Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr - Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama|At-I Islami of Pakistan

The Jamaat-i Islami of Pakistan

Seyed Vali Reza Nasr

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley Los Angeles London

1994 The Regents of the University of California

Epigraph

Theyl rely on proofs and on eloquence; but will also do the work of Truth by the sword and

the shield.

Our religion is our politics, our politics is our religion.

The rise of Islamic revivalism has presented a serious chal enge to conventional wisdom in

the social sciences and as a result has been the object of considerable debate and inquiry.

The resurgence of an atavism that both rejects and defies Western modernization and

preaches submission to the writ of religious law in societies that have already undergone

significant modernization requires a redefinition of the very notion of modernization itself, both as a process and as an intellectual construct. Modernization can no longer be regarded

as a process that automatical y produces secularization, privatization of faith, and the

rejection of old values. Nor can religion any longer be seen merely as a set of traditional rites and beliefs, impervious to change and irrelevant to modernization. The task therefore

becomes one of reconciling anachronistic values and loyalties with time-honored

assumptions about the content, nature, and direction of modernizing change. Changes in the

past decade and a half across the Muslim world have yielded an impressive number of

studies on Islamic revivalism but no consensus, perhaps because these studies have left

some gaps. It is precisely those gaps that this book tries to fill.

For one thing, many studies have limited themselves to theoretical approaches and existing

models of sociopolitical change when it has become ever more apparent that understanding

wil come only from greater attention to individual cases of Islamic revivalism. It is through meticulous inquiry that the distinguishing aspects of the teleology and politics of Islamic

revivalism can be identified; new theories can be formed in light of these empirical findings.

The social sciences have always been inductive, anchored in what Clifford Geertz has cal ed

thick description.

Many studies of Islamic revivalism have concentrated on preconditions and root causes on

the one hand and on the ideological pronouncements of its proponents on the other.

Comparatively little has been written on the development of revivalist movements, how they

operate, and what social, political, and economic conditions shaped their evolution. Concern

with how revivalism came about has diverted attention from the more pertinent question of

where it is heading. As revivalism has become part of politics in Muslim societies, the study of Islamic revivalism must move beyond a discussion of causes to examine development.

The study of Islamic revivalism has until now concentrated primarily on Iran and the Arab

world and has, as a result, been somewhat restricted in its outlook. A comprehensive

theoretical approach wil need to consider revivalist activity elsewhere. Of particular

importance is South Asia, where the structure of sociopolitical thought and practice has been greatly affected by religious revivalism. From the emergence of the tradition of reform and

renewal associated with Shah Waliullah of Delhi in the eighteenth century to the rise of the Faraizi reformists in Bengal and the advent of new initiatives for reassertion of Islamic

values in the form of the Deoband, Aligarh, Ahl-i Hadith, Brailwi, and Nadwi schools of

thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the advent of the Khilafat movement

and eventual y the campaign for Pakistan, two centuries of activism have fused religious

loyalties and political identity in South Asia into an integrated worldview. The development of South Asian Islam in modern times therefore provides valuable insights into the origins of

revivalism and the forms its political action has taken.

A comprehensive examination of the history and ideology of the Jamaat-i Islami (the Islamic

party), the self-appointed vanguard of the Islamic revolution, can elucidate the manner in

which religiopolitical leadership, politicization of religion, and sacralization of politics have tied Islamic theology and piety with the passage of Muslim societies into modernity. The

Jamaat is one of the oldest and most influential of the Islamic revivalist movements and the first of its kind to develop an Islamic ideology, a modern revolutionary reading of Islam, and an agenda for social action to realize its vision. It has influenced Islamic revivalism from

Morocco to Malaysia and controlled the expression of revivalist thinking in Southwest Asia

and South Asia since 1941. There are today eight discrete Jamaat-i Islami parties: in

Pakistan, India, Indias Kashmir province, Pakistans Azad Kashmir, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,

Great Britain, and North America. The partys ideological reach and impact, throughout its

history as wel as across a vast geographical expanse, far exceed the boundaries of any one

political arena or historical period. By mobilizing its resources in India, Pakistan, Saudi

Arabia, and England, the party played a central role in orchestrating the protests against

Salman Rushdies Satanic Verses in England in 19881989, a notable example of its

influence. Thanks to the Jamaat, Muslims in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe pitted Islam against the West and laid the foundations for the international crisis that ensued.

Central to any effort to understand the Jamaat is an examination of its ideological

foundations, social basis, organizational structure, and politics. We need to discover what

led the Jamaat to embrace revivalism and what promoted and sustained the partys political

activism, charted its development, and determined the nature and scope of its impact on

Pakistans politics. The nature of the states reaction to Islamic revivalism, from confrontation to accommodation to incorporation, is also of direct relevance. This book probes how

Mawdudis vision was articulated and how it shaped the Jamaats political agenda and plan

of action, influenced the development of the Pakistan state, and changed in the face of

political imperatives.

Ever since the advent of the Iranian revolution Western scholarship has been convinced that

revivalism is inherently antistate. This is not necessarily the case. The Jamaat is the first instance of Islamic revivalism that participates in the political process, rather than trying to topple it. Its development tel s much about how Islamic revivalism will interact with

democratic forces across the Muslim world in the coming years. Western scholarship has

also assumed that Islamic revivalism, once unleashed, wil control Muslim political choices.

This again is not supported by the facts at hand. The Jamaats ideology and activism have

been important in Pakistani politics and to revivalism across the Muslim world, but the party has failed to seize power in Pakistan. It can be credited with forming a national alliance that has been advocating the cause of Islam in Pakistan for four decades; it has helped create a

distinctly Islamic voting bloc; it has institutionalized religiopolitical action, and sacralized national political discourse. It has contributed to the Islamization of Pakistan and has helped shape Pakistans history since 1947; it has had a role in the outcome of social movements

and political events and is likely to continue to do so. Stil , it has been unable to capture power. This is significant, because Islamic revivalism is not supposed to suffer from political constrictions of any sort. That the party has not been the principal beneficiary of the