Jamaat-e-Islami

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI; lit. “Islamic congregation” or “Islamic party”) is Pakistan's oldest religio-political party and is also among the most influential Islamic revivalist movements in the world. Sayyid Abu'l-a'la' Mawdudi (often designated Maulana Mawdudi) founded JI on August 26, 1941, in British India as an alternative to the Muslim League and its vision of an Islamic state. After the partition of India in 1947, the JI moved its headquarters to Lahore and thus became part of the newly created Islamic Republic of Pakistan from the very beginning. Here, the Mawdudi-led JI promoted Islam as a holistic ideology, which the founder believed ought to be the basis of a true Islamic state and society. JI was critical toward the secular policies of the nascent state and ...