Maulana Maududi’s Writings

The word deen is almost identical in its meaning to how the word ‘state’ is understood in present times. People accepting a superior power and obeying it—this is the ‘state’. This is also the understanding of the term deen. And the true deen (deen-e haq) is that human beings abandon slaving for, and obedience to, other people, their own egos and all created beings, and accept the superior-most power of God alone and become His servants and obey Him. Maulana Maududi wrote that the Prophet had ‘brought with him from his Sender’ a state system that had no room whatsoever for people’s independent authority and for allowing some people to rule over others. Rather, he added, ‘ruler-ship and the superiormost power are entirely God’s.’ Prophethood The political interpretation of the deen presents God’s sending of the prophets to the world in a particular political light. Thus, discussing the nature of the mission of the prophets in his book Tajdeed-oIhya-e Deen (‘The Renewal and Revival of the Deen’) Maulana Maududi wrote: The highest goal of the mission of the prophets (on whom be peace) in this world has been to establish the Divine Government and enforce the system of life that they had brought from God. They were willing to give the people who