Jamaat-e-Islami

Jamaat-e-Islami (Urdu: جماعتِ اسلامی, lit. 'Society of Islam') is an Islamist movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamist author, theorist, and socio-political philosopher, Syed Abul Ala Maududi. It developed under the umbrella of Darul Uloom Deoband.

Along with the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, Jamaat-e-Islami was one of the original and most influential Islamist organisations, and the first of its kind to develop an ideology based on the modern revolutionary conception of Islam. This movement still has a significant legacy.

The group split into separate independent organisations in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh following the Partition of India in 1947. Other groups related to or inspired by Jamaat-e-Islami developed in Kashmir, Britain, and Afghanistan (see below). The Jamaat-e-Islami parties maintain ties internationally with other Muslim groups.

Islam is the ideology of the Jamaat-e-Islami. Its structure is based on its belief on the three-fold concept of the Oneness and sovereignty of God (Monotheism), the Concept of Prophethood and the Concept of Life after Death. From these fundamentals of belief follow the concepts of unity of all mankind, the purposefulness of man's life, and the universality of the way of life taught by the Muhammed.

It was the first organised Islamic reformist movement in the Indian subcontinent formed on 26 August 1941 in Lahore under the leadership of Syed Abul Ala Maududi, the Jamaat Addressed all Indians regardless of caste and creed. It appeals to all sections of humanity to eschew the path of violence and mutual hatred, terrorism and oppression, and to settle down to the task of building a Righteous Society on stable and abiding foundations. From its very inception it advocated the cause of the Righteous Way, the way of peace and abiding well-being. It recalls to the Indian mind the message and teachings of all apostles, prophets and divine messengers.

The Jamaat believes that Islam and Muslims have a special commitment to building a peaceful and prosperous world, a world where there is no material exploitation, no division of human life into separate material and spiritual domains, and where divine values hold good in all walks of life. A world where religion is no tool for hegemonisation, but is a way of life that is holistic and profoundly positive.

Maududi was the creator and leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, actively working to prevent it. Though he opposed the creation of Pakistan fearing the liberalism of its founders and the British-trained administrators, when it happened, he viewed it as a gradual step to the Islamization of its laws and constitution even though he had earlier condemned the Muslim League for the same approach. After the partition of India, the organisation became the spearhead of the movement to transform Pakistan from a Muslim homeland into an Islamic state. Madudi, like the traditionalist ulama, believed in the six canonical hadiths and the Quran, and also accepted much of the four schools of fiqh. His efforts focused on transforming to a "theo-democracy" based on the Sharia which would enforce things like abolition of interest-bearing banks, sexual separation, veiling of women, hadd penalties for theft, adultery, and other crimes. The promotion of Islamic state by Maududi and Jamaat-e Islami had broad popular support.

Maududi believed politics was "an integral, inseparable part of the Islamic faith". Islamic ideology and non-Islamic ideologies (such as capitalism and socialism, liberalism or secularism) were mutually exclusive. The creation of an Islamic state would be not only be an act of piety but would be a cure for all of the many (seemingly non-religious) social and economic problems that Muslims faced. Those working for an Islamic state would not stop at India or Pakistan but would effect a sweeping revolution among mankind, and control all aspects of the world's life.