270 Islam and Modernity
should follow suit, but face a dilemma because of their dual nature: ‘Like other
creatures, he is completely caught in the grip of the physical laws of nature and
is bound to follow them. But there is another sphere of his activity. He has been
endowed with reason and intellect.. .’ (Mawdudi 1982: 23). Mawdudi does
not exploit this difference to map a different ontological foundation for human-
ity, nor does he explore a new understanding of Islam on the basis of reason
like Khan. He does not even refl ect on the extensive history of reconciliation
between reason and revelation in the history of Islamic thought. For Mawdudi,
the consistency and immutability of the laws of nature offer a framework for
thinking about the laws of the sharia. He presents the laws of God as the immu-
table laws of nature. When a Muslim fully submits to these, he or she achieves
a sense of completeness: ‘He has now consciously submitted to Him Whom he
had already been unconsciously obeying’ (Mawdudi 1982: 24). And it follows
logically that disbelief is a denial of one’s true nature: ‘The man who denies God
is called kafi r (concealer) because he conceals by his disbelief what is inherent in
his nature and embalmed in his soul – for his nature is instinctively imbued with
“Islam”’ (Mawdudi 1982: 25). Mawdudi then deals with verses from the Quran
that indicate that religious laws are subject to change. This poses a dilemma for
Mawdudi, who has posited a theory in which the fi xed laws of nature provide a
template for the supposedly fi xed laws of the sharia. He avoids the implications
of the Quranic verses by turning to an evolutionary thesis. Humankind had
required different laws during its primitive stage, but ‘more than two thousand
years ago mankind had reached such a mental awareness that it seemed to be
craving for a universal religion’ (Mawdudi 1982: 57–9). This ‘craving’ gave
rise to the emergence of Buddhism, Christianity and fi nally Islam. The latter
has a special place among the other Axial religions, since Islam now emerged
‘in the form of a complete and fully-fl edged system, covering all aspects of the
life of man’ (Mawdudi 1982: 57–9).^2 With Islam situated on the centre stage of
history, Mawdudi (1985: 130, 132) had a neat solution for the different forms of
sharia that pre-dated the seventh century. With this signifi cant transformation,
Mawdudi posited the Islamic system to be fully synchronised with the system of
nature. He assumed fi xed laws of nature, and thus fi xed laws (a code) for human
society. Mawdudi’s concept of human nature posited a universality whereby
Islam became a natural rule for human society. In this view, human beings had
no choice but to become Muslims. Refusing to become Muslim would be a rejec-
tion of their natural and essential selves. This is the rationalism that he claims
for the book, which is the universality that he presents for a political project. In
opposition to the reformists who identifi ed a universality that Islam shared with
the standards of modern culture and philosophy, Mawdudi presented Islam as
universal in its totality.
Mawdudi and other Islamists clearly relied on the prestige both of modern
science and of some of its nineteenth-century theses to postulate the universality