Abul Ala Maududi: An

existentialist history
Nadeem F. Paracha

To most Pakistanis and to those who have been associated with

various Islamic political outfits in countries like Egypt,
Indonesia, Syria and Malaysia, Abul Ala Maududi is to 'Political
Islam' what Karl Marx was to Communism.

Both western and South Asian historians have described him as

one of the most powerful Islamic ideologues of the 20th
century, whose ideas and writings went on to influence a vast
number of Islamic movements in the Muslim world.

For example, the well-known British journal, The New

Statesman, in its July 2013 issue, suggested that the impact of
Maududi's ideas can be found in modern Islamic movements
such as the Muslim Brotherhood (first formed in Egypt) and
similar outfits across the Muslim realms, all the way to the
more aggressive postures of men like Osama Bin Laden, the
founder of Al Qaeda and once the most wanted terrorist in the
world.
Ambitions and achievements

In Pakistan, Maududi is mostly remembered as an Islamic

scholar who founded the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI). But he also still
remains a controversial figure here. To the left and liberal
segments, he is remembered as the man who let the US use JI
(during the Cold War) to undermine leftist and progressive
politics in Pakistan, whereas many Islamic parties opposed to
the JI once went on to declare him to be a religious innovator
who attempted to create a whole new sect.

He arrived in Pakistan from India as a migrant and scholar with

the ambition to turn what to him was a nationalistic

abomination into becoming a 'true Islamic state' based on the

laws of the shariah.

Maududi had formed his party in 1941 like a Leninist outfit in

which a vanguard and select group of learned and 'pious
Muslims' would work to bring an 'Islamic revolution' and do
away with the forces of what Maududi called modern-day
jahiliya (socialism, communism, liberal democracy, secularism
and a faith 'distorted by innovators').

To that end, he began to lay down the foundations of what

came to be known as 'Islamism' a theory that advocated the
formation of an Islamic state by first 'Islamising' various
sections of the economy and politics so that a fully Islamised
polity could be built to launch the final Islamic revolution.

Maududi's theories in this context attracted certain segments

of Pakistan's urban middle-classes and was also adopted by
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which tried to jettison the process
through a 'jihad' within Egypt.

Not only did Maududi and his party face resistance from leftist
groups, it also entered into a long tussle with Ayub Khan's
secular/modernist dictatorship (1958-69), and with the ZA
Bhutto regime, which was based on populist socialism (197177).

Maududi was also taken to task by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam,

which accused the JI of creating a separate Muslim sect called
'Maududiat'.

Nevertheless, Maududi's ideas were eventually adopted by

General Ziaul Haq, who had pulled off a successful military coup
in July 1977 and then invited Maududi to help him shape
policies to help make Pakistan a 'true Islamic country' run on
'Nizam-e-Mustafa.'

The course charted by Zia eventually mutated into becoming a

destructive and highly polarising legacy that the state, politics
and society of Pakistan has been battling with till this day.

But the irony is that none of what went down in the name of
faith and 'Islamisation' during and after the Zia dictatorship was
witnessed by the ideologue who had first inspired it, because
Maududi passed away in 1979.
Not an all-out conservative Maududi's existential journey

In all the noise that Maududi's career as a scholar, ideologue

and politician generated, what got lost was the crucial fact that
unlike most of today's Islamic scholars and leaders, Maududi
did not emerge from an entirely conservative background.

His personal history is a rather fascinating story of a man who,

after suffering from spats of existential crises, chose to
interpret Islam as a political theory to address his own
dilemmas.

He did not come raging out of a madressah, swinging a fist at

the vulgarities of the modern world. On the contrary, he was
born into a family in the town of Auranganad in colonial India
that had relations with the modern and enlightened Muslim
scholar, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.

Syed Ahmed Khan was one of the earliest architects of Muslim

Nationalism in India a nationalism that attempted to create a
robust Muslim middle-class in India that was well-versed in the
sciences, arts and politics of Europe, as well as in the more
rational and progressive understanding of Islam. It was for this
very purpose that he formed the MAO college (later known as
Aligarh University).
The Aligarh University that was formed by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
to modernise Muslim education in India.

Syed Ahmed convinced Maududi's father, Ahmed Hassan, to

join the college against the wishes of Maududi's conservative
paternal grandfather.

Incensed by the fact that his son had begun to wear 'Western
clothes' and play cricket, Hassan's father pulled him out of the
college and got him lectured by various clerics and ulema on
how he was going against his faith by 'being overwhelmed by
western lifestyle.'

Hassan soon renounced everything that had attracted him at

the college and became extremely conservative and religious.

When Maududi was born (1903), Hassan pledged not to give his
son a western education.

So Maududi received his early education at home through

private tutors who taught him the Quran, Hadith, Arabic and
Persian. At age 12 Maududi, was sent to the Oriental High
School whose curriculum had been designed by famous Islamic
scholar, Shibli Nomani.

Apart from teaching Islamic law and tradition to the students,

the school also taught Mathematics and English. Maududi then
moved to an Islamic college, Darul Aloom, in Hyderabad. But he
had to cut short his college education when his father fell sick
and he had to travel to Bhopal to visit him. In Bhopal, the young
Maududi befriended Urdu poet and writer, Niaz Fatehpuri.

Fatehpuri's writings and poetry were highly critical of

conservative Muslims and the orthodox Muslim clergy, and on
a number of occasions, various ulema had declared him to be a
'heretic.' But Fatehpuri soldiered on and had already begun to

make a name for himself in Urdu literary circles when he met

Maududi.

Inspired by Fatehpuri's writing style, Maududi too decided to

become a writer. In 1919, the then 17-year-old Maududi moved
to Delhi, where for the first time he began to study the works of
Syed Ahmed Khan in full. This led to the study of major works of
philosophy, sociology, history and politics by leading European
thinkers and writers.

Maududi is said to have spent about five years reading books

and essays authored by famous European philosophers,
political scientists and historians, and he emerged from this
vigorous exercise a man who claimed to have found the reason
behind the rise of the West (and the fall of Muslim empires).

By now, he had also begun to write columns for Urdu

newspapers. In one of his articles, he listed the names of those
European scholars whose works and ideas, according to him,
had shaped the rise of Western civilisation. The scholars that he
mentioned in his list included German materialist philosopher,
Hegel; British economist, Adam Smith; revolutionary French

writers, Rousseau and Voltaire; pioneering evolutionist and

biologist, Charles Darwin and many others.

With this article, he began to shape a narrative through his

columns in which he emphasised the need (for Muslims) to
study and understand Western political thought and philosophy
and to 'master their sciences.' He said that one could not
challenge anything that one did not understand.

It was also during this period that Maududi began to exhibit an

interest in Marxism. At age 25, he became an admirer of the
time's leading Marxist intellectual in India, Abdul Sattar Khairi,
and then befriended famous progressive Urdu poet, Josh
Malihabadi.

By the early 1930s, Maududi was living the life of a studious

young man and journalist who also enjoyed watching films in
the newly emerging cinemas of India and listening to songs. He
married an independent-minded girl, Mehmuda, who was
educated at a missionary school in Delhi, wore modern dresses
and owned her own bicycle! There was no bar on her to wear a
burqa.

The young Maududi (1927)

Despite all this, Maududi did retain some link with his past as
the son of a very conservative man. In his quest to revive the
lost tradition of Muslim intellectualism, he had also come close
to India's main party of Sunni Deobandi Muslims, the Jamiat
Ulema-i-Hind (JUH).

But at the same time, he also expressed admiration for the

political and spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi. Though he
never joined Gandhi's Indian National Congress (INC) himself,
he did urge other Muslims to join it in his articles. He also
authored biographies of Gandhi and another Congress
ideologue, Pundit Malaviya.

Maududi was greatly dismayed by the breakup of the Ottoman

Empire in Turkey, and he blamed Turkish nationalists for it.
When INC began to talk about an 'Indian Nationalism',
something snapped in Maududi.

He had devoured every book on Western philosophy and

history, but when the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the hands

of Turkish nationalists, Maududi realised he had been highly

underrating the power of modern nationalism all this time. This
was one European concept he was not too familiar with.

Disenchanted by the Congress' Indian Nationalism and JUH's

alliance with the party, Maududi retreated to the life of a
husband who spent most of his time with his family, books, the
occasional film and classical and semi-classical songs performed
on stage.

In 1938, he bumped into Manzoor Nomani, a prominent Islamic

scholar, who admonished him for distancing himself from his
father's legacy, for not having a beard and living the life of a
rudderless Muslim.

Already disappointed with the way the concept of nationalism

was taking root in the minds of the Hindus and Muslims of
India, Maududi retired back to his library, but this time to study
Islam.

He now emerged with the theory that it wasn't really the

greatness of modern Western thought that had been entirely
responsible for the rise of European political power, but it was
due to lack of conviction of the Muslims to practice their faith
in the right manner that had triggered their fall and made room
for European powers to enter.

In 1937, he vehemently attacked the INC's nationalism,

accusing it of trying to subjugate the Muslims of India, but by
the early 1940s he was being equally critical of Jinnah's All India
Muslim League and of Muslim Nationalism.

He declared the League to be 'a party of pagans' and 'nominal

Muslims' who wanted to create a secular country in the name
of Pakistan.

Maududi's vehement attacks could not stop the sudden

momentum that the League gained in 1946 and that helped it
form an independent Muslim country in 1947.

In another ironic move, Maududi decided to leave India and

head for a country that to him was an abomination and abode
of nominal Muslims and the jahiliya. He began his political
career in Pakistan in 1949, and it lasted on till 1979, when he
passed away from illness in a US hospital. His funeral in Lahore
was attended by thousands of admirers.
The many Maududis

Writing in the 'Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political

Thought', Irfan Ahmed suggests that there was not one
Maududi but many.

By this, he meant that as a scholar and ideologue, Maududi's

views were often derivatives of phases in his existential
journey; one that saw him depart from the conservatism his
father had tried to impose upon him and wholeheartedly
embrace the freshness of European philosophical and political
thought.

Maududi then bounced between Indian Marxism and the anticolonial stances of Gandhi and Deobandi ulema (JUH), before
settling for a quiet urban middle-class family life. But incensed
by the rise of Muslim Nationalism, Maududi finally found his

calling in the project of interpreting Islam's holy texts in a

political light, and emerging with a complex theory that we now
call Political Islam (aka 'Islamism').

Elements of organisational Leninism, Hegel's dualism,

Jalaluddin Afghani's Pan-Islamism and various other modern
political theories can be found in his innovative thesis, and
that's why his thoughts not only managed to appeal to modern
conservative Muslim movements such as the Muslim
Brotherhood and populist youth outfits such as the Islami
Jamiat Taleba, but even the mujahideen who fought Soviet
forces in Afghanistan all the way to the more anarchic (if not
entirely nihilistic) ways of men such as Osama Bin Laden.

But the question is, had Maududi been alive today, which one
of the many Maududis out there would he have been most
comfortable with?