The Road to Peace

Peace in the Muslim World position of head of the department of education by the contemporary government. It would have been highly advisable for Sayyid Qutb to accept the offer and then make plans to educate his people. Had he done so, he would have been very well placed to have an effective influence on a whole new generation in Egypt. In this way, he would have been better able as an educator to bring the Islam he wanted into his country than in the position of an administrator. The same happened in Pakistan. When General Ayub Khan became the president of Pakistan in 1958, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi and his party were active in the name of the ‘Islamization of Pakistan’. At that time the same series of events took place in Pakistan as in Egypt. In The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama‘at-i Islami of Pakistan, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr writes: ‘During a trip to Lahore in 1962 he [General Ayub Khan] invited Mawdudi to the governor’s mansion and suggested that he leave politics to the politicians and dedicate himself to religious studies instead. For encouragement he offered Mawdudi the post of vice-chancellor of the Bhawalpur Islamic University. In no mood to be appeased, Mawdudi rejected both the offer and the counsel.’2 This offer by Ayub Khan was a golden chance for Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi. By accepting this offer, he would have been able to organize education throughout the whole of Pakistan and thus prepare the minds of a whole new generation, which in turn would have been greatly helpful