This small work aims to present a brief but clear exposition of the whole of Islam. To do this, the author endeavored to explain both the intellectual and spiritual bases of Muslim belief, emphasizing the Islamic conception of life, of man and of his environment. The summary of this book lies at the heart of its title: Understanding Islam, Beyond Prejudice. An open window on Islam and its sources in the present day.

Biography :

Maududi was born on September 25, 1903 in Awrangabad in the Indian state of Hyderabad. His family claimed direct descent from Khadja Kutb Edine Mawdud2.

Childhood :
At an early age, Maududi was educated at home, he "received religious instruction from the hands of his father and from many of the preceptors he employed." secondary to Madrasa Furqaniyah. He completed his higher education at Darul Uloom in Hyderabad, India. They were interrupted by the illness and death of his father and he completed his studies outside the regular educational institutions. His training includes some of the subjects of a modern school, such as European languages and particularly English. According to some sources he translated Qasim Amin's The New Woman into Urdu at the age of fourteen4 and nearly 3,500 pages of Asfar, the work of the mystical Persian thinker Mulla Sadra.

Education :
In his formal education, Syed Maududi was admitted directly to the 8th class of the Madrasa Furqania (Aurangabad) where he surpassed his fellow students in all respects, despite his youth. This was the time when Maududi was drawn to Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics; he studied the foundations of Physics and Mathematics in depth. He passed the Molvi (Metric) exam and was admitted to Molvi Alam (Intermediate). Meanwhile, his father moved to Bhopal where he suffered a severe stroke of paralysis and died leaving nothing in his bank account as he was from a middle class family. Consequently the young Maududi had to interrupt his studies because of his financial difficulties.

Personal aspects:
The death of his father left young Maududi with the economic realities of life. He was recognized as a calligrapher and chose the profession of journalist. He edited articles in the newspapers 'The Madeena' Bajnour, 'Taj' Jabal and an organ of Jamiat Ulma Hind—Al Jamiat of Delhi. While an editor at Al Jamia Dehli, he wrote honest, gritty, incisive and visionary editorials that denoted a classy journalist.

Political struggle:
Foundation of the Jamaat-i-Islami
Main article: Jamaat-e-Islami.
On April 13, 1939 (Iqbal Day), Maududi addressed the British Governor in English in the grounds of Lahore City Hall. This address will be collected, transcribed and published by the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations (IIFSO, Salimah, Kuwait). He criticizes the European colonial policy and presents the Jihad as a self-defence of Muslim peoples against exploitation5. He lays the foundations of the Revolutionary Creed of Islam6 and, thereby, is one of the most radical authors and thinkers of modern Jihad. He joins the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb in his writings.

In 1941, Maududi founded the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) in British India. It is a religious political movement intended to promote Islamic values and their practice.

Political struggle:
At the beginning of the struggle for the creation of the state of Pakistan, Maududi and his party criticized the other leaders of the Muslim League who wanted to make Pakistan a state for Muslims and not an Islamic state. After realizing that India was going to be partitioned and Pakistan was going to be created, he started the fight to make Pakistan an Islamic state. Maududi moved to Pakistan in 1947 and fought for transformation into an Islamic state, resulting in frequent arrests and long periods of incarceration.

In 1953, with the JI, he launched a campaign against the Ahmadiyyia Community in Pakistan resulting in the Lahore Riots (1953) and the selective declaration of martial law8. He was arrested by the military deployment led by Lieutenant General Azam Khan, which also included Rahimuddin Khan, and sentenced to death on charges of writing a propaganda pamphlet on Ahmadiyyia. He seizes the opportunity to appeal for clemency rather than seek clemency. Strong popular pressure eventually convinced the government to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. Eventually, his conviction was overturned.

End of life :
In April 1979, Maududi's chronic kidney disease worsened and, in addition, he had heart problems. He left for the United States for treatment and was hospitalized in Buffalo, New York, where his second son was working as a doctor. During his hospitalization, he retained his intellectual activity.

Following some surgical operations, he died on September 22, 1979, aged 76. His funeral was held in Buffalo, but he was buried in an unmarked grave at his residence in Ichhra, Lahore after a large funeral procession through the city.

Islamic beliefs and ideology:
Maududi wrote about 120 books and pamphlets, delivered at least 1,000 speeches and press statements. His masterpiece was the 30 years devoted to the translation (tafsir) into Urdu of the Quran Tafhim ul-Qur'an (The Meaning of the Quran) intended to give the Quran a supposed self-interpretation. It soon became widely read in mainland Southeast Asia and was translated into several languages.

Islamic:
Maududi gives an overview of Muslims, not those who follow the religion of Islam, but the whole: "Everything in the universe is 'Muslim' because it obeys God by submitting to His laws". The only exception to this universe of Muslims are human beings who do not follow Islam.

Regarding non-Muslims:

"His real tongue which, put to the account of his ignorance, pleads the denial of God or professes multiple deities, is in his true nature of 'Muslim'... The man who denies God is called Kafir (concealer) because he hides his concealment by his disbelief which is inherent in his deep nature and embalmed in his soul. All of his bodily functions are in accordance with this instinct. Reality becomes alien to him and he is in darkness. »

—Maududi
Maududi professed that Islam is a "religion" in the broadest sense of the word. He declared: “Islam is not a 'religion' in the sense that this term is commonly accepted. It is a system comprising all aspects of life. Islam means politics, economics, legislation, science, humanism, health, psychology and sociology. It is a system that does not discriminate based on race, color, language or other external criteria. It applies to all mankind. He wants to reach the heart of every human being."

He said in 1939:

“…we discover two fundamental and major misunderstandings. The first misunderstanding is that of viewing Islam as a religion in the conventional sense of the term “religion”. The second misunderstanding is to consider Muslims as a “Nation” in the technical sense of this term. These two misunderstandings not only confused the concept of 'Jihad' but changed the image of Islam as a whole and presented an erroneous overview of the Muslim people. »

— op. cit. Maududi October 13, 1939, p. 2
Koran
According to Maududi: “The Koran is not a book of abstract theories and cold ideas, which one can apprehend seated in a comfortable armchair with armrests. Nor is it simply a religious book like the others, the contents of which can be grasped in seminars or oratories. On the contrary, it is a Book which contains a message, an invitation, which engenders a movement. When he is sent, he challenges a pious and quiet man to make him abandon his life of solitude and confront him with the world which lives in rebellion against Allah. He suggests that he raise his voice against falsehood and throws him into a bitter battle against the lords of disbelief, malevolence and iniquity. One after another, from each house, he draws each pure and noble soul and gathers them under the banner of truth. In every part of the country, he raises up all the wicked and corrupt who wage war against the bearers of truth. »

Sharia:
Maududi believed that without Sharia (law) Muslim society could not be Islamic:

"If an Islamic society decides in conscience not to accept Sharia, and decides to establish its own Constitution and laws or borrows them from another source that does not take Sharia into account, such a society breaks the contract with God and loses its rights to be called 'Islamic'"

— Maududi:
Maududi also expands on her view of the Islamic State and Sharia in her book Islamic Way of Life.

Islamic State:
Main article: Islamic State.
The modern conception of the "Islamic Islamic State" is attributed to Maududi. In his book Islamic Law and the Constitution15 published in 1941 and in subsequent writings, Maududi coined coins and popularized the term Islamic State itself. In the same way he coined coins and popularized in the 1940s the term Islamic Revolution, although this expression was commonly associated in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution which occurred 40 years later.

The state should be an “Islamic Democracy16” and the three underlying principles are:

the tawhid or the only god,
Al-risalah (prophecy)
the khalifa (caliphate)17,18,19.
The sphere of activity covered by the Islamic State will have to be extended to all human life. In such a state, no one can regard the field of his affairs as personal and private."

The state will have to follow Islamic law, a comprehensive system covering

“family relations, social and economic affairs, administration, rights and duties of citizens, the judicial system, the laws of war and peace and international relations. In short, it embraces all compartments of life... Sharia is a complete scheme of life and an entirely embracing social order where nothing is superfluous and nothing is missing. »

—Maududi
Accordingly, "so long as the state has a government with which the ruler must consult, its function is 'really to seek laws, not to make laws.' »

Maududi believed that God's sovereignty (hakimiya) and people's sovereignty (democracy) were mutually exclusive. However, while Maududi stated in one of her books that

“Democracy had its source in Islam”

Islamic democracy according to him was the antithesis of Western Democracy which transfers the hakimiya (Sovereignty of God) to the people25.

He defended individual liberty and condemned government suspicion:

“This spying on people's lives cannot be justified on moral grounds by the government saying it is necessary to know the secrets of dangerous people. Although, by all intents and purposes, the basis of this policy is the fear and suspicion with which modern governments look upon their citizens who are intelligent and dissatisfied with the official policy of these governments. This is exactly what Islam has called the root of evil in politics. The Prophet's injunction is: "When the ruler begins to seek the causes of dissatisfaction among his people, he seeks quarrel with them" (Abu Dawud). Emir Mu'awiyah said that he himself heard the Prophet say "If you try to find the secrets of the people, then you would try to spoil them permanently or at least bring the staff of ruin." The meaning of this phrase "mess them up" is that when the spies (CID or FBI agents) are deployed around the country to find people's belongings, then the people are afraid to speak freely in their homes in case some word gets out. would escape the lips of their wives or children who would put them in embarrassing situations. In this way, it becomes difficult for an ordinary citizen to speak freely, even in his own home, and society begins to suffer from a general state of mistrust and suspicion. »

—Maududi
Non-Muslims:
The rights of non-Muslims are limited under the Islamic state as established by the writings of Maududi. However "faith, ideology, worship rites or social customs" will not be upset, but non-Muslims will have to accept Muslim law.

“The Jihad does not recognize their rights to administer the affairs of the state in accordance with a system which, from the Islamic point of view, is diabolical. Moreover, the Islamic Jihad also refuses to admit their rights to continue in such practices under an Islamic government, they fatally affect the public interest from the point of view of Islam. »

—Maududi
Non-Muslims have to pay a special tax called jizya. This tax is applicable to all non-Muslim adults, with the exception of the elderly and women, who are not doing military service. Those serving in the military are exempt. All male Muslims are subject to compulsory military service whenever required by the Islamic State. The Jizzya is seen as a protective tax payable to the Islamic State for the protection of those adult non-Muslims who do not do military service.

Maududi believed that copying the cultural practices of non-Muslims was forbidden in Islam, because having

“very disastrous effects on a nation; it destroys the inner vitality, blurs the vision, obscures the critical faculties, feeds an inferiority complex and gradually but surely spades the sources of culture and tolls the death knell. This is why the Holy Prophet necessarily forbade Muslims to assume the culture and way of life of non-Muslims. »

Maududi fiercely opposed the Ahmadiyia sect and the ideas that the Ahmadiyyia were Muslims. He preached against this sect The Qadiani Question and the book The Finality of Prophethood.

— Maududi:
Reviews and controversies:
Anticolonialism:
In the address that Maududi gives at the City Hall of Lahore, on April 13, 1939, Iqbal Day, Maududi certainly had before him high authorities representing the British Empire and he defends himself against the given caricature of the jihadists "'band of religious fanatics on the march, with shaggy beards and feverish eyes brandishing drawn swords and attacking the infidels whenever they come across them and putting them to the sword'"33. He denounces an aspect of his fight which went unnoticed and which should be mentioned:

“They themselves presented the image of thieves armed to the teeth with all kinds of deadly weapons, established the plunder of the world for the conquest of new markets, raw material resources, lands open to colonization and mines abounding in precious metals, thus to procure fuel for their ever more ardent fire of avarice. They fight not for the cause of God but for the satisfaction of their instincts and appetites. For them to invade a nation is a sufficient excuse if the said territory contains mines or if the land abounds with silos of crops or oil, discovered there to be exploited as a profitable market for their manufactured goods or for their surplus populations can settle on the lands of their intended victims. »

— Maududi 1939 (en) pp. 1-2, trans. Raymond Gimilio
. He denounces English colonialism and in general that of European nations. He then confuses Jihad with a struggle also against colonialism. We are at the dawn of the 2nd World War

Policy :
A general reproach echoed by a critic is “that theocracy (theo-democracy) is one”:

"Ideological state in which legislators do not legislate, citizens vote only to reaffirm the permanent applicability of God's law, women seldom venture out of their homes for fear of disturbing the social order, where non- Muslims are tolerated as foreign elements who are required to express their loyalty by paying a financial contribution. »

— in Choueiri, p.111, quoted in Ruthven, p.70
On a more conceptual level, journalist and author Abdel Wahab Meddeb raises the issue based on Maududi's reasoning regarding the sovereignty of a genuine Islamic state which must be divine and not popular, saying "Maududi has built a political system consistent, which is entirely manipulation. It is the manipulation of an Arabic word "hukm", usually defined as "Exercise of the power to govern, to pronounce a sentence, to judge between two parties, to be recognized (in medicine, in philosophy), to to be wise, prudent, possessing good judgment. ". The Quran contains the phrase “hukm is God” itself, which according to Maududi, God – in the form of Sharia [Islamic law] – must rule. But Meddeb argues that a full reading of the Aya, where the phrase appears, reveals that it refers to God's superiority over pagan idols, not His role in government.

“Those who are worshiped, apart from Him, are nothing but the names you and your fathers gave them. God gave them no authority. "Hukm" is God himself. He commanded that you worship no one but Him. This is true religion, but most people don't know it."

— Surah YOUSUF (JOSEPH) 12:40
Quran commentators never forget to remind us that this verse is dedicated to the insignificance of associated deities (pardras) to whom idolaters ([associators]) pray like God.

Abdel Medab's ideas are contradicted by highly respected Islamic scholars like Sheikh Salih al-Fawzan. He writes in his book Aqidah ul-Tawhid: “Whoever accepts a law other than that of Allah assigns a partner to Allah. Although this act of idolatry is not legislated (hukam) by Allah and His Messenger, it is Bid'ah, and every Bid'ah is a means of deviation […]. Any other law is ruled (hukam) neither by Allah nor by His Messenger, in politics or in deciding people's disputes, it is considered the law of Taghut and Jahiliyyah. Allah says: Do they seek the judgment of Jahiliyyah? And who is better than Allah as a judge for a people who have firm faith? (Quran 5:50). The right to legalize or prohibit also belongs to Allah and no one is allowed to share this right with Him. Allah says: And do not taste what Allah has not spoken about, for sure it is disobedience. And certainly Satan inspires their friends to argue with you. And if you obey them, then you are a polytheist (Quran 6:121)35. »

Maududi is also criticized for his early opposition to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the current intended to create Pakistan. However, later Maududi changed his mind and supported the state of Pakistan.

Clergy:
Maududi faces sustained hostility from some mainstream clerics in Pakistan. However, such attacks on Maududi's works did not affect their large-scale influence in the Islamic community which did not conflict with most of Maududi's theses. The only thing that was controversial was Maududi's use of certain terms relating to the Islamic Prophets and the Companions of Muhammad38.

Legacy :
Maududi's influence is very extensive. In agreement with the historian Philip Jenkins, the Egyptians Hassan el-Banna and Sayyid Qutb read it. Qutb “borrowed and spread” his concepts. Maududi's concepts, although a modern and pre-Islamic phenomenon, correspond to the needs of an Islamic vanguard movement. His ideas influenced Abdullah Azzam, the Palestinian jurist. The South Asian diaspora, including a significant number in Britain, were greatly influenced by Maududi's works. Maududi had a major impact on Shiism and Iran, where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is believed to have met Maududi in early 1963; he later translated his works into Farsi. “Currently, the rhetoric of the Iranian revolution often takes up the theme of Maududi. »

source: wikipedia