Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi - Four Key Concepts of the Quran

THE MUSLIM Ummah is passing through a critical phase. This is not something new as its entire history is characterized by challenges and responses, crisis and re-emergence, relapse and revival. In a sense, this was inevitable. A message as universal and eternal as Islam cannot escape challenges that come with the passage of time and consequent crisis situations. As such it is only through phases of retreat and renewal, and in some cases even disintegration and re-consolidation that an eternal message can remain relevant and a pace-setter for new situations. It was also unavoidable because the very divine arrangement for humans as Gods Khalfah (Vicegerent) endowed them with freedom and discretion, hence the prospect of error and correction. Built in the Islamic scheme are elements that are permanent and unchangeable, and as such, constitute the reference points for the system for all times. Along with these are elements that are flexible and changeable, still remaining within the Divinely laid ethos of the system. The sensitive equation between the permanent and the changing sets the evolutionary path of Islam in history. That is how every set-back has been followed by an upsurge throughout the Islamic history. Islam has been the source of every effort at renewal and reassertion.

Todays situation has great similarity with the scenario faced by the Ummah at the beginning of the twentieth century, some significant differences notwithstanding. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Muslim Ummah, which had played a distinguished role as a world power for over a millennium, was then totally overwhelmed by the forces of decay within and the onslaughts of ascending European imperialisms from abroad. The power-equation changed to the utter disadvantage of the Muslim World. It had far-reaching consequences for the entire realm of Muslim civilization. Western imperial powers represented a new civilizational paradigm. The expansionist role of the imperial powers that vitiated Islams hold on social dynamics defined its predicament: the Muslims had lost their leading edge over knowledge and technology, their economies were in a shambles, their political power eclipsed. Even morally, culturally and intellectually the Ummah went into a tailspin. The lowest point was the abolition in 1924 of what was left of the symbolic khilfah.

This was the context in which a number of Muslim luminaries all over the world addressed themselves to the crucial questions of what had gone wrong with the Muslim Ummah? Had Islam become irrelevant or was something wrong with the Muslim approach to Islam, its role in history, in short the way the Muslims were treating the Divine guidance? And finally how the Ummah could reset itself along the path to revival and reconstruction? Jaml al-dn Afghn, Amr Shakb Arsaln, Prince alm Psh, Sad Nrs, Muammad Iqbl, Rashd R, Muammad Abduh, asan al-Bann, Ashraf Al Thnaw, Abul Kalm zd, Abul Al Mawdd, Mlik bin Nab, Abul asan Al Nadw and a host of intellectuals and reformers reflected on these questions and came up with positive responses to steer the Ummah out of decay. In this galaxy of thinkers and reformers, Mawdd occupies a distinct position. Hardly seventeen, in 1920 he initiated the task of rebuilding the Muslim Ummah. After ten years of journalistic encounters, he decided to begin his endeavour to reconstruct Muslim thought and to spell out Islam as a worldview and a way of life. His aim was to develop a comprehensive plan of action for the Ummahs revival as a blessing for humanity. The publication of al-Jihd f al-Islm (law of War and Peace in Islam) in 1929 was his first such major contribution. And ever since, until his death on 22nd September, 1979, he authored over 140 books and tracts on Islam, covering almost every aspect of its thought and message. His greatest work is a six-volume exegesis of the Qurn Tafhm al-Qurn spanning several thousand pages. Besides articulation and reconstruction of Islamic thought, he developed a critique of the Muslim society, identifying the causes of their decline. His effort was to make the Muslims realize how and why they lost their grip on their own affairs, resulting in political, economic and intellectual decline. He also came up with a powerful critique of the Western civilization, the main player in the contemporary onslaught on Islam. He was not oblivious to the positive achievements of the Western civilization, the sources of its strength and weakness and the ideologies it had spun. But at the same time, he was critical of its intellectual confusion, its moral deprivations, its political and cultural deformities and its economic injustices and exploitations. His thought has influenced three generations of Muslims. Small wonder he is considered as one of the chief architects of contemporary Islamic revival.

Mawdd, along with being a great thinker and a visionary, was also a reformer and an activist committed to strive for social change and historic transformation. He founded in 1941, for moral and socioeconomic change, the Jamat-e-Islm, a movement to pilot Islamic resurgence, initially in the South Asian Sub-continent, but ultimately as part of a global movement for the establishment of a just world order.

The need for translating Mawdds essential writings into the English language was never as pressing as it is today. The translations I did in the 1960s and those that Br. Khurram Murad did in the 1980s cover hardly twenty percent of his work. The World of Islam Trust, Islamabad, the Islamic Research Academy, Karachi and the Islamic Foundation, Leicester have now agreed to co-sponsor English translations of his essential works. The manuscripts would be prepared under my general supervision and editorship, assisted by Dr. Anis Ahmad, Dr. Manazir Ahsan and Dr. A.R. Kidwai. Tarik Jan and Shafaq Hashemi would do the major work of translation and compilation. Other competent translators would also be involved in this project. The Madinah Trust, Peterborough, and the Sarwar Jehan Charitable Foundation, Leicester, U.K. are also extending some limited financial support for the project.