Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism

Nasr makes large claims for his biographee, Sayyid Abu'l-A'la' Mawdudi (1903-79), founder of the fundamentalist Jama'at-i Islami (JI) organization, deeming him "without doubt the most influential of contemporary Islamic revivalist thinkers." And he says the JI - about which he wrote an earlier companion volume, The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution (reviewed in MEQ, Dec. 1994) - "influenced Islamic revivalism from Morocco to Malaysia and controlled the expression of revivalist thinking in Southwest Asia and South Asia since 1941." Large claims, to be sure, but Nasr easily shows just how consequential the man and his movement have been.

Nasr has written a most sophisticated analysis; perhaps its key has to do with Mawdudi's complex mix of the Islamic and the Western. Typical was his notion of an Islamic state, which drew in large part on Western notions: "His debate with Western political thought was antagonistic, but it also assimilated Western ideas into his interpretation of Islam and the Islamic state." More broadly, he sought to transform Islam by making it more operational: "Mawdudi called Muslims back to Islam but to an Islam that was rationalized and streamlined so that its social expression would be able to support a viable political order."

Though himself frustrated in the pursuit of power, Mawdudi's ideas provided much of the means by which Khomeini did ride to power, and that many other fundamentalists are still using in their challenge to the state.

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