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Mawlana Mawdudi was one of the most influential and important Islamic thinkers of the modern world, whose brand of political Islam has won widespread acceptance in South and South East Asia as well as the Middle East. He was not only an Islamic scholar, but also a journalist and political activist who founded the Jama’at-i-Islami, which has subsequently influenced the development of many Islamic movements and parties throughout the Muslim world. This book is the first to critically engage and assess his career and legacy within the wider context of political Islam. It includes coverage of his early life and influences, and examines his considerable influence in the contemporary Islamic world. The issues that were a concern for Mawdudi and continue to have resonance for our world today include such questions as the role of women in Islam, the possibilities for democracy in an Islamic state, the importance of jihad, and the moral and religious responsibility of the individual. Whilst focus is on Mawdudi’s life and writings, this is placed within the wider context of topical, often contentious, Islamic thought. 　 Providing an up-to-date and detailed critical study of Mawlana Mawdudi and many issues surrounding political Islam both in his time and today, this book will be an important text for scholars of Islamic Studies, Political Science and Philosophy. Introduction Part 1: The Life and Times of Mawdudi 1. A Noble Lineage. 1903-1919 2. ‘A hidden power within me’, 1920-1930 3. Crisis of the Spirit, 1930-1939 4. The Birth of a New Party, 1940-1947 5. The Pakistan Years, 1947-1979 Part 2: Mawdudi and Political Islam 6. The Need for ‘Intellectual Independence’ 7. The Salafiyyah 8. Mawdudi’s Paradigms: The Four Sources of His Islamic Constitution 9. Theo-Democracy (or Divine Government?) 10. Jihad and the Permanent Revolution 11. Mawdudi’s Legacy Roy Jackson is Senior Lecturer in Religion, Philosophy and Ethics at the University of Gloucestershire with a research interest in the interaction between religion, ethics, and philosophy, with particular emphasis on Islam. He is the author of Fifty Key Figures in Islam (2006), and Nietzsche and Islam (2007), both published by Routledge.

Nasr examines the life and thought of Mawlana Mawdudi, one of the first and most important Islamic ideological thinkers. Mawdudi was the first to develop a modern political Islamic ideology, and a plan for social action to realize his vision. The prolific writings and indefatigable efforts of Mawdudi's party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, first in India and later in Pakistan, have disseminated his ideas far and wide. His views have informed revivalism from Morocco to Malaysia. Nasr discerns the events that led Mawdudi to a revivalist perspective, and probes the structure of his thought, in order to gain fresh insights into the origins of Islamic revivalism. He argues that Islamic revivalism did not simply develop as a cultural rejection of the West, rather it was closely tied to questions of communal politics and its impact on identity formation, discourse of power in plural societies, and nationalism. Mawdudi's discourse, though aimed at the West, was motivated by Muslim-Hindu competition for power in British India. His aim, according to Nasr, was to put forth a view of Islam whose invigorated, pristine, and uncompromising outlook would galvanize Muslims into an ideologically uniform and hence politically indivisible community. In time, this view developed a life of its own and evolved into an all-encompassing perspective on society and politics, and has been a notable force in South Asia and Muslim life and thought across the Muslim world.