This extensive introduction presents Maududi’s anti-colonial concerns, cosmopolitan sources and conceptual innovations, while also providing an overview of existing scholarship on his thought. Will be of particular interest to scholars of political theory, history, politics, Islamic studies and South Asian studies.

To clearly distinguish the second type of evil, against which Islam calls its followers to raise their swords, from the first type and to make its nature more explicit, God describes it with the terms fitnah and fasād. Therefore, all the verses that permit or prescribe fighting against evil or command its removal through the use of force invariably employ the terms fitnah and fasād instead of munkar, evil.

Literature shows the way, public opinion follows the lead and, finally, collective morality, social customs and state law all give way. Such a change becomes inevitable, especially when all the propaganda devices and techniques besides philosophy, history, ethics, science, literature, art, etc., have worked together persistently for a hundred and fifty years or so to mould man’s way of thinking after a particular pattern. Then, it is unlikely that the law of the land remains unaffected by the changing public opinion in a country where government and social institutions are run on democratic principles.

The chapter is intended to offer answers to the following crucial questions often raised regarding Islam’s economic system:

• Does Islam offer an economic system and, if so, what is the blueprint of that system? What is the position of land, labour, capital and organization in this blueprint?

• Can the funds of zakāh and sadaqat (mandatory and normal charity) be used for social welfare?

• Can we successfully introduce an interest-free economy?

• What is the interrelationship of the economic, political, social and religious systems in Islam?

Maududi also wrote an immensely popular commentary on the Quran. This genre of writing is often excluded from an assessment of Maududi’s political thought. However, for Maududi, all his endeavours were connected. His commentary and translation of Surah Al Fatiha indicates some abiding concerns.

While researching and defining the plausibility or implausibility of something, the first thing to observe is it in itself. Then, we proceed to analyse it in comparison with other things. It can only be declared worth accepting if it proves better on both counts. From this perspective of research and investigation, we have completed the first phase of inquiry. We now need to undertake the second phase. In this phase of the study, we shall start by comparing Islam with other religions and then compare it with laws of the modern period to investigate how they relate to the Islamic norms. If they permit war, then the question is whether their objectives and methods [English term in text; Urdu manāhij] are better or worse than those of Islam. If they prohibit war, are the teachings of these schools in harmony with human nature, or do the teachings of Islam do that?

Since ancient times, at least at the level of theory, there has existed in the world a very basic idea of the rights and obligations of any two groups fighting against each other. The legislatures of Ancient Greece had formulated the law that those killed in war must be buried. They prohibited killing people from the losing side who took refuge in places of worship. They also proscribed killing sportsmen and the servants of places of worship. However, firstly, these laws did not apply to international wars [bayn al millī]. The lawmakers had introduced these laws to regulate their internal strife and battles. Secondly, seen from a practical perspective, it transpires that the empires of that time neither accepted these injunctions as laws nor implemented them. The Roman empire, in particular, did not accept the legal status of any non-Roman country, and had no concept of dealing with them on the basis of any rights and obligations. The same was the case with the Persian empire. They considered non-Persian [ghair Iranī] nations barbaric. To them, the non-Persian empires were in fact traitors who had rebelled against the Persian empire. Therefore, when at war with any such nation, the Persians did not feel any ethical obligations binding on them.

The first clause of the law upon which stands the foundation of human civilization is that human life and blood are sacred. The first civil [tamaddunī] right of mankind is the right to live, while the first and foremost civil duty is to allow others to live. The moral principle of honour of self has definitely existed in all the sharias and civilized laws in the world. A religion or a law that does not recognize this right can neither be declared the law or religion of civilized people nor enable any human population to live a peaceful life under it, and thus it cannot flourish. Every person’s intellect is aware that if human life does not carry any value, lacks respect and has no arrangement for its security, then how can people live together, engage in mutual trade, attain a sense of peace and security, or attain the state of collectivity devoid of fear which is necessary for trade, manufacturing, agriculture, money-making, building homes, travelling and living a civilized life? In addition, if we disregard needs and consider this from a purely humanist [insāniyyat] perspective, killing another human life, even if it is for personal gains or enmity, symbolizes the worst form of tyranny and hard-heartedness, the existence of which not only fail to support moral development but also make it impossible for an individual to retain the status of a human being.

Before engaging in this analysis, it is imperative to explain a few terms for the convenience and benefit of general readers.

In political science, the word ‘state’, whose counterpart in our language is riyāsat, is applied to the system that controls, through its ‘coercive power’ [English term in text; Urdu qāhirānah ṭāqat], a people living in a defined geographical boundary. On the one hand, there exists a coercive power and, on the other, obedience to it. When the two coincide, the organizational arrangement that is called the state or riyāsat emerges.

Let us try first to understand what ribā, or ‘interest’, is, according to the Quran and the Sunnah. What are its parameters? What are the specific cases on which the injunctions regarding its prohibition apply? What are the alternatives that Islam offers for the economic well-being of man, and how would it like to resolve economic problems?

Written in 1940, Maududi’s book Pardah was immediately controversial and remains so to date. Here Maududi made an argument for the segregation of the sexes that included, but was not limited to, the requirement of veiling by women. Refuting progressive arguments explicitly and drawing upon mostly American scholarship in the fields of medicine and biology, Maududi linked the end of gender segregation to capitalism, the commodification of women’s labour and a wider civilizational decline to argue that gender equality should not mean substitutability.

The verses of the Quran that enjoin pardah are translated as follows:

It is claimed that the fundamental rights [English term in text; Urdu bunyādī hūqūq] declared in the Karachi Congress will be sufficient to guard the interests of Muslims in this national, democratic, areligious state. But is this true?

This is a collection of essays and speeches that was published in English by Maududi’s associate, Khurshid Ahmed. The volume is particularly useful in laying out Maududi’s overall vision of the place of sharia in a modern state. I have included an influential essay based on his 1948 speech that sought to demonstrate the possibility of approaching sharia as laws compatible with modern governance.

In this chapter, we will analyse the objectives of war and the laws regulating it current in modern civilization. Our goal is to observe the status of these laws with the criterion of morality and humanity. A reader who has followed the previous discussion can claim that ‘there is no doubt that Islam introduced great reform in the wars of that time. It guided man to objectives and paths of war with which the people of that time, religion and culture were acquainted. However, today, as a result of centuries of progress, human thought has become mature on the question of war. This progress has caused the emergence of such civilized laws of war that are beyond comparison with the laws and thoughts of a time when human thinking faculties were in relative infancy.’ Therefore, we need to make another comparative analysis in which we contrast Islam and modern civilization and see whose objectives and methods are sounder, more beneficial and firmer.