Jamaʿat-E-Islami
The Jamaʿat-e-Islami ("Islamic party") is one of the oldest Islamist movements. It is a leading political force in Pakistan but has a more marginal presence in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. It treats Islam as a complete way of life that can be used as a guiding principle for all life's situations— whether on a personal level or on a national, political level—and as the only alternative to both Western liberalism and Marxism. Jamaʿat-e-Islami's highly structured organization has been a model for Islamist movements elsewhere in the world.
History
Jamaʿat, as the party is often called, was created in 1941 by Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi (1903–1979), in the troubled context of preindependence India. It opposed both British colonial rule and the predominantly Hindu Indian National Congress. Opposed as well to the secular definition of Muslim nationalism put forward by the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948), Mawdudi defended the necessity of a truly Islamic state where shariʿah (Islamic law), interpreted in a very conservative way, would be the unique source of constitutional, penal, and family law and regulate the economic system. Jamaʿat also opposed religious esotericism.
Since 1947 Jamaʿat has been located in Lahore, Pakistan. Its leadership comes from educational and business sectors and contests the monopoly the ulama (religious scholars) hold over Qurʾanic interpretation. It has a very small but very vocal membership (75 members in 1941; probably 15,000 in 1998); the party overall is hierarchical and disciplined. A single call from the emir, or president (Mawdudi from 1947 to 1972, Mian Tufail Muhammad from 1972 to 1987, and Qazi Husain Ahmad from 1987 to the present), mobilizes the whole party. Jamaʿat supervises a wide network of affiliated institutions, including relief organizations, schools, trade unions, publishing houses, and think tanks.
Goals
The aim of Jamaʿat is to capture power. It has put forward candidates for nearly every election; it fought for civil liberties in the mid-1950s but also collaborated with Zia's military regime in 1978. Though electorally weak (never holding more than 4 percent of the seats in Pakistan's Assembly) due to its limited social base, it keeps a strong influence. The capacity of its student wing for street mobilization is feared by Pakistani government.
Jamaʿat Outside of Pakistan
In Bangladesh, Jamaʿat was banned in 1971 for having opposed Bangladesh's drive for independence from Pakistan, but it has gained influence since 1991. In India, the Jamaʿat-e-Islami Hind concentrates on spreading Mawdudi's version of Islam, but in the disputed territory of Kashmir it has an important military force, Hezb-ul Mujahideen. In Great Britain, Jamaʿatinspired organizations (such as the Islamic Foundation) act as a lobbying force and were prominent in the protests against the novelist Salman Rushdie when he was accused of blaspheming Islam by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.
Further Reading
Ahmad, Mumtaz. (1991) "Islamic Fundamentalism in South Asia: the Jamaʿat-e-Islami and the Tablighi Jamaat." In Fundamentalisms Observed, edited by Martin Marty and Scott Appleby. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 457–530.
Blom, Amélie. (1999) "Les partis islamistes à la recherche d'un second soufflé." In Le Pakistan, carrefour de tensions régionales, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot. Brussels, Belgium: Complexe.
Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. (1994) The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution. The Jamaʿat-e-Islami of Pakistan. London: I. B. Tauris.
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