Preface

Preface  T his booklet is a summary of my book Taʿbir ki Ghalati (‘Error of Interpretation’). Here, I have tried to briefly clarify why I think that the writings of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi (d. 1979), the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami and proponent of a distinctly political interpretation of Islam, are problematic. The political interpretation of Islam has been, and continues to be, the cause of much strife and conflict across the world. The noted Indian Muslim scholar Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi (d. 1977) once referred to what he termed as a ‘diseased mindset’. As he put it, ‘Even some very virtuous people are no exceptions’ in this regard. Such people simply cannot tolerate any criticism. After I began critiquing Maulana Maududi’s writings, I gained first-hand experience of this mindset. One of the clauses of the Constitution of the Jamaate-Islami, which the Maulana himself prepared, reads: ‘No one should be considered to be above criticism’. As long as I used this right in order to criticize others, people in the Jamaat-e-Islami circles heartily congratulated me. But the moment I used this very same right to criticize Maulana Maududi, it was as if I had dared to step across the forbidden frontier!