Towards Understanding Islam is a book written by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi which gained its author a reputation as a religious teacher and major thinker. [1] This book has been translated into a number of languages. [2] Jamaat-e-Islami claims that it has been translated into 13 languages. One English translation of this book is by Prof Khurshid Ahmad.
Under the subtitle Editor's Introduction in November 1979 [3] Prof. Kurshid Ahmad tries to introduce the book: "Originally written in 1932 in Urdu, under the title Risala-e-Diniyat, the book was intended as a textbook for students of the higher classes and for the general public. It served an important need and became a popular Islamic reader. Most of the schools and colleges of the South Asia adopted it as a textbook in theology and made its study a part of their curricula. It has been translated into many of the world's languages, including: English, Arabic, Hindi (titled as इस्लाम धर्म) , Persian, German, French, Italian, [4] Turkish, Portuguese, Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Malayalam, Tamil, Pashto, Balochi, Bengali, Gujarati and Sindhi. It is also translated in Telugu, Kannada, Marathi and Albanian.
Mawdudi argues that Islam is about much more than daily rituals and habits, and that it is to be regarded as a dynamic system for the whole of life. The purpose of the book is to provide both Muslims and non-Muslims with a brief but comprehensive view of Islam. [5] The book also tries to provide a rational basis for Islamic beliefs.
Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (1903-1979), one of the chief architects of the contemporary Islamic resurgence, was a prominent Islamic thinker and writer of his time. He devoted his entire life to expounding the meaning and message of Islam and to organizing a collective movement to establish the Islamic Order.
In this struggle, he had to pass through all kinds of suffering. Between (1948-1967), he was put behind bars on four occasions, spending a total of five years in different prisons in Pakistan. In 1953, he was also sentenced to death by a Martial Law Court for writing a "seditious" pamphlet, this sentence being later commuted to life imprisonment. In 1941, he founded Jamaat-e-Islami, of which he remained Amir until 1972 and which is one of the most prominent Islamic movements today. He authored more than one hundred works on Islam, both scholarly and popular, and his writings have been translated into more than forty languages.
Jamaat-e-Islami, or Jamaat as it is commonly known, is an Islamist political party based in Pakistan and founded by Abul Ala Maududi. It is the Pakistani successor to Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in colonial India in 1941. Its objective is the transformation of Pakistan into an Islamic state, governed by Sharia law, through a gradual legal, and political process. JI strongly opposes capitalism, communism, liberalism, and secularism as well as economic practices such as offering bank interest. JI is a "vanguard party", whose members are intended to be leaders spreading party beliefs and influence. Supporters not thought qualified to be members may become "affiliates", and beneath them are "sympathizers". The party leader is called an ameer. Although it does not have a large popular following, the party is quite influential and considered one of the major Islamic movements in Pakistan, along with Deobandi and Barelvi.
Khurshīd AhmadPhD, DSc, NI, is a Pakistani economist, philosopher, politician, and an Islamic activist who helped to develop Islamic economic jurisprudence as an academic discipline and one of the co-founders of The Islamic Foundation in Leicester, UK.
Israr Ahmad, was a Pakistani Islamic scholar, orator and theologian. He developed a following in South Asia but also among some South Asian Muslims in the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America.
Islamic Way of Life is a book written by prominent Muslim Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi in Lahore, 1948.
Khilafat o Mulukiyat is a book written by Abul Ala Maududi in October 1966 as a refutation of the book, The Caliphate of Mu'awiyah and Yazid by Pakistani scholar Mahmood Ahmad Abbasi.
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is a Pakistani philosopher, educationist, and a scholar of Islam. He is also the founding President of Al-Mawrid Institute of Islamic Sciences and its sister organisation Danish Sara.
The Islamic Foundation is Jamaat-e-Islami's research and publishing house in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1973 by two high-ranking Pakistani activists of Jamaat-e-Islami, Khurshid Ahmad and Khurram Murad. Its objectives are to research into the implementation of Islam in the modern world, to project the image of Islam in Britain and Europe, and to meet the educational needs of Muslims.
Human Rights in Islam is a 1976 book written by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami.
Qadiyani Problem is a 1953 book written by Pakistani scholar Abul A'la Mawdudi. The term "Qadiyani" is a term which refers to members of the Ahmadiyya movement.
Amin Ahsan Islahi, was a Pakistani Muslim scholar best known for his Urdu exegesis of the Quran, Tadabbur-i-Quran "Pondering on the Quran", which he based on Hamiduddin Farahi's, idea of thematic and structural coherence in the Qur'an.
Abul A'la al-Maududi was an Islamic scholar, Islamist ideologue, Muslim philosopher, jurist, historian, journalist, activist, and scholar active in British India and later, following the partition, in Pakistan. Described by Wilfred Cantwell Smith as "the most systematic thinker of modern Islam", his numerous works, which "covered a range of disciplines such as Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, law, philosophy, and history", were written in Urdu, but then translated into English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Burmese, Malayalam and many other languages. He sought to revive Islam, and to propagate what he understood to be "true Islam". He believed that Islam was essential for politics and that it was necessary to institute sharia and preserve Islamic culture similarly as to that during the reign of the Rashidun Caliphs and abandon immorality, from what he viewed as the evils of secularism, nationalism and socialism, which he understood to be the influence of Western imperialism.
Tafhim-ul-Quran is a 6-volume translation and commentary of the Qur'an by the Pakistani Islamist ideologue and activist Syed Abul Ala Maududi. Maududi began writing the book in 1942 and completed it in 1972.
Muḥammad Manz̤oor Nomānī was an Indian Islamic scholar. Prominent among his written works are Maariful Hadith, Islam Kya Hai?, and Khomeini and the Iranian Revolution.
Islamic Publishing House is a leading publisher of Islamic literature in the state of Kerala, India. It was founded in 1945 as the official publication division of Jama’at-e-Islami Hind, Kerala chapter. Its headquarters is in Kozhikode, Kerala.
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, previously known as Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, or Jamaat for short, is the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh. On 1 August 2013, the Bangladesh Supreme Court cancelled the registration of the Jamaat-e-Islami, ruling that the party is unfit to contest national elections.
Maryam Jameelah was an American-Pakistani author of over thirty books on Islamic culture and history and a female voice for conservative Islam, known for her writings about the West. Born Margret Marcus in New York City to a non-observant Jewish family, she explored Judaism and other faiths during her teens before converting to Islam in 1961 and emigrating to Pakistan. She was married to and had five children with Muhammad Yusuf Khan, a leader in the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, and resided in the city of Lahore.
Jamaat-e-Islami 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.
Mansoorah is a neighborhood located within union council 117 (Hanjarwal) on Multan Road, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Abdul Ghafoor Ahmed was a Pakistani politician who represented Jamaat-e-Islami in National Assembly and Senate of Pakistan in 1970 till 1977. He was a signatory and committee member who prepared the draft of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan.
Mawlana Abdur Rahim was a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar and well known politician in South Asia and the first promoter of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh.