ABSTRACT
It is important to pause and consider in some detail what exactly is meant by the term Islamic ‘revivalist’ and, in that context, what kind of revivalist Mawdudi was. In considering what the ‘problem’ is with Islam in the modern world, this has been explored by many scholars, both Muslim and nonMuslim, and the conclusion more often than not is that Muslims are in a state of psychological trauma and a malaise caused by an awareness that the Islamic worldview fails to correspond with the modern world. As Wilfred Cantwell Smith states, ‘the fundamental malaise of modern Islam is a sense that something has gone wrong with Islamic history. The fundamental problem of modern Muslims is how to rehabilitate that history: to set it going in full vigour, so that Islamic society may once again flourish as a divinely guided society should and must.’2 However, Mawdudi’s form of revivalism is not harking back to a social order that existed in the past. In fact, it is extremely difficult to pigeon-hole Mawdudi, which is one of his attractions. Mawdudi tends to borrow from so many different traditions as and when it suits. For example, he could hardly be described as a ‘traditionalist’ in the sense usually understood as those who reject the west entirely and instead aim to return to a ‘pure Islam’ with little need for western technology. Despite being trained as a Deobandi alim, Mawdudi was not against modern thought, whether scientific, social, economic or political. In fact, it is somewhat difficult today to determine who would qualify under the ‘traditionalist’ label, as even modern Wahhabism, that which exists in Saudi Arabia, makes use of western technology, as do such groups as Al-Qaeda. It is best characterized by the founder of the Wahhabi movement Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92) who modelled himself on the Hanbali thinker Ibn Taimiyya (d. 1328) in that he possessed an uncompromising dislike for what he perceived as non-Muslim innovations which contaminated the purity of Islam. Al-Wahhab attacked ‘innovations’ (bid’ah) and idolatry (shirk), such as the celebration of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday and the visit to Sufi shrines, because he viewed these as diluting pure Islam and causing its decline. Wahhabism3 is important because it reflects significant trends in Islamic
thought during the eighteenth century. What is particularly interesting about it is, unlike movements in the nineteenth century onwards, it was not a reaction against western ideas. In fact it was the result of internal conditions, in the sense of what was happening in the Islamic world; for example, Egyptian ritual and belief. Having said that, in terms of doctrine and organization, the Wahhabi shared much with the ‘modern’ movements and, in fact, is a precursor of them, including Mawdudi’s Jamaat. Like his model Ibn Taymiyya, al-Wahhab did not argue for a blind adherence to the traditions, the Qur’an and hadith. He argued for ijtihad: engaging in active reasoning and interpretation of hadith to ensure it is conducive with the message of the Qur’an. The aim of reform was to prevent the engagement in practices for which people had little or no understanding of why they engaged in them. While al-Wahhab stressed that it is important to obey sharia, he also stressed that sharia needs be a correct interpretation of the Qur’an, which requires the skill of ijtihad. Al-Wahhab did not want Muslims to follow sharia merely because it is the law, but rather because it was in tune with the word of God. Although there have always been some independent jurists in the Islamic world who have engaged in ijtihad, to a large extent the ‘gates of ijtihad’ have been closed since al-Shafi’i in the thirteenth century. The guidelines and teachings of the legal scholars became so enshrined that judges would rarely dare do anything other than imitate (taqlid) these predecessors. The important contribution al-Wahhab made to Islamic revivalism4 was that, while acknowledging that the Qur’an is universal and eternal, the rulings of humankind are not. The question needed to be addressed, if Islam was to reform, whether the legal rulings of scholars from the Middle Ages could have any bearing on the modern world. In theory, at least, Wahhabism allowed that anything that is not explicitly forbidden in the Qur’an or in the Sunna was therefore permitted. However, in practice, the more militant element of the movement resulted in actual physical attacks on any actions that were perceived as ‘innovation’, such as the visit to the tombs of saints or such superstitious practices such as spitting in a particular way or wearing charms to ward off evil. There are, then, certain features of Wahhabism, at least in its original
form, that reflect Mawdudi’s own views, and this can be traced back to Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328). There are a number of similarities between Ibn Taymiyyah and Mawdudi. Indeed, Mawdudi was very praising of Ibn Taymiyyah:
Ibn Taymiyya removed these dangers, revived Islam’s spirit of idea and morals and accomplished the explorations of renewal. A little before him, no one had dared to invite the people to Islam out of the fear of being calumniated; the narrow-minded scholars had cooperated with the cruel rulers, and it was his lot to unfurl the flag of renewal against them. He was profound in interpretation of the Qur’an and a leader in the Hadith and he took Islam from where al-Ghazali had left it forward.
