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Sayyid Abul A‘la Mawdudi’s Khuṭubāt, of which Let Us Be Muslims is the new and edited English translation, is no ordinary book.
A collection of ordinary, familiar themes and plain truths, expounded before ordinary, illiterate people in plain words from their everyday language, it has, by the mercy of Allah, stirred more hearts and impelled more lives to alter their course to live in commitment to their Creator than any of his more erudite works. Many, I am sure, would share this impression of mine who like me have been led by his inspiring writings to join the cause of Allah. For who can forget those gatherings where the participants often reminisced about things that had brought them to the Islamic movement. As one person after another rose to tell his story and mentioned Sayyid Mawdudi’s writings, I still vividly recollect, one answer overshadowed all others: the Khuṭubāt.
To express my own indebtedness to this book, I can do no better than to confess that I have now been reading it for nearly four decades and every time I have found it as fresh and inspiring as ever. Even today, I find myself speaking and writing, without the least embarrassment, words and ideas from the Khuṭubāt, as if they were my own.
How did this book come into being? As Sayyid Mawdudi tells in his Preface, soon after migrating to Darul Islam, near Pathankot (now in the Punjab, India) – on 16 March, 1938 – he started to gather the nearby villagers for the Friday Prayers. To them, in every congregational address (Khuṭubah), he tried to explain the essential message, the basic teachings, and the spirit of Islam. Those addresses were collected and published as Khuṭubāt.
First published in 1940, since then it has been published in various forms and languages. A popular series has been that of six separate booklets – Haqiqat-i-Iman, Haqiqat-i-Islam, Haqiqat-i-Sawm-o-Salat, Haqiqat-i-Zakat, Haqiqat-i-Hajj, Haqiqat-i-Jihad. Translations in Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujrati, Telgu, Sindi, Pushto and many other subcontinental languages have also been made and published since the early 1950s. The English translation came out thirty-five years later under the title The Fundamentals of Islam (Islamic Publications, Lahore, 1975). In all these different forms and languages, it has gone through innumerable reprints and is being constantly reprinted from many places. Many organizations, even individual admirers, have published its parts for mass distribution. Yet its need remains as fresh and its demand as high as ever.
Sayyid Mawdudi’s impact on the contemporary Muslim world is not to be measured by the sale of his books, great as they have been. It is doubtful if any other Muslim writer of our day has so many readers, or is so avidly read, but what is important is that his sincere, convincing and passionate voice has left indelible imprints on the minds and lives of his readers. The real measure of his impact, therefore, is the emergence of whole new generations of men and women who have been inspired by him to lead lives of meaningful faith, Iman, in Allah, His Messenger, and His Book, and of dedicated struggle, Jihad, in His cause. No doubt his example in launching and leading a major Islamic movement has played a crucial role in this process, but it is his writings which have made a greater impression, deep and lasting, far and wide.
Of all those writings, Sayyid Mawdudi’s words in Khuṭubāt, though spoken in the narrow confines of a mosque in a far-flung part of the world, have exercised an influence very far and beyond the time and place in which they were first spoken. They have found a response in the hearts and minds of their readers in true proportion to the sincerity and depth of his message and purpose. They have led many to recognize their inner inconsistencies and make their faith and commitment sincere.
Here, in Let Us Be Muslims, then, are the words which have touched many hearts and evoked many responses. What fills them with life and power? What makes this book extraordinary?
For, on the face of it, what Sayyid Mawdudi has said in these addresses is very ordinary and commonplace; indeed so ordinary that many readers might, after one quick look, want to put the book away, without reading any further. Is this not the same stuff, they would say, which we hear, day in day out, from our pulpits? Obey Allah and His Messenger, pray and fast, and everything is going to be alright.
To such readers I would say: let us together explore, at some length, what Let Us Be Muslims means to say.
Read the book, and you will find that even ordinary things, once placed in Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse, acquire quite an extraordinary quality, or, at least, in our time, that quality has become extraordinary. This is because he makes those words breathe the same sense and purpose, as against their merely lexical or cultural meanings, which they are given in the Qur’ān. Thus moulded afresh by the Quranic message and burnt in the crucible of his heart, the very things which look so lifeless and irrelevant to life, such as Iman and Islam and the five pillars, acquire a life and revolutionary ardour that they must have had when they were originally proclaimed and instituted. Then, the placid world of our beliefs and practices which we had always taken for granted begins to tumble down. Then, we begin to find the will and courage to ‘be Muslims’.
Equally extraordinary is his style, the way he says these things.
Sayyid Mawdudi was not the traditional preacher. His voice did not roar in the air, nor did his body shake on the pulpit. He did not employ racy anecdotes, nor did he chant poetry. Yet his voice, in this book, has the quality which makes it rise from the lifeless, printed pages and penetrate our hearts.
Let us examine more closely, then, both his direct but powerful style and simple but profound message that make this book one of his best.
II
What gives Sayyid Mawdudi’s voice the quality that makes it penetrating and irresistible? How does it acquire the power to quicken hearts and galvanize lives?
Obviously the primary force is the nature of his message, its truth and simplicity, and his sincerity and passionate conviction of its relevance to real life. But, no less important is the manner in which he communicates his message. The secret of his persuasive power therefore lies simply in that he has something important and urgent to say and he says it sincerely, clearly and passionately.
Firstly, he speaks to people in their ‘language’, a language that makes his message lucid and luminous. His language and logic, his idiom and metaphors, all are plain and simple, rooted in the everyday life of his audience. They are not derived from speculative philosophy, intricate logic, or mysterious theology. For, sitting before him were ordinary folk and almost illiterate farmers and servicemen. They knew neither philosophy nor theology, neither history nor politics, neither logic nor rhetoric, nor even the chaste and scholarly Urdu he, until then, always used to write and speak. He therefore uses words which they used in their common life and could understand well, employs a logic which they could easily comprehend, and coins metaphors which could make them recognize reality through their everyday experience.
Sayyid Mawdudi’s chief concern is that real Iman which will find acceptance in the sight of Allah, which will bring rewards of dignity and success in this world as well as in the Hereafter. See how with a simple example he is able to demonstrate that such Iman cannot be attained by mere verbal profession, it must be lived by: ‘Suppose you are shivering in cold weather and you start shouting “cotton quilt, cotton quilt!” The effect of cold will not be any less even if you repeat these words all night a million times on beads or a rosary. But if you prepare a quilt stuffed with cotton and cover your body with it, the cold will stop.’1
Nor can it be a birthright, that he establishes with a plain rhetoric question: ‘Is a Muslim born a Muslim just as a Hindu Brahman’s son is born a Brahman, or an Englishman’s son is born an Englishman, or a white man’s son is born a white man …’2 Obviously, even an illiterate man would say, No.
Again, look how through an argument which derives its force from the everyday experience of his addressees Sayyid Mawdudi convincingly shows the inextricable link between a life of faith and righteousness in this world and, as its consequence, a life of eternal bliss in the next. As they were farmers, what could serve better as an example than a crop. ‘If you sow wheat, only wheat will grow. If thorns are sown, only thorns will grow. If nothing is sown, nothing will grow.’3 Therefore, ‘if you follow his [the Prophet’s] way, you will reap a fine harvest in the Hereafter, but if you act against his way you will grow thorns in this world and reap only thorns in the Hereafter.’4
Secondly, clear and direct reasoning imparts to Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse a measure of economy and grace which is quite unusual. In very few words he conveys many important themes, all beautifully reasoned. Every word, every argument, every example does its duty; they make his readers use their reason and commit themselves wholeheartedly to the task of ‘being Muslims’.
This appeal to reason, thirdly, is one of the most outstanding characteristics of Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse. However ordinary and illiterate his addressees may be, for him they are responsible, intelligent, and reasonable people. They are supposed to think for themselves, and they are capable of doing so. That is how God has made them. That is why Sayyid Mawdudi does not treat us as objects to be manipulated by cheap rhetoric and non-rational appeals. Instead, he persistently appeals to our reason with cogent reasoned arguments.
For this purpose, he again and again confronts us with questions rather than dogmatic statements. These questions are artful premises from which we can easily deduce the necessary conclusions, or they reinforce his argument, or they serve as conclusions which, though irrefutable, we are still free to accept. The question-answer style, constantly employed thoughout the book, turns his discourse into a dialogue rather than a monologue. Thus we become equal partners in his explorations instead of remaining passive receivers of his findings.
For example: Iman implies the possibility of disbelief. The idea that a Muslim is different from an unbeliever is deeply ingrained in our minds. On the basis of this firmly-held notion Sayyid Mawdudi drives home the true nature of Iman. ‘Does it mean that if an unbeliever has two eyes, a Muslim will have four? Or that if an unbeliever has one head, a Muslim will have two? You will say: “No, it does not mean that”.’5 We all think that Muslims will go to Heaven and unbelievers to Hell. But unbelievers, he appeals forcefully to our sense of fairness, which is inherent in every decent human being, ‘are human beings like yourselves. They possess hands, feet, eyes and ears. They breathe the same air as you, drink the same water and inhabit the same land. The God who created you also created them. So why should they be ranked lower and you higher? Why should you go to Heaven and why should they be cast into Hell?’.6
Obviously, an unbeliever is one because he ‘does not understand God’s relationship to him and his relationship to God’, nor, therefore, does he live by it. But, Sayyid Mawdudi asks us to think, ‘If a Muslim, too, grows up ignorant of God’s will, what ground can there be to continue calling him a Muslim rather than an unbelievers?’.7 Now he leaves it to us to answer the unpleasant but crucial and unavoidable question which must follow as its conclusion: ‘Now, in all fairness, tell me: if you call yourselves Muslims but in fact are as ignorant and disobedient as a unbeliever, can you in reality be superior to the latter merely on the strength of bearing different names, wearing different clothes and eating different food? Can you on this basis be entitled to the blessings of God in this world and in the Hereafter?’8
But, fourthly, Sayyid Mawdudi’s argument is never the dry bones of rational logic; it is always alive, a piece of flesh and blood, throbbing with emotion and feeling. The power of his discourse is greatly heightened because he combines the plain and simple logic of everyday life with the emotional argument; we find both deeply intertwined at every step of his writing. He suffuses his rationality with passion, which is an equally important constituent of our being. It is not the passion of frenzy, it is the passion which springs from sincerity and truth.
Put simply: his logic has the warmth of emotion, his emotion the force of logic. Cool arguments joined with burning appeals, with ironic contrasts, with charming eloquence, soak into the very depth of our existence. Together they hammer the truth into our minds and provoke us to respond.
His tone, too, is all along personal and intimate. He does not speak as an outsider who is delivering moral sermons from lofty towers. He is part of us. He shares our agonies and difficult decisions. That is why he is also always prepared to lay bare his innermost feelings and thoughts. It is this personal quality that never lets his discourse become wooden, that always accentuates the force of his appeal.
Look how the foolish and ironic inconsistencies of our conduct towards the Qur’ān are exposed in a convincingly reasoned argument that shakes us to our foundations. The fusion of rationality with feeling compels us to reflect upon our situation as well as awakens us to do something about it:
Tell me: what would you say if somebody got a doctor’s prescription and hung it round his neck after wrapping it in a piece of cloth or washed it in water and drank it? Would you not laugh at him and call him a fool? Yet this is the very treatment being given before your eyes to the matchless prescription written by the greatest of all doctors … and nobody laughs! …
Tell me: what would you think if someone who was ill picked up a book on medicine and began to read it, believing, thinking that this would cure him. Would you not say that he was deranged? Yet this is how we treat the Book which the supreme Healer has sent for the cure of our diseases.9
Or, see how, after depicting the miserable situation in which we Muslims find ourselves today, he appeals to our sense of honour, our sense of justice, and thereby leads us to think about the state of our Islam.
Is this the blessing of Allah? If it is not – but rather a sign of anger – then how strange it is that it is Muslims on whom it is descending! You are Muslims and yet are wallowing in ignominy! You are Muslims and yet are slaves! This situation is as impossible as it is for an object to be white and black …
If it is an article of faith with you that God is not unjust and obedience to God can never result in disgrace, then you will have to concede that there is something wrong in your claim to be Muslims. Although you may be registered as Muslims on your birth certificates, Allah does not base His judgements on what is written on pieces of paper.10
Above all, and fifthly, what matters most, what really startles and provokes us, what compels us to choose and respond to the summons of our Creator, is the rhythm of confrontation that permeates Sayyid Mawdudi’s entire discourse. His rhythm is not that of narration and exhortation, or even mere persuasion. From a series of kernels of simple truth, he expands his rhythm into one that persistently challenges and confronts us.
The simple truths, in his hands, become the tools with which he makes us expose our inner selves, as well as they provide us with a powerful critique of our society. His purpose is not to preach to us, but to change us. He wants us to think for ourselves and make our own choices. What startles us is the way he lays bare the implications of what we have always so placidly and lazily continued to believe; what provokes us is the way he divulges our inner contradictions and hypocricies, our incongruous, incomprehensible attitudes towards things we claim to value most.
The above examples illustrate how everything that Sayyid Mawdudi says pulsates with the rhythm of confrontation. But nowhere does it stand out so sharply and powerfully as when he calls upon us to compare our lives and conduct with those of Unbelievers:
Unbelievers do not read the Qur’ān and do not know what is written in it. If so-called Muslims are equally ignorant, why should they be called Muslims? Unbelievers do not know the teachings of the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him, and the straight path he has shown to reach God. If Muslims are equally ignorant of these, how can they be Muslims? Unbelievers follow their own desires instead of the commands of Allah. If Muslims are similarly wilful and undisciplined, setting their own ideas and opinions on a pedestal, indifferent to God and a slave to lust, what right have they to call themselves Muslims? …
… [indeed] almost the only difference now left between us and Unbelievers is that of mere name …
I say ‘almost’ because there is, of course, a difference between us: we know that the Qur’ān is the Book of God, … yet we treat it as an Unbeliever treats it. And this makes us all the more deserving of punishment. We know that Muhammad, blessings and peace be on him, is the Prophet of Allah and yet we are as unwilling as an Unbeliever to follow him.11
There are many reasons for these paradoxes. But one reason Sayyid Mawdudi explains in his characteristic style: ‘You know the damage caused if crops are burnt; you know the suffering which results from failure to earn a livelihood; you know the harm resulting from loss of property. But you do not know the loss of being ignorant of Islam.’12
Finally, let us look at one especially exquisite extract from Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse which epitomizes all the distinguishing characteristics of his style. Answering the question, has the Prayer lost its power to change lives, he points to the clock which was in front of his audience and which all of us have, and proceeds to explain why. Note the simple but powerful argument and the beauty and grace of language.
Look at the clock fixed to the wall: there are lots of small parts in it, joined to each other …
If you do not wind it, it will not show the time. If you wind it but not according to the method prescribed, it will stop or, even if it works, it will not give the correct time. If you remove some of its parts then wind it, nothing will happen. If you replace some of the parts with those of a sewing machine and then wind it, it will neither indicate the time nor sew the cloth. If you keep all its parts inside its case but disconnect them, then no part will move even after winding it …
Imagine Islam like this clock … Beliefs and principles of morality, rules for day-to-day conduct, the rights of God, of His slaves, of one’s own self, of everything in the world which you encounter, rules for earning and spending money, laws of war and peace, principles of government and limits of obedience to it – all these are parts of Islam…
[But now] … you have pulled out many parts of the clock and in their place put anything and everything: a spare part from a sewing machine, perhaps, or from a factory or from the engine of a car. You call yourselves Muslims, yet you render loyal service to Disbelief, yet you take interest … which un-Islamic gadget is there that you have not fixed into the frame of the clock of Islam.
Despite this you expect the clock to work when you wind it!13
The parable of the clock not only serves to explain the ‘holistic’ nature of Islam – which no intellectual discussion could have explained so lucidly – but it also symbolizes Sayyid Mawdudi’s own contribution to Islamic resurgence: according each part of Islam its due place, infusing it with its true meaning, relinking all of them together.
III
What does Sayyid Mawdudi say? He talks, as we noted in the beginning, about things which are central to Islam: faith and obedience, knowledge and righteous life, the present world and the world to come, the Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving, Pilgrimage and Jihad. But is this not what every religious writer and preacher talks about? So, what is so unique about his discourse? The question is legitimate. Let us see if we can answer it.
No doubt he explains and expounds their meanings and import, too, in a manner which in itself is distinctive and uncommon. But more significantly, and this is central to the importance of this book, he imparts a radical quality to all these elementary everyday themes by renewing their original intent and meaning and by making them relevant to our lives.
How does he do that? Firstly, he restores each part to its rightful place in Islam. Secondly, and this is his unique contribution, he restores the vital links between them which long since have snapped in our minds and lives. Iman and Islam, Dunya and Akhira, Prayer and Fasting, all are there; but each in its own orbit, each in its compartment. Indeed we have become almost habituated to treat each of them as a separate entity. So, even if each part is in its place and is not deformed, even if no foreign part has been fitted to it, to borrow his own metaphor, they do not make the ‘clock’ of Islam work because they are disconnected. He draws them together and tells us how to link them. Immediately, what was insignificant and irrelevant becomes central, the very destiny of life. Thus, despite his themes being familiar and ordinary, despite their being devoid of elaborate, elegant, oratorial dress, they make an enormous impact.
The richness, strength and range of Sayyid Mawdudi’s themes are indeed immense and profound. But we can easily trace seven such vital links which he re-establishes.
First, he links life, and remember the whole of life, with Iman. Iman becomes the centre of life, which does not accept anything less than total commitment to the One God. This Iman, for long, we have made irrelevant to real life.
Second, he links our actions with Iman, and therefore, with life. In his understanding, there can be no true Iman without actions.
Third, he links acts of ritual worship or ‘Ibādāt – in the sense of five pillars – with Iman as the seed from which they grow and with actions as the branches into which they blossom. They are the stem which must grow out of Iman and produce its crop of righteous life.
Fourth, he connects the outward form with the inner spirit; if ‘forms’ do not yield the desired fruits, they are devoid of spirit. Outward religiosity hoisted on empty hearts has no value in the sight of God.
Fifth, he links Jihad with righteous life by emphasizing its position as the pinnacle and culmination of everything God desires of us, the highest virtue – and thus with Iman and life. To be true Muslims, we must be Mujahids.
Sixth, he links history with Iman. Iman is no more a mere metaphysical and spiritual force; it is the fulcrum of history, it is the determinant of destiny. Thus history becomes crucial for Iman, and therefore for life. We can no more sit back passively; we must try, actively, to change history, that is, wage Jihad.
Seventh, he links this-world with the Hereafter, as a continuing process. Without striving to fulfil the will of God in the present life, we cannot reap any harvest in the next.
Our previous discussion about Sayyid Mawdudi’s style has already shown, to some extent, how he achieves the above task. But let us reflect a little more on some salient features of what he has said.
Iman. The question of Iman lies at the heart of Sayyid Mawdudi’s entire discourse here. It is what the whole book is about; on it everything is centred. Indeed the entire contents of this book can be summed up as an echo of just one Quranic Ayah:
O believers, believe (al-Nisā’ 4: 136).
The meaning of Iman is well-known. What has gone wrong is that it has become irrelevant or peripheral to the actual lives lived by the believers. This has come to pass because of many factors. Iman has come to be taken for granted as a birthright; it has become confined to the mere utterance of the Kalimah; it has been put into a corner of life; it has been made innocuous and ‘safe’.
All this Sayyid Mawdudi strongly refutes: Being a Muslim ‘is not something automatically inherited from your parents which remains yours for life’.14 ‘Being born in Muslim homes, bearing Muslim names, dressing like Muslims and calling yourselves Muslims is not enough to make you Muslims.’15
For, ‘no one is an Unbeliever or a Muslim simply because of his name. Nor does the real difference lie in the fact that one wears a necktie and the other a turban’.16 Similarly, ‘mere utterance of six or seven words cannot conceivably transform an Unbeliever into a Muslim, … nor can it send a man to Paradise instead of Hell’.17
There is no compulsion to recite the Kalimah. But, having recited it, Sayyid Mawdudi stresses, you have ‘no basis whatsoever to make claims like “life is mine, the body is mine, wealth is mine”. It is absurd … You have no right to move your hands and feet against His wish, nor to make your eyes see what He dislikes …’.18 Also, ‘you have no right to say, “My opinion is this, the prevalent custom is this, the family tradition is this, that scholar and that holy person say this”. In the face of Allah’s word and His Messenger’s Sunnah, you cannot argue in this manner.’19
Sayyid Mawdudi is a great iconoclast, for no idolatry can ever co-exist with true Iman. But his chief concern does not lie with idols of stone, of natural objects. It lies with the idols of self, of society and culture, of human beings which so often become gods in hearts and lives.
What is Islam? ‘To entrust yourselves completely to God is Islam. To relinquish all claims to absolute freedom and independence and to follow God’s will is Islam … To bring your affairs under God means to accept unreservedly the guidance sent by God through His Book and His Messengers.’20 But there are people who ‘obey the dictates of their own reason and desires, follow the practices of their forefathers, accept what is happening in society, never bothering to ascertain from the Qur’ān and Sunnah how to run their affairs, or refuse to accept the teachings of the Qur’ān and Sunnah by saying: “They do not appeal to my reason”, or “They are against the ways of my forefathers”, or “The world is moving in an opposite direction’”. For them Sayyid Mawdudi has this to say: ‘Such people are liars if they call themselves Muslims.’21
Each of these is a god if obeyed besides God: self; society; family or nation; men, especially the rulers, the rich, and the false thinkers. Against them Sayyid Mawdudi inveighs relentlessly: ‘To be slaves of the three idols, I say, is the real Shirk (idolatry). You may have demolished the temples of bricks and mortar, you may have broken the stone idols in them, but you have paid little attention to the temples within your own hearts. To smash these idols is the essential precondition to becoming a Muslim.’22
Because ‘with these idols in your hearts you cannot become slaves of God. Merely by offering Prayers many times a day, by ostentatiously observing Fasts, and by putting on the outward face of Muslims you may deceive your fellow beings – as well, indeed, yourselves – but you will never be able to deceive God.’23
Having defined the nature of Iman and idolatry, and the claim of Iman upon the whole person, he tells us plainly: ‘If you obey the directions of God in some matters, while in others follow your own self, desires, society or man-made laws, then you are guilty of Disbelief to the extent of your disobedience. You may be half Unbeliever, or a quarter Unbeliever or less or more.’24 To claim to be Muslims and to reserve even the tiniest territory in hearts or lives from God is sheer hypocrisy, too.
Such categorical statements may mislead some to think that Sayyid Mawdudi is engaged in the business of excommunicating Muslims. Not at all. Lest there be any misunderstanding, he says: ‘Do not for a moment think that I am trying to brand Muslims as Unbelievers. This is not my purpose at all.’25 His only purpose is to give us the criteria by which each one of us should judge himself, but not others: ‘Do not use this criterion to test or judge others and determine whether they are Mumins or hypocrites and Muslims or Unbelievers; use it only to judge your own selves and, if you detect any deficiency, try to remove it before you meet Allah.’26
Iman has two levels. Sayyid Mawdudi makes a very sharp and very important distinction between the two: faith at the level of profession – what he calls ‘legal Islam’, and faith at the level of fidelity and actualization – what he calls ‘true Islam’, which God desires, which assures us His rewards in this world and the Hereafter. His concern in this book, he makes abundantly clear, is ‘true Islam’, for it is what counts in life and in God’s scale.
But at the same time, he stresses, very wisely, the importance of legal Islam. For faith thus defined forms the basis for membership in the Ummah. By clarifying the important distinction between Din and Shari’ah, he strikes at the very root of sectarianism which results in mutual excommunication. For all his stress on true Islam, and for all his rhetoric – ‘You are not Muslims’, ‘this is sheer hypocrisy’ – it must be noted that Sayyid Mawdudi never issued or signed any fatwa (edict) of Disbelief against anyone in his entire life.
And he provides us with a breadth of tolerance that is so rare in these days: ‘What right has one servant to say that he alone is the genuine servant while the other is not?’ One may argue that his understanding is correct, but this does not give him the authority to expel anyone from Islam. ‘Anyone who does display such temerity assumes, as it were, the status of the Master. He would seem to be saying, “Just as it is compulsory for you to obey the Master’s order, so also it is compulsory for you to accept my way of understanding. If you fail to do that, I shall, with my own power, dismiss you from the Master’s service” … A person who insists upon such submission to his own interpretation and judgement and assumes such powers of dismissal for himself irrespective of whether God Himself dismisses someone or not, is in fact saying that God alone is not God but that he himself is also a small god.’27
Actions: Real Iman, once installed at the centre of life, once lodged in heart, must flourish into a mighty tree of righteous deeds (as-ṣāliḥāt). Unfortunately, something which was important for the vitality and true worth of Islam – the relationship between imān and ‘amal – became an issue, quite unnecessarily, for the jurists and philosophers. Muslims have no need to assume a prerogative that is God’s: to determine any particular person’s place in the Hereafter. Or, to engage in the business of excommunication. But they must never lose a vision of Iman which can retain its power only when linked with deeds.
Sayyid Mawdudi’s real business is to make Iman real and decisive in actual life. And that, as we see, he does with remarkable vigour and clarity. The Kalimah, he says, ‘must be rooted in the heart, it must drive out any belief opposed to it, it should make any actions in contravention of it well-nigh impossible.’28
‘Ibādāt: Foremost among righteous deeds are the obligatory acts of ritual worship like Salah and Zakah. It is impossible for us to have the seed of Iman in our hearts and yet ignore these basic duties. Sayyid Mawdudi echoes the Qur’ān and Sunnah when he declares that ‘only those can be taken to be true believers who perform the Prayers and give the Alms. Those who disregard these two fundamental teachings are not true in their faith.’29.
On the other hand, acts of worship, if correctly performed, must result in claiming the whole of life for Iman, and bring all of it under God. We only have to read the discourse on ‘True Meaning of ‘Ibadah’ to appreciate fully how forcefully Sayyid Mawdudi argues this important point.
Spirit: If acts of worship do not lead to a life lived in worship, the only reason is that they have been emptied of their true meaning and purpose, their true spirit. ‘When the soul departs, what feats can a dead body perform’,30 says Sayyid Mawdudi. The Prayer is meant to restrain us from everything that Allah dislikes. ‘If it does not, the reason lies in you, not in the Prayer. It is not the fault of soap and water that coal is black!’31
Sayyid Mawdudi inveighs heavily against ‘religiosity’ hoisted on empty hearts and divided loyalties. ‘What would you say about a servant’, he asks, ‘who, instead of performing the duties required of him by his master, just stands in front of him with folded hands and keeps chanting his name?’ For example ‘his master commands him to cut off the hand of a thief. But the servant, still standing there, recites scores of times in an extremely melodious voice: “Cut off the hand of the thief, cut off the hand of the thief”, without ever trying to establish that order under which the hand of a thief may be cut off’. However, when you see a person who ‘reads from dawn to dusk the Divine injunctions in the Qur’ān, but never stirs himself to carry them out, chanting instead the name of God on a thousand-bead rosary, praying uninterruptedly and reciting the Qur’ān in a beautiful voice … you exclaim “What a devout and pious person he is!”, you are misled because you do not understand the true meaning of ‘Ibadah’.
Similarly, ‘how astonishing that you think the Prayers, Fasting, chanting on rosary-beads, recital of the Qur’ān, the Pilgrimage and Almsgiving of those people are in fact acts of worship, who day and night violate or ignore the laws of God and follow the orders of the unbelievers.’32
Jihād: Jihad is firmly linked with Iman in the Qur’ān, and therefore with the whole Muslim life. It is the purpose which calls the Ummah into existence. But, for long, we have come to believe that we do not have to stir ourselves to undertake this vital duty for it makes no difference to our Iman.
This tragic chasm Sayyid Mawdudi spans forcefully and unequivocally.
It is this ‘unconcern’ with Jihad that, he says, empties all other acts of worship of their spirit. ‘But now, I say, you must understand that a heart devoid of any intention to undertake Jihad will find all ritual worship empty of meaning. Nor will those acts bring you any nearer to your God.’33 For, ‘if you believe Islam to be true, you have no other alternative but to exert your utmost strength to make it prevail on earth: you either establish it or give your lives in this struggle’.34
Why? His argument is lucid and convincing. Firstly, having believed in Allah and the Messenger, and accepted Islam as our Din, we must bring ourselves totally under God’s rule. Therefore Muslims ‘should rise to bring their King’s land under His law, to destroy the power of those rebels among His subjects who have set themselves up as sovereigns, and to free His subjects from the burden of slavery to others. Merely believing in God as God and in His law as the true law is not enough’.35
Otherwise, secondly, we would be living under two Dins: one, in our minds, or at most in our private lives; the other, in our public lives. For, ‘Din without power to govern is just like a building which exists in the mind only. But, it is the building which actually exists, in which you actually live, that is important’.36
One cannot follow two Dins, for he can obey only one at a time. ‘In reality you are followers only of that being’s Din whom you are actually obeying. Is it not then utter hypocrisy to call that being your ruler and to claim to belong to his Din whom you do not obey.’ Further, ‘is it not meaningless to assert that you have faith in this Shari‘ah when all your affairs are conducted in violation of this Shari‘ah and in fact you follow another Shari‘ah?’37
Obviously, thirdly, this situation is unacceptable. For ‘how can Allah’s Din accept to co-exist with any other Din, when no other Din admits of such partnership. Like every other Din, Allah’s Din, too, demands that all authority should genuinely and exclusively be vested in it’.38
Fourthly, because the lordship of man over man is the root cause of all corrupt rule on earth, it is our duty to ‘stand up and fight against corrupt rule; take power and use it on God’s behalf. It is useless to think you can change things by preaching alone’.39
History: Iman is squeezed out of life once we begin to take history as merely an interplay of material forces. Sayyid Mawdudi puts Iman back at the centre of history, just as he installs it at the centre of heart and life. It becomes the fulcrum by which the scales of destiny are tipped: ‘You are Muslims and yet are wallowing in ignominy! You are Muslims and yet are slaves! This situation is as impossible as it is for an object to be black and white.’40
Further, ‘it is impossible for a people to possess God’s word and yet suffer disgrace and ignominy, live under subjugation, be trampled on and kicked around, and carry the yoke of slavery on their necks, being led by the nose like animals’.41
How does, then, this come to happen? Sayyid Mawdudi has absolutely no doubt. ‘If it is an article of faith with you’, he argues, ‘that God is not unjust and obedience to God can never result in disgrace, then you will have to concede that there is something wrong in your claim to be Muslims’.42 In this respect Muslim conduct towards the Qur’ān is very crucial. ‘If a people possess Allah’s Book and still live in disgrace and subjugation, they are surely being punished for doing injustice to Allah’s word. The only way to save yourselves from Allah’s anger is to turn back from this grave sin and start trying to render His Book its due.’43
Although we had to quote from the text very extensively, it was necessary to show clearly the principal threads that run through Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse in this book. The above discussion clearly demonstrates how they make his contribution distinctive and unique.
These threads underline the crucial and radical importance of Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse summoning Muslims: Let us be Muslims. Everything which has either lost its original meaning or has been emptied of its true intent becomes redefined. But the most remarkable thing, as we said, is that he connects all of them together again. That is why while he says nothing very different from what others are saying, his impact has been tremendous. For, thus connected, Iman regains its original power to change man and his world.
IV
Anyone who reads Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourses will find no difficulty in understanding the true intent and purpose of what he embraces and expounds. One may disagree with it, or find it uninspiring, but he cannot deny that Sayyid Mawdudi is talking the same language and conveying the same message as do the Qur’ān and the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him.
But some have taken exception to what he says. He has replied to them in his Preface to the eighth reprint which is included herein. But we may still find it useful to compare his discourses with the Qur’ān and Hadith. For it is their light which radiates through his words.
Let us first look at the Qur’ān.
True Iman which resides in hearts, shapes lives, and finds acceptance with God is always differentiated from outward, legal Iman. ‘The Bedouins say, “We believe.” Say: you do not believe, rather say, “We have surrendered”, for [true] faith has not yet entered their hearts’ (al-Ḥujurāt 49: 15). Similarly mere verbal professions of faith, which are contradicted by actions, are rejected. ‘O Messenger, let not those grieve you who vie with one another in Disbelieving, from among those who say, “We believe”, with their mouths, but their hearts believe not’ (al-Mā’idah 5: 41).
Hence even believers are often called upon ‘to believe’, that is, to attain true faith. ‘O believers, believe in God and His Messenger, and the Book He is sending down upon His Messenger, and the Book He sent down before’ (al-Nisā’ 4: 136). Or, ‘Believe in God and His Messenger, and spend out of that in which we have made you vicegerents …’ (al-Ḥadīd 57: 7).
The link between Iman and actions is clearly manifest in the way both are almost always bracketed together: al-ladhīna āmanū wa ‘amilu ’ṣ-ṣāliḥāt (those who believe and do righteous deeds). Or, one only has to read those Ayahs which describe the demands and conditions of true Iman by saying: in kuntum muminīn (if you are believers).
The bond between true faith and ritual worship, on the one hand, and a life lived totally in worship, which leads to justice and compassion in society, on the other, is firmly established in many places: ‘Have you seen him who denies Judgement. That, then, is he who pushes away the orphan; and urges not to feed the needy. Woe, then, unto those praying ones who are unmindful of their Prayer, those who want to be seen, and who refuse [even] small kindnesses’ (al-Mā‘ūn 107:1 – 5).
Thus the claim of Iman upon the whole of life, its nature as a bargain, as a total commitment, is fully established. ‘O believers, enter wholly into Islam [self-surrender unto God]’ (al-Baqarah 2: 208). For ‘the only [true] way in the sight of God is Islam’ (Āl ‘Imrān 3: 19). Therefore ‘whoso desires a way other than surrender unto God, it will never be accepted from him’ (Āl ‘Imrān 3: 85).
Jihad, as Sayyid Mawdudi has argued, now becomes integral to Iman. The Qur’ān makes it the criterion by which the truthfulness of Iman is to be judged. ‘The believers are those only who [truly] believe in God and His Messenger, and then they doubt not; and who struggle hard with their wealth and their lives in the way of God; it is they who are the truthful ones’ (al-Ḥujurāt 49: 15).
The Akhira as the harvest of what we sow in Dunya is such a recurring and predominant motif in the Qur’ān that it hardly needs to be repeated here.
But that, according to the Qur’ān, history (Dunya, in a sense) itself is a crop of beliefs and actions, of Iman and taqwā, of ṣabr (steadfastness and patience) and istighfār (seeking forgiveness) is not always well understood. ‘Had the people of cities believed and been conscious of Us, We would indeed have opened up for them blessings from heaven and earth’ (al-A‘rāf 7: 96). And, ‘Ask forgiveness from your Lord, then turn towards Him in repentance; He will loosen the sky over you in abundance, and He will increase you in strength unto your strength’ (Hūd 11: 52). Also, ‘Had they established the Torah and the Gospel, and what has been sent down to them from their Lord, they would have partaken of all the blessings from above them and from beneath their feet’ (al-Mā’idah 5: 66).
Turning to the Hadith we find there the same themes propounded in the same manner.
We have only to open any collection of Hadith and read through those which include a phrase like lā yuminu (he does not believe); laisa huwa minnā (he does not belong to us); lā īmāna lahū (there is no faith in him); laisa huwa bi mumin (he is not a believer). We will immediately realize how categorically the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him, links a wide range of values and actions with Iman.
Just look at some of them.
One among you does not believe unless he loves me more than his father, his children, and all mankind (Bukhārī, Muslim).
One among you does not believe until all his desires follow what I have brought (Sharḥ al-Sunnah).
What lies between a man and Disbelief is the abandonment of the Prayer (Muslim).
The covenant between us and them is the Prayer, so if anyone abandons it he becomes a unbeliever (Aḥmad, Tirmidhī).
One who is not trustworthy has no faith; and one who does not keep his promise has no religion (Baihaqī).
When one fornicates he is not a believer, when one steals he is not a believer, when one drinks he is not a believer, when one takes plunder which makes men look at him he is not a believer, and when one defrauds he is not a believer (Bukhārī, Muslim).
He does not belong to us who does not show mercy to our young ones and respect our old ones (Tirmidhī).
By Him in whose hand my soul is, one does not believe till he likes for his brother what he likes for himself (Bukhārī, Muslim).
Reviling a Muslim is disobedience to God, and fighting with him is Disbelief (Bukhārī, Muslim).
I swear he does not believe, I swear he does not believe, I swear he does not believe. [When asked who, he said,] One from whose injurious conduct his neighbour is not safe (Bukhārī, Muslim).
He is not a believer who eats his fill while his neighbour is hungry (Bukhārī).
There are three signs of a hypocrite, even if he fasts and claims that he is a Muslim: when he speaks he lies, when he makes a promise he breaks it, and when he is trusted he betrays his trust (Muslim).
Flesh which has grown out of the unlawful earnings will not enter Paradise, for Hell is more fitting for all flesh which has grown out of the unlawful (Aḥmad).
If anyone knows how to shoot and gives it up he does not belong to us [for he gives up a skill which is essential for Jihad] (Muslim).
V
Since this book was first published in 1940, it has been meeting very real and great spiritual, intellectual and cultural needs of all those who have had the chance to read it. Since then it has been evoking faith and commitment in many lives. Its messages, by their acceptance and absorption, by the subsequent development of Muslim thought and society, and by the rising waves of Islamic resurgence, have too now become quite familiar. Some retrospect of time previous to their appearance is therefore necessary to appreciate their original freshness.
The early thirties, when Sayyid Mawdudi spoke these words, were stressful times for the Muslims in India. They were in a cauldron of political and cultural turmoil and uncertainty. The Khilafat movement had collapsed; the brief rule of the Congress ministries had given them a foretaste of what miseries awaited them under Hindu majority in a democratic India. They had no leader, no organization, no purpose.
What Sayyid Mawdudi said then contained the essential substance of the message that he had been writing and communicating at various times since the mid-twenties, which he continued to live for until his death in 1979. This was the message of his first book – Al-Jihad fil Islam – which appeared in 1926–27. It is a monumental, unparalleled treatise on the Jihad as an ideal, a process and an institution in Islam. It is also a provoking and convincing discourse on Jihad as the ultimate objective, the very life purpose of the Ummah. The concluding theme of this book echoes the theme of Al-Jihad.
The same message he had been propounding through the pages of his monthly journal, the Tarjumanul Qur’ān, since 1932. Yearning to do something for what he had so long been writing about compelled him to migrate from Hyderabad, in South India, to Darul Islam, in North India. For, he said, ‘I have now concluded that the real battleground is going to be Northern India. There the Muslim destiny will be decided and its effects will overtake the whole of India.’
In coming to Darul Islam he accepted Dr. Muhammad Iqbal’s (d. 1938) invitation, too, to collaborate with him in undertaking a reconstruction of Islamic thought. But paramount in his mind, as his many letters show, was the burning zeal and sense of urgency to awaken the Muslim Ummah to its real mission and purpose. One must read all of his other epoch-making writings of the time to understand him fully.
So, in the small mosque in Darul Islam, he had before him simple villagers who did not know much of politics, history, theology. The only things they knew were Iman and Islam and the five pillars. Explaining to them in simple language what he had written earlier was the task that he accomplished in these addresses.
The original freshness of those addresses, despite the passage of time, lingers on; it would not fade away. For the intent and import of God’s message is universal. They still leaven, as they leavened then, the hearts of their readers. Their need remains as great as ever.
The need of a good English translation can hardly be overemphasized. English is now the language of millions of Muslims. It is also an international language through which any contents can be easily made available to other Muslim languages. The presently available English version, Fundamentals of Islam, is a commendable effort and I must express my debt of gratitude to it for the immense help it has given me in the preparation of this new translation. However, it does not convey fully the real power and charm of the original Urdu. Perhaps no translation can, yet the need to improve further and further remains.
Translation is a difficult art, especially if it has to be effected between languages as disparate as Urdu and English. The task becomes more difficult if one has to translate a subject as unique as Islam into a language whose ethos has no place for it. The problem is further aggravated because of the masterful rhetoric which characterizes Sayyid Mawdudi’s addresses. The tone and temper of English and Urdu are different; but the spoken word in Urdu loses much more of its charm once rendered into English.
There was, therefore, no alternative but to resort to editing. The purpose of editing, however, it must remain clear, has not been to omit, add, modify or explain anything unless absolutely necessary. There has been only one limited aim: to improve the readability, to accentuate the power, to deliver the message as forcefully and effectively as does the original. This is not therefore a literal translation, but nor is it liberal. It is as faithful as one could be, while balancing the tension between the conflicting demands of remaining faithful to the original as well as retaining its power and charm. Some minor deletions there are, but only where it was necessary to take out what in English looked cumbersomely repetitive. And some words which would have been totally incomprehensible to an English reader have been either substituted or omitted.
Every temptation to ‘modernize’ the text, to bring it into conformity with the life and experience of the present-day readers of the English version, has been resisted. For even the most advanced, rational and technological ‘man’ shares a large and deep world with the most primitive, of which he himself may not be very aware. Hence the simple logic and examples of this book should strike as deep a chord within him as they do among its ordinary readers.
This is something important we must keep in mind. The minds of farmers or servicemen that Sayyid Mawdudi was addressing were not burdened with complex and subtle concepts like state, society, and sovereignty, nor were they well versed in theological debates. Hence his language must be understood in the context of his audience, though its larger implications should not be missed.
For example, for his audience the only reality that ruled was the ‘government’. They would have had no idea of the complex differences between concepts like sovereignty, state and government, state and society, individual and collectivity, small and big government. Hence we find Sayyid Mawdudi using, without any reservation, the word ‘government’ to convey many important and complex messages. Similarly, he unhesitatingly uses the vocabulary of a farmer or a serviceman. For example, the Adhan is likened to ‘divine bugle’; the Ummah to ‘army of God’. Therefore, let there be no effort to read any more than what is intended in the light of the reader’s own difficulties with concepts like regimentation, totalitarianism, or spirituality. Many who have tried to read Sayyid Mawdudi in this perspective have been misled to ascribe to him what he never intended and said. To understand him fully one should read all of his writings.
As the book is addressed primarily to Muslims, the original Islamic terminology in Arabic is retained and is used freely and frequently in the English text, without italicization or accents. A word of explanation is here necessary. I personally feel no hesitation in using ‘God’ for Allah, both to achieve communication with those who do not know ‘Allah’ as well as to ‘Islamize’ the word God. The only way to do so, in my view, is to use such words interchangeably with their Arabic counterparts, so that both vocabularies may finally come to be used without the reader even noticing the change from one to the other. Like ‘Allah’ and ‘Khuda’ are used in Urdu.
The same principle has been followed with respect to other key terms like Iman, Disbelief, Kalimah, Mumin, Unbeliever, Din, Shari‘ah, ‘Ibadah, Salah, Zakah, Sawm, Hajj. I think they need to be made part of the English language, if English is to become, one day, a Muslim language as well. They should attain the same status as Islam, Muslim, Jihad. At the same time, words like Prayer, Fasting, Pilgrimage should also begin conveying the Islamic meanings.
A new title has also been given: Let Us Be Muslims. Nothing less than such a direct summons could have done some justice to the spirit of this book. This title at least expresses its basic purpose. For the purpose of the book is to call Muslims to Islam, to be Muslims as God desires them to be. New chapter headings have also been given. Each, too, I feel, reflects the spirit and content better.
This new English version, I hope, now reads much better. I must take this opportunity to thank Mr. Paul Moorman whose editorial help has been invaluable in preparing this edited translation.
After all the labour I am still not satisfied that the English does full justice to the original. Being unequal to the task, I must confess my inadequacy. But, if it can give the readers some sense of the life and power that fill Sayyid Mawdudi’s original words, if it can too, in some degree, touch some lives, by the leave of God, then my labour will be more than rewarded. Despite all my failings, I hope and trust that Allah will, by His mercy, make many hearts awaken through it. May He also make it a source of forgiveness and mercy for me in the present life and the life to come, and for all those who contributed something in making me a little better than what my fraility would have allowed, chief among them being Sayyid Mawdudi himself.
Khurram Murad
Leicester
29 Ramadan, 1405
18 June, 1985
References
1 Let Us Be Muslims, p. 70
2 Ibid, p. 48
3 Ibid, p. 86
4 Ibid, p. 89
5 Ibid, p. 86
6 Ibid, p. 53
7 Ibid, p. 50
8 Ibid, p. 55
9 Ibid, p. 63
10 Ibid, p. 56
11 Ibid, pp. 57–8
12 Ibid, pp. 59–60
13 Ibid, pp. 175–8
14 Ibid, p. 49
15 Ibid, p. 50
16 Ibid, p. 50
17 Ibid, p. 71
18 Ibid, p. 75
19 Ibid, p. 66
20 Ibid, p. 65
21 Ibid, p. 66
22 Ibid, pp. 99–100
23 Ibid, p. 99
24 Ibid, p. 94
25 Ibid, p. 58
26 Ibid, p. 118
27 Ibid, p. 130–1
28 Ibid, pp. 82–3
29 Ibid, p. 201
30 Ibid, p. 110
31 Ibid, p. 164
32 Ibid, p. 138
33 Ibid, p. 293
34 Ibid, p. 300
35 Ibid, p. 290
36 Ibid, p. 297
37 Ibid, p. 296
38 Ibid, p. 299
39 Ibid, p. 288
40 Ibid, p. 56
41 Ibid, p. 64
42 Ibid, p. 56
43 Ibid, p. 64
