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 berated its political leaders for failing to create an authentic Islamic state, which according to the founder was ideologically and administratively superior to the secular “Western model.”

The JI members who remained in India formed an independent organization, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. JI also developed an autonomous existence in the Indian-held Kashmir, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Other movements with a similar name exist in other countries also (e.g., the Egyptian al-Gama'a al Islamiyah or the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah), but they have no direct relation to the Pakistani JI or its ideology. However, there is a family resemblance between JI and other movements such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan-al-Muslimeen), the Palestinian Hamas, and the Turkish Rifah party.

Besides the global ideological ties, the particular JI model of a political party—which is simultaneously an activist and an intellectual movement—has inspired various revivalist movements around the world, especially in South Asia and the Arab world. The party's holistic approach to religion/politics/civil society is reflected in its broad organizational umbrella, which embraces different areas/functions besides parliamentarian politics: charity (khidmat), missionary activities (da'wah), education (tarbiyyat), and youth activities offered through its youth wings/student organizations. Furthermore, various labor organizations are affiliated with JI, for example, medical associations and farmer boards. The party also has its own governing body (Rabita-ul-Madaris al-Islamia) for a large number of religious seminaries (madaris) inspired by the JI school of thought.

The succeeding leaders of the party, Mian Tufayl Muhammad (1972–1987) and Qazi Hussain Ahmad (1987–), have also been influential, but their global reach has been limited. Some of Mawdudi's ideas can be rediscovered in the articulations of the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, who is widely considered to be the other founding father of the [Page 613]global Islamic revival movements. The two main components of the global Islamic revivalism that accelerated in South Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East throughout the 1970s are (a) a critique of Western hegemony, especially in defining global politics and culture and (b) a quest for authenticity in the organization of an Islamic state and society. This implies that proponents of global Islamic revival movements such as the JI are typically also critical toward the powerful elite among Muslims, be they politicians/rulers or influential clergy who are accused of blindly imitating tradition and thus unable to distinguish between un-Islamic cultural influences on their actions and “pure Islam.”

...