ME AND MAULANA: A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF WAHIDUDDIN KHAN - John M. Butt

if at a particular time a preacher feels the need to stress a particular aspect of the faith, he must do so, otherwise people cannot be suitably enthused to try to bring about necessary changes. If the matter rested here, no one would have cause to object. My objection is this, that Mawdudi so greatly exaggerated the importance of the political aspect of Islam that he evolved a political interpretation of Islam. This is just like how exaggerating the importance of economics beyond what was warranted led to the development of Marxism as a completely new ideology. The difference does not lie in the fact that Mawdudi stressed the issue of politics. Rather, it lies in the fact that he promoted a certain mindset, a distinct mentality, that sees everything in a political hue.”[iii] Accordingly, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan termed Islamism as the “Political interpretation of Islam”. This also answers the question I posed before about the lack of native secularism within Islam. While it is true that Islam does entail political injunctions; they have always been deemed as secondary to the spiritual teachings of faith. Islamists, however, reverse the pattern. This is also an observation shared by the noted Islamic historian Seyyed Vali Nasr. According to Vali Nasr: ‘’Mawdudi’s teachings on Islam and Islamic state parted with the traditional perspective to a large extent: he defined faith, the meaning of spirituality and the nature of the relations between Islam and society very differently from the traditionalist view. His overtly and exclusively political