Web Desk: The 45th death anniversary of founder of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Islamic thinker and prolific author Maulana Syed Abul Ala Maududi is being observed today.
Maulana Maududi, a journalist, jurist, politician and philosopher, was one of the greatest Islamic scholars of 20th century.
Described by Wilfred Cantwell Smith as “the most systematic thinker of modern Islam”, his numerous works, which “covered a range of disciplines such as Qur’anic exegesis, hadith, law, philosophy, and history”, were written in Urdu, but then translated into English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Burmese, Malayalam and many other languages.
He sought to revive Islam, and to propagate what he understood to be “true Islam”. He believed that Islam was essential for politics and that it was necessary to institute sharia and preserve Islamic culture similarly as to that during the reign of the Rashidun Caliphs and abandon immorality, from what he viewed as the evils of secularism, nationalism and socialism, which he understood to be the influence of Western imperialism.
He founded the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami. At the time of the Indian independence movement, Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami actively worked to oppose the partition of India.
After it occurred, Maududi and his followers shifted their focus to politicizing Islam and generating support for making Pakistan an Islamic state.
They are thought to have helped influence General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq to introduce the Islamization in Pakistan, and to have been greatly strengthened by him after tens of thousands of members and sympathizers were given jobs in the judiciary and civil service during his administration.
He was the first recipient of the Saudi Arabian King Faisal International Award for his service to Islam in 1979. Maududi was part of establishing and running of Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia.
Maududi is acclaimed by the Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Circle of North America, Hamas and other organizations.
In April 1979, Maududi’s long-time kidney ailment worsened and by then he also had heart problems.
He went to the United States for treatment and was hospitalized in Buffalo, New York, where his second son worked as a physician.
Following a few surgical operations, he died on 22 September 1979, at the age of 75.
His funeral was held in Buffalo, but he was buried in an unmarked grave at his residence in Ichhra, Lahore after a very large funeral procession through the city.
