by RAZA NAEEM
Are his critics wrong in seeing Abu’l Ala Maududi as a defender of capitalism? Raza Naeem offers a translation of Safdar Mir’s polemic which quotes Maududi extensively
Translator’s Introduction: September 25 today marks the 119th birthday of one of the leading Islamist scholars and ideologues of the 20th century, Maulana Maududi. He has been a lot in the news lately, both in India and Pakistan. In India, his books were recently removed from the curriculum of Aligarh Muslim University in response to claims that they promoted jihadism. Here in Pakistan, a defamation notice was brought against one of Pakistan’s premier progressive public intellectuals and musicians, LUMS academic Dr. Taimur Rahman, by the Jamaat-e-Islami, claiming that his widely popular vlogs on Maududi and Jinnah defamed and misinterpreted both the leaders. Both developments received scant traction in the print or national media here in Pakistan, barring a few social media flashes. A cult has now developed around Maududi where any attempt to factually criticise him or question his role in the Pakistan Movement is met with almost fascistic tactics, including distorting Maududi’s questionable role in the formation of Pakistan, among other things.
I have been translating noted progressive scholar and polymath Safdar Mir’s incendiary essays on Maududi and ‘Maududiyat’ – first published in the weekly Nusrat in the 1960s and 1970s – since the last few months, as a small tribute to the former, since 2022 marks Safdar Mir’s birth centenary and 2023 will mark 25 years since his death.
I present below an original translation from the Urdu of Safdar Mir’s essay on “Maududism and Capitalism,” which convincingly unmasks ideas that have been wrongly propagated for decades about Maududi’s role in a movement for Islamic equality. This essay sets the historical record about Maududi straight, and punctures his cult in a highly factual albeit polemical manner. This is done with sources and cross-references from Maududi’s own works and words – as only Safdar Mir could!
(Raza Naeem)
With the intention of deceiving some people, the fresh tactic of Maududism is to keep declaring one’s opposition to socialism along with capitalism and feudalism as well, so that this charge cannot be leveled that these people are in search of support of the capitalist and feudal economy behind the curtain of an ‘Islamic system.’ The Maududi party has very much said in its recent statements about the economy that limits be put on land ownership of the feudal system. But along with that, they lay down a condition that this limitation is temporary; since in Islam any permanent restriction cannot be put on ownership. The ‘new’ economic constitution of the Maududi party does not in any way refute their old stance, as Maududi himself has said too. His old stance regarding landownership is that:
“Islam like all other ownerships accepts the personal ownership of Man over land. No limit is fixed for it. From one square yard of land to thousands of acres how much the land may be, has come within the possession of a person through some legal means, then anyhow it is his lawful possession.” (Islam and Economic Principles pp. 127)
In connection with legal and illegal and unlawful, the decree of the new constitution is:
All those new and old estates be totally finished which might have been created in any period of government from the unlawful use of powers.
There is great intensity in the word ‘all.’ But reaching till the end of the line, it seems that firstly you will have to prove that the personal or hereditary property has been obtained by so-and-so landlord, or his forefathers, by “the wrong use of powers.” This style of giving with one hand and taking back with the other is a special strategy of the Maududi party.
In his old economic constitution, Maududi writes in this manner about hereditary assets. This will clarify that how any landlord can preserve his hereditary wealth through “legal means.”
“Like artificial methods, Islam does not prefer revolutionary methods too. In the period of ignorance, the Arab people abundantly used such means for earning livelihood, which Islam deemed unlawful and strictly loathsome afterwards. But the possessions which had been continuing from before [Islam], about them Islam did not create a fuss such that whichever people had earned wealth by dishonesty, now their assets should be confiscated. Until even the deeds of usurers and those making a living by prostitution and banditry were not objected to. Whoever had anything in his possession, the Islamic civil law accepted his right of ownership over it. (Economic Theories, pp. 124)”
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