world-wide revolutionary movement meant,
again, the ardent rejection of nationalism (in this he differed from al-Banna,
who remained partial to Arabism, Urubah), or the nationalism of 'that
miserable man Ataturk and his followers'.3 Muslim nationalism, Mawdudi
is reported to have said, is as self-contradictory as a chaste whore.34
Nationalism is not only Shirk, polytheism, it is also based on discrimination
between people; not so the world government envisaged by Islam. 'The
universal regime believes in equality between people and would give to each
their rights in equal measure, and its principles are universal.'35
Totality, dynamism, international goals, universal equality, revolutionary
spirit: Mawdudi's concept of Islam reflects the challenge of revolutionary
socialism, as his generation came to know it. Indeed, he was considered by
some of his admirers, during the early 1940s, as the father of a synthesis
between socialism and Islam36-and while he would have been the first to
deny it, there is no doubt that he was woven-albeit effectively-socialist
influences into his Islamic system. Even the line he took when critized for his
concentration on Pakistani affairs (following his failure to check Jinah's
movement and the establishment of Pakistan in 1947) is reminiscent of
Stalin's apology for his Soviet-centred policies.
We want to bring about this revolution in our country, Pakistan, first of
all, so that we can make it a tool of reforming the whole world; and if
you see us today discussing the faults of Pakistan and its present
calamities, it is because they obstruct our progress . .. if these wrongs
were not confronting us, you would have seen us working and striving
towards the purpose upon which we set our eyes to being with. This
purpose of ours is eternal, universal and total, and nothing will stop us
from achievingit.37
500 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

Mawdudi had subscribed to 'Islam in one country'.

Nowhere is the challenge of revolutionary, Marxist thought, more evident
than in Mawdudi's choice of terminology: 'Islam is a revolutionary ideology
(Fikrah inqilabiyyah) and a revolutionary practice, which aims at destroying
the social order of the world totally and rebuilding it from scratch ... and
Jihad denotes the revolutionary struggle.'38
Even the traditional term Mahdi was reinterpreted: not a giant-bodied
Sufi endowed with occult powers, but
a most modern leader of his age possessing an unusually deep insight in
all the current branches of knowledge, and all the major problems of
life. As regards statesmanship, political sagacity and strategic skill in
war he will take the world by surprise and prove the most modern of all
the moderns. But, I am afraid, the first to raise hue and cry against his
innovation will be the Ulama and Sufis.39
This led some people to suspect that Mawdudi himself claims to be the
Mahdi. His reply was typical of both his views and his sense of humour:
I cannot help remarking that giving expression to such suspicions
cannot be the pastime of a person who fears Allah, who holds himself
answerable to Him and who remembers His clear command: 'Avoid
suspicions scrupulously, for some suspicions are sinful.' Those who are
expressing such misgivings . .. are rendering themselves exposed to a
grievous punishment which I have decided to inflict on them and which
they will never be able to avoid. The punishment is that, God willing, I
will pass away into the presence of my Allah without making any claim,
and there I shall see what plea these people put in before Him for
creating those misgivings . . .40
In this case the challenge was directly referred to by Mawdudi: 'When the
leaders of iniquity like Lenin and Hitler can appear on the stage of this
world, why should the appearance of a leader of Goodness only be regarded
as remote and uncertain?'4'
But the influence of this power of iniquity-Marxism-on Mawdudi
extended beyond terminology; it is discernible in both the social values and
the political methods of Islam as he understood it. The egalitarian spirit
inspired his interpretation of Tawhid (Monotheism, Unity) as a social
principle, a call for revolt:
The call of Islam for Tawhid and the worship of Allah, The One, is not
only a theological issue and principle-as is the case with other religions
and sects-but is in fact a call (Da'wa, Agitation) for social revolution,
aimed primarily at eradicating those who assumed the throne of divinity
and enslaved people.42
The subordination of one man to another is also Shirk (polytheism). In the
truly Muslim society there would be no ruling classes-not even the religious
establishment-it would be, as he called it, a 'Theo-Democracy' .43
Mawdudi described the purpose of the Islamic revolution as the
establishment of a perfect social order, in which all virtues will be able to
MAWDUDI S CONCEPTOF ISLAM 501

flourish and 'all kinds of exploitation, injustice and disorders ... are
supressed and prevented'. This happy vision led some Western students of
Islamic history to compare such movements as al-Banna's Ikhwan or
Mawdudi's Jamaat-i Islami with Christian Messianic movements, such as
emerged during the fifteenth century.45The comparison might be intriguing,
but it is not necessarily valid: European Chiliasts-such as the fifteenth
century Tabortes in Bohemia-were driven by a vision of doom and
Kingdom Come, of a transcendental change in human nature, of 'new
Heavens and new earth' as the Revelation has it. Mawdudi's polity, on the
other hand, has nothing to do with Yawm al-qiyamah or with a
transformation of Mankind: 'It does not, through a false sense of originality
... provide any novel moral virtues.'46A sociological study might indicate
some traits common to both 'Militant social Chiliasm' (to quote Halpern)
and Islamic 'Fundamentalist' movements; but Mawdudi's system of
thought, his concept of what Islam is, are not chiliastic or Messianic. The
terms in which he stated the scope and purpose of Islam were much more
closely related to Marxist influences-and so were also his concepts
concerning the political practice of Islam.
In the more concrete and political sense, Islam is a political party:
The expression 'Muslim' indicates the world revolutionary party
established by Islam .. . and anyone believing in this call and truly
accepting the responsibilities is a member of the 'Islamic Community'
(Jamaat-i Islami) or the 'Islamic Party' ... called 'The Party of God' in
the Revelation (i.e., in the Quran; the Arabic term used is Hizb
Allah. )47
It is a party organised by God, and therefore destined to take the reins of
power; and, like other revolutionary parties, it is not only a political
instrument but also the kernel of future society, a living manifestation of
Islam. The odds may seem against its success; but again the challenge of
Marxist achievement was invoked by Mawdudi as an exhortation to the
discouraged.
In the Nineteenth Century the supremacy of Capitalism was complete.
It did not occur, to the cowardly and fatalist mind, that the regime that
ruled the world with such awesome military and political power can
ever be overthrown. Nevertheless, under these conditions there
emerged a man, Karl Marx, and he began to preach the Communist
ideal-and he was opposed to by the governments, lost his homeland,
and he became a refugee, wandering from one country to another and
suffering misfortune and poverty. Nevertheless, before his death he
succeeded in forming a community (Jama'a) that within forty years was
to put an end to the throne of a great and fearsome power, Russia. And
it did not stop at that, but shook the foundations of Capitalism all over
the world . . .48
Marx as an exiled prophet: the ever-present challenge of Marxism is
reflected in Mawdudi's version of the life of Marx, not (mutatis mutandis)
unlike the outline of the life of Muhammad.
502 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

This fascination with the advent of Marxism, discernible in many of

Mawdudi's early writings, seems to have been shared by his audience-the
new generation of Indian Muslims who became his followers in the 1930s
and 1940s. The reasons for that had relatively little to do with the actual
social conditions of India and of the Muslim community: no authentic drive
towards social change was to emerge out of Mawdudi's theory. The attitude
he took towards Marxism-active assimilation of revolutionary terminology
and practices, accompanied by total rejection and intolerance towards the
theory as a whole-can best be understood as a part of the general conflict
between Islamic and Western thought. Ever since the challenge of a rival
civilisation presented itself, Islam was in the process of re-defining itself as a
response. This hardly applies to its reaction towards Hinduism: the long and
rich vernacular civilisation of India was dismissed by Mawdudi as remnants
of a primitive past that should have been done away with more thoroughly.
Only the West, with its superior power, forced Muslim Indians to redefine
their faith.

MAWDUDI'SISLAMAND THE WEST

Following the defeat of the 1858 rebellion, Muslim elite in India underwent
a process of rapid Westernisation, guided by the thought and activities of
men like Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan and embodied in his college at Aligarh (and
it must be remembered that, as far as Mawdudi was concerned, 'the real
power of a nation lies not with its general public, but with its elite').49 The
basic attitude of the Westernised elite towards Islam was apologetic: an
attempt to reconcile Islamic tradition with Western philosophy and values.
The logical impossibility of such an undertaking was exposed by Mawdudi in
a concise and scathing paragraph:

The concept of religion in Islam means the code of human life, while the
concept of religion in the West is that it is merely a personal belief,
which has nothing to do with practical human life. And Islam puts the
belief in God above all, while in the West the existence of divinity is not
at all accepted as a fact. And the whole civilisation of Islam is based
upon the belief in revelation and prophecy, while there the revelation is
suspect and the existence of prophecy doubted. And the belief in the
Day of Judgement is the cornerstone of moral order, while this
cornerstone has no foundation in the West. And those rituals and deeds
that are obligatory in Islam are considered by Westerners as traditions
left over from the dark and primitive ages, of no use at all nowadays. It is
also that principles of culture and civilisation in Islam are totally
different from those of the West. The root of roots and the supreme
principle of Islamic jurisprudence is that exalted Allah is in Himself the
promulgator of law, but they in the West acknowledge no right for God
in the promulgation of law-for them it is done by the legislative
council, elected by the nation. And in politics Islam seeks an Islamic
government and the West aims at national government. Islam turns
toward internationalism and the eyes of the West are on Nationalism. In
MAWDUDI S CONCEPT OF ISLAM 503

economics Islam provides for the eating of Halal and for alms and
charity and forbids interest absolutely, while economic order in the
West is based only on interest and profit. And in ethics Islam looks
towards after-life happiness and the West looks towards material profit
in this life. And in social affairs the way of Islam differs again from the
way of the West in almost everything . . .50

But such contradictions did little to deter the Westernisers as long as 'The
West'-or the British Empire and its culture-remained stable and
powerful. Two factors combined to make Westernisation seem inevitable:
the immense political, military and economic power of the Western powers,
that seemed all but permanent; and the notion that European civilisation,
based on liberal thought, was the proudest achievement of mankind and the
criterion for the evaluation of the rest. Both assumptions lay behind the
apologetic re-definition of Islam; and both assumptions were shattered in
the twentieth century by world war and by Marxism. This gave Mawdudi an
opportunity to follow the greatest of Muslim revivalists, Al-Ghazali, in
curing the Westernised elite of their delusions. Al-Ghazali
studied Greek thought with great intellectual acumen and subjected it
to such searching criticism that its grip on the Muslim mind was
loosened considerably. Those who had taken Greek speculations to be
based on reality, and were endeavouring to defend Revelation against
their onslaught by showing that the two were identical (i.e. by
apologetics), were helped to understand the truth on the correct
perspective.5'
Where Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan saw a triumphant world power, Mawdudi saw
a sick and declining civilisation. In an essay titled 'The Suicide of Western
Civilisation' (Intihar al-hadarah al-gharbiyyah), written in the early 1930s,
Mawdudi sought to prove that its final demise was inevitable: both'Natural
Law' and the Quran led to the same conclusion. In our world, he wrote, there
is constant cyclical movement: birth and death, youth and old age, strength
and weakness. All powers and empires, including the West, are bound to
decline. (There is no indication of the extent to which Mawdudi was
influenced by Spengler, directly or indirectly). Furthermore, the Quran also
indicates that the ascendancy of the West is temporary: all nations and rulers
are given their limited period in power, so that they can be tested (Thumma
ja'alnakum khala'if ala al-ard ... Li-nanzura kayfa ta'maluna). Those who
failed, like Pharaonic Egypt or the modern West, to use their power for
godly purposes, were given an initial warning: 'The World War, the
economic problems, increasing unemployment, the spread of contagious
diseases [such as the 'flu epidemic of 1919] and the deterioration of family
order-all these are manifest omens.'52 Pharaoh, the Quran and the Bible
tell us, did not take heed-and neither has the modern West done so:
The state of affairs now indicates that the stage of warning and of
collecting evidence is almost over, and the hour of judgement is near.
Two powerful demons have seized the West, dragging it towards
504 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

self-destruction-the demon of birth control (Shaytan qat' al-nasl) is

one, and the demon of nationalism (Shaytan al-qawmiyyah) is the
other.53

The abortions and contraceptives, the mass slaughter weapons of nationalist

wars, the economic breakdown, even the failure of prohibition in the United
States (Mawdudi described Roosevelt's success in 1932 as the victory of
Wine-Khamr-over Word-Amr)54 were all the portents of impending
suicide.
All these prophecies of doom were rather commonplace in Mawdudi's
generation, and went far towards reducing the awe with which the West had
been held by Muslims. But the political and social upheavals were not in
themselves sufficient to undermine the authority of Western-in fact
liberal-values: it is in this regard that the influence of Marxism was crucial.
Here was a revolutionary political movement that propagated a system of
thought that was independent of-or rather incompatible with-what
people like Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan took to be the values of the West. If such
defiance was possible, there was no need for anyone-least of all the
Muslims-to seek a symbiosis between their ways and Western values.
Western wisdom was no more the sum of all human knowledge; its very
validity as a system was questioned, and the world was open for alternative
systems of thought (and for their political manifestations) to assert
themselves.
This accounts, most probably, for Mawdudi's fascination with the advent
of Marxism: as a political power it weakened Western powers, as an ideology
it undermined the moral authority of liberal thought. But fascination did not
breed tolerance: while treading in the footsteps of Marxist ideology and
borrowing freely from Marxist terminology and Marxist practice, Mawdudi
declared himself a staunch enemy of both liberalism and Marxism.

MAWDUDI AS AN ANTI-MARXIST

The very act of asserting Islam as a total ideology, while inspired by

Marxism, meant-paradoxically-the negation of Marxism; and since it
seemed, at least to Mawdudi, a more potent and dangerous force than
liberalism, the enmity towards it was bound to be more pronounced.
Mawdudi sought to refute or reject not only Marxism in general but also the
philosophical sources of Dialectical Materialism-both Dialectics and
Materialism.
Hegel won Mawdudi's respect by trying to give meaning to history-but
his view of mankind as constantly developing through conflict was rejected
as dangerous to Islam. If each and every period, wrote Mawdudi, has its
unique creations-which are later to be improved upon by antithesis and
synthesis-then the same might be said about Muhammad and his
Revelation; but the eternal validity of the Quran is a sacrosanct Muslim
tenet. The dialectical development, accompanied by constant strife, may
have been the path of actual history; in a diagram, Mawdudi represents it as
a sinusoidal line leading from A to B. The wild gyrations of the line represent
MAWDUDI S CONCEPTOF ISLAM 505

the passages from thesis to antithesis. On the same diagram there appears a
straight line-leading also from A to B; this is the straight path, al-sirat
al-mustaqim of the daily prayers, which human history would have taken
had the guidance of Muhammad been truly followed.55
It was materialism, however, that bore the main brunt of Mawdudi's
critique-of both liberalism and Marxism. Indian Hindu and Sufi Muslim
traditions stressed the complete denial of the body, the asceticist yearning
for the perfect spirituality. The West went to the other extreme, that of
Material perfection, which meant that a man should be surrounded by
all the material comforts and bounties of the world and regarded
himself as nothing but an animal [again the evil effects of Darwin] . . .
Men learned to fly like birds, swim like crocodiles, run like horses and
even terrorize and destroy like wolves-but to live like human beings
they learned not.56
This inhuman materialism did not triumph overnight, explained Mawdudi;
for five or six centuries a struggle had been going on between the principles
of religion and the atheistic spirit of Western science. This atheism is not
immanent to science: it was a result of the narrow-mindedness of the
Christian Church, which led scientists to look upon every religion and
spiritual belief as an enemy of free thought57 (this, he implies, would not
have happened under true Islam). The struggle was decided rather recently,
according to Mawdudi: from Spinoza and his Pantheistic religious
rationalism the road finally led to Spencer's atheism and Mill's
utilitarianism. It was merely coincidental that this came about at the same
time with the high tide of Western power and development:
For the development achieved by the people of the West in this era,
from the material point of view, was not achieved due to secularism and
materialism but was achieved in spite of them. The proof of that is,
briefly, that man cannot develop without being ready to sacrifice life,
time, money, effort and personal interest in the service of a noble cause,
while secularism and materialism lack the ability to give man a motive
for sacrifice . . .58
This may apply to Western liberalism, but hardly to Marxism-which had
proved highly influential as a call to arms, making people ready to sacrifice
all for the cause. Against the materialism of Marx, Mawdudi put forward a
stronger (and emotionally effective) argument: if liberal materialism meant
the atrophy of society, Marxist materialism meant the degradation of the
individual. Marx 'observed the external animal (in every man) marked by
the dependence upon sources of income, and totally ignored the internal
human being that lives encapsulated within the external animal. ..'. Had
Hegel or Marx read the Quran, they would have encountered none of the
obstacles which forced them to rely upon hypothesis and inference, 'for the
knowledge of man and the philosophy of history put forward by the Quran
solve in a -true form and a convincing manner all these problems which
confused Hegel and Marx'.59Islam, by stressing obedience to Allah even in
the everyday business of man, solves the problems of human existence by
506 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

making man's material life into 'a thoroughly spiritual venture';60 while
Marxism, ignoring God, finds itself in league with Darwin and his alleged
denial of the spirit.
This Marxist atheism, wrote Mawdudi, was manifest in the attitude of the
Russian communists, who tried to exile God from Russia;6' and it led them
to view history as constant class warfare, in which they took the side of one
particular class. But in Islam all men are equal under God, and therefore no
artificial equality is necessary: 'Islam does not agree with those who desire to
enforce complete equality in respect of the means of production and the
fruits of economic endeavour, as they aim at replacing limited natural
inequalities by an artifical equality.'62This promise of Marxism is, however,
effective and enticing; only a true version of Islam-namely, Mawdudi's
Jamaat-i Islami-can counter it.
The only regime fit to confront the sweeping current of communism is a
regime that treats the questions of human life and its practical problems
in a better way than communism, and gives man-at the same
time-the peace of mind that the spiritual happiness that communism
absolutely lacks. And if a regime like that is to be established it cannot
be established but on the basis of Islam alone.63
In practice, this meant a continuous confrontation between Mawdudi's
Jamaat-i Islami and the Marxists in Pakistan. A recent communist account of
Pakistani politics after Bhutto's fall from power describes Mawdudi's party
as 'a peculiar imperialist construct' using 'goon squads' against the left. But
violence is not the only method used: 'We are not satisfied with merely
preaching and instructing to save the workers from the opiates of
communism, but do our best in fact to solve their problems as well.'64This is
to be done by competing with communist activities on the shop-floor and
community levels, setting up unions, and offering a promise of Islamic
justice-though not of equality. This proved to be an expedient role to play:
it more than partly accounts for the growing influence of Jamaat-i Islam,
now under the political leadership of Mian Tufail, with the military
government-and for the financial and political support given to Mawdudi
by Saudi Arabia. With more Saudi aid going to Pakistan than to any other
country, the latter seems to be of major importance-the Saudis, in fact, saw
Mawdudi safely through his conflicts with Bhutto's government.
But there was more to Mawdudi's anti-Marxism than mere expediency,
and there was more to the success of his party than Saudi backing.
Mawdudi's concept of Islam-both as a total ideology and as the movement
that would implement its vision-was to a great extent a response to the new
challenge of Marxist thought and of Marxist power. Mawdudi was constantly
addressing himself to the elite (the Khasah, 'special', of traditional Muslim
terminology) of Indian Muslims-for whom a return to past values has
become impossible. 'We do not wish to reconstruct Islamic civilization,'
Mawdudi wrote; the break with Western liberalism, that was central to his
thought, was not towards the past but towards a future in which 'we shall
make Islam the supreme authority over human life in its totality'.65Such a
break was, in a sense, made possible by the example of the Marxist break
MAWDUDI S CONCEPTOF ISLAM 507

from Western tradition (as it seemed to Mawdudi to be). In borrowing

heavily from Marxist revolutionary terminology and practices, Mawdudi
came dangerously close to restating socialism under an Islamic guise-a
notion that was as far from his mind as the apologetics of former generations.
It therefore became increasingly necessary to point out the faults and
fallacies of Marxism, to emphasize its incompatibility with Islam;
This did not mean abandoning the idea of Islamic revolution. The rise to
prominence of Jamaat-i Islam in Pakistan was only a part-albeit a major
one-of the resurgence of similar movements and ideas in several Muslim
states (of which Iran was the most spectacular example). The promise of a
brave new Islamic policy seemed to be offering solace to peoples and elites
that saw the former promises-those of happiness through national
independence-gradually dissipating. In contemporary Pakistan,
Mawdudi's concept of Islam is of special import: for Pakistan was never a
proper nation-state. It was the result of an experiment, an attempt to
establish a nation-like polity around Muslim identity, an 'undertaking to
build an Islamic society' as W.C. Smith put it.66As an experiment, it seemed
both expensive and unpromising: the wars with India, the struggles over the
issues of democracy, constitutionalism and religion, the constant scramble
for power-all these led not to national-Muslim consolidation but to
bloodshed, disintegration and disillusionment. Paradoxically, it was
Mawdudi's Jamaat-i Islami that now offered a raison d'e'trefor the Pakistani
state they originally opposed: a vision of a future society ruled by Islam in its
totality, a society greater and happier than the one envisioned by Marxism.
But with the advent to power of Islamic revolutionaries new risks were
incurred, risks yet to be avoided. Mawdudi strongly denounced the
godlessness of Marxism-but he had chosen to combat Marxism not only on
that front but also on the front of social welfare. He stressed the importance
of Heaven and Hell in Islam-but it is clear that he saw them as no more than
the guarantees of social ethics in the Islamic polity. By responding to the
Marxist challenge, it seems, Mawdudi accepted at least one Marxist tenet
(while vehemently rejecting most others): that it is the purpose of a
revolution to establish a political shortcut to social happiness and moral
perfection. Mawdudi's answer to the question of 'What is Islam?' is that
Islam is a total, universal ideology that can shape a perfect society; and that
the purpose of Islam as a revolutionary movement is to govern the world, 'so
that peace, contentment and well-being may fill the earth as waters fill the
'
oceans. 67

The above phrase, coined by Mawdudi (or by his disciple and colleague
KhurshidAhmad, who translated most of his works into English) to describe
the promise of Islam as he understood it, has a familiar ring to it. Whether
intentionally or not, it is reminiscent of the words of Isaiah-'For the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea' (Isaiah
11, 9, according to the King James version). The difference between these
two phrases assumes a symbolic significance: for while Isaiah spoke of the
knowledge of God, Mawdudi-and his political movement-speaks of a
well-ordered and happy society; while Isaiah spoke of the end of time,
Mawdudi speaks of a situation that can obtain-if and where Jamaat-i Islami
508 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

attain power-here and now. It is in this regard that the revolutionary

Islamic movementsare now incurringnew risks: for the validityof their
Islamwill ultimatelybe judgednot accordingto the religiousmeritsof their
argumentbut accordingto theirabilityto fulfila promiseof happiness,here
and now.
NOTES

(All books and articles are by Mawdudi, unless otherwise indicated).

1. A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam (Lahore: 1963), p. 109.

2. Leonard Binder, Religion and Politics in Pakistan (Berkeley: 1963), p. 83.
3. Towards Understanding Islam (Rampur: 1951), p. 210.
4. Iqbal, The Secrets of the Self, quoted in Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India
(London: 1946), p. 109.
5. Al-Jihad fi sabil Allah (Damascus: n.d.), p. 50 (My translation-E.L.).
6. ibid.
7. ibid.
8. Minhaj al-ingilab al-islami (Rawalpindi: n.d.), p. 10 (my translation-E.L.).
9. op. cit., p. 11.
10. Quoted in Azis Ahmad, 'Mawdudi and Orthodox Fundamentalists in Pakistan', MEJ, XXI
(1967), p. 374.
11. Minhaj al-inqilab al-islami, pp. 37-8.
12. Correspondence between Maulana Maududi and Maryam Jameelah (Lahore: 1969), pp.
57-8.
13. Towards Understanding Islam, pp. 1-2.
14. Al-Jihad . . ., pp. 8-9 (my translation-E.L.).
15. Al-mustalihat al-arba'a ftal-quran (the four forms referred to are God, al-Illah; Sovereign,
Rabb; Worship; Ibadah; and Din) (Kuwait: 1971), pp. 116-18 (my translation-E.L.).
16. Op. cit., p. 120.
17. Sayed Riaz Ahmad, Maulana Maududi and the Islamic State (Lahore: 1976), p. 29.
18. Towards Understanding Islam, p. 3.
19. Islamic Way of Life (Lahore: 1967), p. 2.
20. See Revivalist Movement. . ., pp. 6-17.
21. 'Mabadi' salimah li-tafsir al-Quran' in al-Islam fi muwajahat al-tahaddiyat al-mu'asirah
(Kuwait: 1971), p. 177.
22. 'Al-Islam din al-ilm wal-aql', op. cit., p. 11.
23. 'Hida al-madhhab al-aqli Aydan' in Nahnu wal-hadarah al-gharbiyyah (Damascus: n.d.),
p. 140.
24. W.C. Smith, Modern Islam in India, p. 71.
25. 'Nazariyyat Darwin lil-nushu' wal-irtiqa' in al-Islam fi muwajahah, p. 24 (my
translation-E.L.).
26. Nazariyyat al-Islam al-siyyasiyyah (Damascus: 1967), p. 7 (my translation-E.L.).
27. W. Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History (Princeton: 1957), p. 234.
28. Al-mabadi al-asasiyyah li-fahm al-Quran (Kuwait: 1971), p. 53 (my translation-E.L.).
29. 'Al-da' wa-dawa'uhu' in Nahnu wal-hadarah al-gharbiyyah, pp. 336-37 (my
translation-E.L.).
30. Revivalist Movement, p. 38.
31. Al-Jihad ftisabil Allah, pp. 8-9.
32. op. cit., p. 12 (my translation-E.L.).
33. 'Al-niza' bayn al-sharq wal-gharb fi Turkia', Nahnu ... , p. 120.
34. Quoted in K.K. Aziz, The Making of Pakistan (London: 1967), p. 105.
35. Al-mabadi al-asasiyyah ... p. 60 (my translation-E.L.).
36. W. Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India, p. 149.
37. Waqi' al-muslimim wa sabil al-nuhud bihim, (Damascus: 1956), p. 7 (my translation-
E.L.).
38. Al-Jihad fi sabil Allah, p. 10 (my translation-E.L.).
MAWDUDI S CONCEPTOF ISLAM 509

39. Revivalist Movement . . ., p. 41.

40. op. cit., p. 147.
41. op. cit., p. 43.
42. Al-Jihad fi sabil Allah, p. 23 (my translation-E.L.).
43. Political Theory of Islam, quoted in K.B. Sayeed 'Jama'at-i Islami Movement', Pacific
Affairs, XXX (1957), p. 68.
44. Islamic Way of Life, p. 37.
45. Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa
(Princeton: 1963), p. 136.
46. Islamic Way of Life, p. 37.
47. Al-Jihad ... p. 10 (my translation-E.L.).
48. 'Shari'at al-abtal, la shari'at al-du'af, in Nahnu wal-hadarah al-gharbiyyah, pp. 280-81
(my translation-E.L.).
49. 'Talai' al-thawrah 'ala al-din', op. cit., pp. 35-6 (my translation-E.L.).
50. 'Inhitat hadarat al-Islam fi al-hind', op. cit., pp. 35-6 (my translation-E.L.).
51. Revivalist Movement. . ., p. 57.
52. 'Intihar al-hadarah al-gharbiyyah', in Nahnu ..., p. 76 (my translation-E.L.).
53. op. cit., p. 77.
54. 'Bayna al-shari'a al-rabbaniyyah wal-qanun al-wad'i', in op. cit., p. 52.
55. 'Falsafat Hegel wa Marx lil-ta'rikh, in Al-Islam ft Muwajahat ... p. 37.
56. Islamic Way of Life, p. 83.
57. 'Ubudiyyatuna al-fikriyyah wa asbabuha', in Nahnu wal-hadara, p. 13.
58. 'Al-Quwah a-ra'idah al-muwajjihah fi-al-'asr al-hadith ... al-Islam aw al-masihiyyah' in
al-Islam fi muwajahat .. ., p. 280 (my translation-E.L.).
59. 'Falsafat Hegel. . .', pp. 34-5 (my translation-E.L.).
60. Islamic Way of Life, p. 87.
61. 'Al Manhaj al-jadid li-ta'mir kiyan al-Ummah', Nahnu wal-hadarah al gharbiyyah, p. 197.
62. Islamic Way of Life, p. 72.
63.,'Al-Quwah al-ra'idah . . .', pp. 280-81 (my translation-E.L.).
64. Waqi' al-muslimim wa sabil al-nuhud bihim, p. 59 (my translation-E.L.).
65. op. cit. p. 45.
66. W. Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History, p. 207.
67. Islamic Way of Life, p. 1.