ABSTRACT
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, as a political party, has been an inseparable part of the country’s political landscape for the past 50 years. However, its political legacy dates as far back as to the 1940s during the pre-partitioned Indian sub-continent. Since its registration as a party in 1979 in independent Bangladesh, Jamaat has maintained a persistent position on constitutionalism and competitive electoral democracy. Religion and politics have long been seen as incompatible in the modern state system. The chapter presents an analysis of religious politics of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (Jamaat) in Bangladesh. The party’s long-time nomenclature, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, clearly remained a party orthodoxy due to historical, emotional and symbolic reasons. Jamaat for a long time remained entrapped by leadership orthodoxy for which the party had to bear severe unintended costs. As an Islamic movement, Jamaat is based on a much higher philosophy of life than that of any other social or political movement.
