Islam and Politics - Maududi Vs.Nadvi

Extracts From
VIEW: The contested terrain of Islamist politics — Yoginder Sikand
Daily Times, September 08, 2006

Islamism is premised on the notion of an Islamic state. Such a state is seen as being charged with the responsibility of implementing God’s rule on earth, through imposition of shariah laws. Islamist ideologues see the establishment of the Islamic state as the principal purpose of Islam. Islam is thus made a political programme.

One of the most forceful proponents of the Islamic state was Syed Abul A’la Maududi, founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) — the influential South Asian Islamist movement. While the critique of the JI politics and agenda by modernist Muslim scholars have received considerable attention, the fact that numerous traditionalist ulema have also engaged in such critique, often on grounds other than modernism is not well known.

One of the most incisive scholarly critiques of the Jamaat was by the late Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi, a leading Indian scholar, recognised in Muslim circles worldwide for his scholarship and his dedication to the cause of Islamic revival. Born in 1913, Nadvi was the son of Syed Abdul Hai Hasani, rector of the famous Nadwat ul Ulema seminary in Lucknow for many years. In1961 Nadvi was appointed to the same post and occupied it till his death in 1999. He was a prolific writer and associated with several Indian and international Islamic organisations.

Nadvi’s critique of the JI emerged from his personal involvement with the movement in his younger days. In 1940, he joined the JI — impressed with what he called Maududi’s bold rebuttal of Western attacks against Islam — and was made in charge of its activities in Lucknow. He left the JI in 1943. In his autobiography, Karavan-e Zindagi, he wrote that he was disillusioned by the perception that many JI members adored and glorified Maududi as almost infallible. He saw this as bordering on a personality cult.
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Nadvi’s critique of the JI comes out clearly in his book Asr-i Hazir Mein Din Ki Tahfim-o-Tashrih (Understanding and explaining religion in present times). Penned in 1978, it won him — so he says in his introduction to the second edition — fierce condemnation from leading JI members. Nadvi takes Maududi to task for having allegedly misinterpreted central Islamic beliefs to suit his political agenda, presenting Islam, he says, as little more than a political programme.

He accuses Maududi of equating the Islamic duty of establishing the religion (iqamat-e-din) with the setting up of an Islamic state with God as Sovereign and Law Maker. At Maududi’s hands, he says, God, the Sustainer, religion and worship (ibadat) were all reduced to political concepts, suggesting that Islam was simply about political power and that the relationship between God and human beings was only that between an All Powerful King and His subjects. Nadvi says that this relationship is also one of love and realisation of the truth.
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Further, Nadvi wrote that Maududi’s argument that God had sent prophets to the world charged with the mission of establishing an Islamic state was misleading. The principal work of the prophets, he argued, was to preach the worship of the one God and to exhort people to good. Not all prophets were rulers. In fact, only a few of them were.

Nadvi refers to this when he says that the objective of establishment of religion needs to be pursued along with hikmat-I-din (wisdom of the faith), using constructive, as opposed to destructive, means. Eschewing total opposition, Muslims striving for the establishment of the faith should, he wrote, unhesitatingly adopt peaceful means such as understanding and reform, consultation and wisdom.
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In short, while Nadvi remained, at heart, a conservative, he was also a realist, somewhat less idealistic and possibly more attuned to empirical reality than Maududi. As Nadvi’s critique of Maududi’s politics suggests, the terrain of Islamist politics is a sharply contested one. This should make observers guard against making facile generalisations about it.

The author works with the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and moderates an online discussion group South Asian Leftists Dialoguing With Religion