rule in Hyderabad and other parts of India led
him to call for an end to British colonial rule,
removal of indigenous cultural influences from
the “true” Islam, separation of Muslims from
Hindus, and a return to the original religion of
Muhammad that he and other revivalists believed
had prevailed during the Golden Age of Islam.
In 1932 he bought the local journal Tarjuman
ul-Quran (Interpreting the Quran) and began to
publish editorials, essays, and books, hoping to
motivate the Nizam (the local Muslim ruler) to
initiate a reform of Islamic institutions. When
this proved unsuccessful, he called upon Muslims
across India to create a separate Muslim home-
land, refute the nationalist ideals of the Congress
Party (with its Hindu majority), and reject the
all-india mUslim leagUe, which was controlled
by secular Muslims such as mUhammad ali Jin-
nah (1876–1948).
With the backing of the Muslim intellectual
mUhammad iqbal (1877–1938) and others, he
moved to the Punjab to direct the Dar al-Islam
(House of Islam) communal project at Pathankot
from 1938 to 1939. This was an area where
Hindu, Sikh, and Ahmadiyya political groups
were already active. Mawdudi planned to make
Pathankot the launching pad for a modern
Islamic revival and the creation of an Islamic
government in India. He continued his da awa
(calling) to stir Muslim elites throughout India
to his cause through editorials in Tarjuman ul-
Quran, books, pamphlets, and lecture tours. In
1939 he shifted the headquarters for his move-
ment to the former Mughal capital of Lahore,
where he officially launched the famous Jamaat-i
islami (Islamic Group), the leading Islamist
organization in South Asia, in 1941. He began
to publish his popular Urdu Quran commentary,
Tafhim al-Quran (Understanding the Quran)
in 1942. This multivolume work, like many of
his writings, has been translated and circulated
widely in Muslim communities.
When India was partitioned and pakistan was
created in 1947, the Jamaat-i Islami split into
Pakistani and Indian branches, and Mawdudi
remained in Pakistan. He was opposed to the
new country’s secular political leadership and
worked for the drafting of a constitUtion that
he and his supporters hoped would lead to the
establishment of an Islamic government. Part
of his strategy involved lobbying to have the
ahmadiyya sect declared un-Islamic. The rioting
this ignited led to his imprisonment and a death
sentence in 1953, but he was eventually pardoned
by the government. Mawdudi traveled widely
between 1956 and 1974, visiting and lecturing in
many Muslim countries and helping to establish
an Islamic university in Medina and the mUslim
World leagUe. He remained leader of the Paki-
stani Jamaat-i Islami until 1972, and he is sus-
pected of involvement in a coup against Pakistani
prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–78) in- This brought General Muhammad Zia ul-
Haq (1924–88) to power, who launched a series
of measures to institute the sharia, to Mawdudi’s
great satisfaction. Mawdudi died while receiving
medical treatment in Buffalo, New York, in 1979,
and he was buried on the grounds of his house
in Lahore.
Mawdudi was a contemporary of many lead-
ing figures of the Islamic revival of the 20th
century, including hassan al-banna (1906–49),
sayyid qUtb (1906–66), and Ayatollah rUhollah
khomeini (1902–89). His understanding of Islam
was deeply rooted in the religious and cultural
experience of South Asian Muslims, including
their traditions of Sufism and Sunni law, renewal,
and reform, but his writings were translated and
disseminated beyond India to Muslims in other
parts of the world. Like many educated men of
his time, he was also familiar with contemporary
thought in the West, and he had direct experience
with British colonial rule. His life was one of active
involvement in the anticolonial and nationalist
politics of his time, which gave shape to a modern
Islamic revivalist ideology that still inspires many
Islamic movements. His vision was rooted in belief
in God’s absolute sovereignty, which underpinned
Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 463 J