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Foreword

Sayyid Abul Aʿlā Mawdūdī (1903-1979), one of the twentieth-century’s leading Muslim intellectuals and revivalists, wrote Islāmī Tahdhīb awr Uske Uṣūl-o Mabādī, which was published in 1933. This book, written during the last period of colonial rule in British India and at a time when the momentum for independence was growing, attempts to bring out the vital relationship between a civilization and its underlying worldview and vision of life, with particular attention to the case of Islamic civilization.

Now civilization is one of the major ideas of the modern age. To stress its importance it would suffice to say that Arnold Toynbee, the towering historian of the twentieth century, regards it as the proper unit of historical inquiry.¹ At the opposite end of the spectrum, we find the late Samuel Huntington, the well-known prophet of gloom, predicting a global future defined by a ‘clash of civilizations’.² Be that as it may, the term has come to denote a community or society with a developed state of intellectual, cultural and material development, an improved state of moral conduct, an extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions. Civilization is associated with a whole range of factors such as an intense urbanisation leading to the emergence of huge cosmopolitan cities, the establishment of the writ of the state over its citizens, the rise of capitalism, the emergence of occupational specialisation and the existence of a variety of socio-political institutions. In short, the word signifies an ordered society that has far outgrown the primitive conditions of existence in which, to borrow Hobbes’ words, ‘life was nasty, brutish and short’.³

A civilization understandably has a time and space dimension. Hence we speak of entities such as the Indus Valley civilization, the Babylonian civilization, the civilization of ancient Rome, or modern European civilization. Are civilizations, however, also related to the ideas and ideals cherished by those who live under their shadows?

In the present work Mawdūdī focuses his attention on the relationship between a civilization and its worldview, or the vision of life and the religious outlook that inspires and permeates it. His concern is to explore the relationship between Islam and civilization, and he sets out to examine how, in what ways, and to what extent Islam gives shape and direction to the civilization of Muslims. If Islam’s role in this regard is considered to be crucial, then how is Islam related to the temporal and spatial contexts of civilization itself?

Mawdudi notes with displeasure the trend among contemporary scholars of his day to regard Islamic civilization as an outgrowth and continuation of previous Middle Eastern and Greek and Roman civilizations. These scholars strove to prove that the constituent elements of Islamic civilization were derived from the civilizations that preceded it. As for the distinctive aspects of Islamic civilization, they tended to attribute them to the characteristics of the Arabs’ ‘mindset’ which prompted them to make some adjustments while using the building blocks of other civilizations in erecting the edifice of their own civilization.⁴

Mawdudi altogether denies the validity of this whole approach. He is at odds with the attitude of equating civilization with a nation’s cumulative ‘knowledge, literature and fine arts, its literary and rhetorical devices, modes of social life, style of refined living and system of governance’. He does not consider these to be the equivalent of ‘civilization’. In his view, they are the end results and manifestations rather than the essence of a civilization; they are not the root of a civilization’s tree but only its leaves and fruit. The true understanding of a civilization is possible only by having access to the soul of that civilization and its underlying fundamental principles.⁵

There are good reasons why civilizations should be viewed in terms of the basic ideas and ideals underlying them. Yet while many changes have taken place over the millennia, humanity continues to be perennially confronted with the same basic questions: Is the existence of the universe and of humankind simply the result of a fortuitous combination of circumstances or does it represent the decision of an All-Wise and All-Powerful Creator? If the latter is the case, then what are His basic attributes and how is humanity expected to relate to Him? What is the position of the human being in the overall scheme of the universe and what is the purpose and mission of his life? Is the physical death of the human individual tantamount to his total extinction or does his life continue even after he has been subjected to biological death? Does God expect human beings to act in a particular manner to achieve self-fulfilment and abiding success and felicity? If so, has God provided any guidance to that effect and how can humanity find out what that guidance consists of?

These questions would seem quite remote from the day-to-day concerns and pursuits that inform the lives of most men and women. This, however, does not detract in the least from the fact that unless these questions are clearly answered and a definite position is taken with regard to them, then a person’s life will remain devoid of proper direction. By evading these questions, humanity is likely to continue to stumble. This might give rise to a lot of frenzied activity only to discover from time to time that – thanks mainly to a lack of clarity about his worldview – the life of the human individual keeps going around aimlessly in circles without making any true headway.

The present book raises these profound questions and attempts to answer them candidly, an attempt that leads in this book to the fleshing out the essentials of the Islamic worldview. In addressing this task, the author mainly draws upon the rich reservoir of the Qur’ān and does so with admirable resourcefulness and insight. Thus the teachings pertaining to the fundamental tenets of belief in Islam – God, the angels, the Prophets, the Revealed Books and the Last Day – have been clearly expounded. Thanks to a very systematic exposition, three salient features emerge very prominently. Firstly, that the basic doctrines of Islamic belief are cohesive and organically interrelated. Secondly, that these doctrines are in harmony with human nature and appeal to human reason as being innately sensible and judicious. Thirdly, that these doctrines are capable of serving as the foundation of a civilization that says ‘yes’ to the human urge to satisfy his legitimate biological drives without going to the extreme of Epicureanism, in which the chief goal of existence is the pursuit of individual pleasure.

In any case, as far as Muslims are concerned, they have been committed from the very beginning to fashion their individual and collective lives according to the worldview and principles and values derived from Islam, a fact which has given their culture and civilization a flair and flavour all of its own. Whatever is distinctive about Islamic civilization stems from the distinctiveness of the foundations upon which it rests. This is why Islamic civilization can only be adequately appreciated by grasping the constitutive concepts of its worldview such as its concepts of God, Prophethood, the Afterlife, and the aim and purpose of human life.

In sum, the book brings into sharp relief the concepts as well as the ethos of Islamic civilization. It is the characteristic paradigm of this civilization that needs to be grasped in order to understand the Muslim psyche and the ‘venture of Islam’ in history. This is true not only for Islam’s bygone ages, but it is equally true for Islam in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

The book is characterized by some of the qualities for which Mawdūdī’s writings have been known throughout his long and distinguished literary career: His discourse is supported by an impressive degree of knowledge of the subject in hand which he presents logically and persuasively. Additionally, even in this early work, Mawdūdī’s literary style displays its distinctive charm and elegance.

It is presumably not insignificant that in this relatively early part of his life Mawdūdī set out to articulate Islam’s worldview before embarking on his lifelong task of elucidating the details of the Islamic way of life. This seems, in my opinion, to reflect Islam’s inherent scheme of priorities in which the essentials take precedence over the subsidiary details. Quite obviously, unless there is a clear concept of Islam’s basics, it would be meaningless and sterile to strive for the establishment of an Islamic order of life with all of its ramifications. In this sense the book might be seen to represent the early Mawdūdī’s clarion call towards ‘first things first’. As Mawdūdī has observed elsewhere, anyone seriously concerned with the operationalization of Islam should start with its ABCs, with understanding the basic tenets of Islamic belief. This first step should be to know well the meaning of lā ilāha illallāh (‘There is no deity except the One True God’) to be followed by translating its implications in terms of practice. All else follows from this.

This work has been ably rendered into English by the gifted writer and intellectual, Syed Akif. Akif has admirably acquitted himself in expressing Islamic religious ideas in chaste English, at a stage when English as a vehicle for articulating some of the finest and subtlest of ideas and emotions related to Islam is still in its early stages of development. What made Akif’s task even more difficult was that apart from being a great scholar and thinker, Mawdūdī had a highly-regarded and distinctive literary style all of his own. In my opinion, Akif’s success speaks volumes about his deep familiarity with the universe of Islamic lore and his outstanding ability to write felicitously in English.

It is to be hoped that this contribution will serve to further enrich the growing body of Islamic literature in the English language and lead to a deeper and better grasp of the Islamic worldview, thereby promoting mutual understanding and friendship among human beings belonging to a variety of civilizations, religious faiths, and ideologies. I would also like to acknowledge the editorial support extended by the able team of the Islamic Foundation, particularly Dr M.M. Ahsan and Dr A.R. Kidwai, and the logistic and financial support given by the World of Islam Trust, Islamabad, the Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad, and the Madina Trust, Peterborough, U.K.

Islamabad

Zafar Ishaq Ansari

Rajab 1432 H

June 2011

¹ Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934-1961), 12 vols.

² Samuel P. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

³ Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London, 1651), Part 1: Of Man, Chap. 13, para. 9.

⁴ See Tahdhīb-i Islāmī awr Uske Uṣūl-o Mabādī, 27th edn. (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 2100), “Muqaddimah”, pp. 9 ff.

⁵ Ibid.