(1903–1979), South Asian Muslim leader. Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi was the founder of the most important South Asian fundamentalist Islamic movement and a leading ideologue. Born in Hyderabad (south-central India) in 1903, he worked as a journalist before being recognized as an influential intellectual and a political leader. Before Indian independence he was opposed to the Congress Party as well as to the secularist Muslim League. Instead, he advocated the necessity of an Islamic state where shariʿa (Islamic law), interpreted in a conservative way, would be the only source for civil, criminal, and constitutional laws. An autodidact, he contested the authority of the ulama (traditional religious scholars) by interpreting religious sources on his own, and he developed an original understanding of Islam as a complete system and the only ideological alternative to both Western liberalism and Marxism. He engaged in political activism in 1941 by creating the Jamaʿate-Islami and was its leader until 1972. In 1953 he was sentenced to death for sedition; the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and later canceled. From 1956 to 1974 he traveled widely in the Middle East; he also visited Canada and the United States. In April 1979 he traveled to the United States, where he received medical treatment from one of his sons (a doctor) for kidney and heart problems. Although he died in the United States, he is buried in Pakistan.
Further Reading
Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. (1996) Mawdudi and the Making ofIslamic Revivalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mawdudi, Sayyid Abu'l-A'la. (1st ed. 1932; English ed. 1940) Towards Understanding Islam (Risalah-i diniyat). Delhi: Markazi Maktaba Islami.
——. (1965)The Political Theory of Islam. Lahore, Pakistan: Islamic Publications.
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