A study of tajdid paradigms of Sayyid Abu Al-A`ala Mawdudi and Israr Ahmad

Abstract

The present dissertation investigates the revivalist thought of two revivalist scholars from the Indo-Pak Subcontinent, namely, Abu al-A'la Mawdudi and the contemporary Israr Ahmad. The dissertation first builds an analytical framework to study tajdid as a paradigmatic activity, where paradigms are presented as identity creators, object of intellectual critique, and promotional devices. The dissertation traverses the history of revivalist paradigms in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent identifying their common themes and novelties. The dissertation explicates the thought of Mawlana Mawdudi as the first most detailed and systematic revivalist paradigm in the Subcontinent. Mawdudi’s paradigm preponderated on a rationalistic exposition of Islam as a system. For this reason, the politico-socio-economic thought of Islam receives ample attention in this paradigm. The strong point of Mawdudi’s paradigm is its ethical imperative, which forms the bedrock of its collective system. This paradigm popularized the idea of Islam as a complete way of life, its political imperative, and concepts such as theo-democracy. The dissertation then focuses on Israr Ahmad, who was initially nurtured by Mawdudi’s Movement and went on to join Jamaat-i Islami. Ahmad later parted ways with Mawdudi and his Organization and, in due time, established his own Organization, the Tanzim-i Islami. Ahmad criticized Mawdudi and the Jamaat for subverting their original revolutionary ideology and methodology, and deteriorating into a nationalist movement. He also identified Mawdudi’s Paradigm as suffering from an inherent weakness in understanding the spiritual and metaphysical dimensions of Islam. In the course of time, Israr Ahmad advanced his own Revivalist Paradigm designed to apply correctives to the revivalist thought and bring it closer to the ethos of Islam. Ahmad’s Paradigm revolves around upon five components: (1) Hikmat al-Iman (the philosophy or wisdom of Iman), (2) a Framework of Religious Obligations, (3) the Collective Order of Islam, (4) the Prophetic Methodology of Revolution, and (5) a call for a Return to the Qur'an Movement.