ABSTRACT
South Asia hosts around 29 per cent of the global Muslim population, within which is embedded a Sunni majority that has caused the largest number of violent terrorist acts in recent times, though overtaken in the past three years by the orgy of violence that has engulfed Syria and Iraq. The ideologies that have inspired this Islamic radicalism can be traced to Muslim thinkers in the Arab world and South Asia. The leading political Islamist organisation in South Asia is the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). The Bangladeshi JeI is an offshoot of the Pakistani JeI which split from the All India JeI after the partition of India. It was founded in Lahore on 26 August 1941 by the Aurangabad-born Syed Abul Ala Maududi, an Islamic revivalist thinker. The JeI was founded as a sociopolitical movement to empower the Muslims of India during the struggle for Independence. It seems ironic today that the JeI had opposed the creation of Pakistan as a separate state for the Muslims of India. The JeI also opposed the Muslim League in the 1946 elections. After Independence and partition, Maududi moved to Pakistan from India where he led the movement to create Pakistan as an Islamic State. The current party in Bangladesh developed from the East Pakistan wing of the formerly Pakistan JeI.
