The Bangladeshi government has banned the works of Maududi and has ordered mosques and libraries to remove all books written by the Islamic scholar and South Asia’s pre-eminent formulist of Islamic clerical fascism.
From a BBC news report:
The Bangladeshi government has ordered mosques and libraries across the country to remove all books written by a controversial Islamic scholar.
The chief of the government-funded Islamic Foundation told the BBC that the books by Syed Abul Ala Maududi encouraged “militancy and terrorism”.
The chief of the government-funded Islamic Foundation told the BBC that the books by Syed Abul Ala Maududi encouraged “militancy and terrorism”.
Mr Maududi – who died in 1979 – is the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.
His works are essential reading for supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in the region.
The BBC report’s description of Abul Ala Maududi as a “controversial Islamic scholar” is an amusing piece of journalistic understatement. Maududi was unashamedly ”controversial”; the party he created, the Jamaat-e-Islam (JI) was and continues to be a far-right religious supremacist party. He used both the pulpit and the political platform to become the foremost South Asian Islamist ideologue whose ideas were quickly absorbed into the “mainstream” of Islamist discourse spanning the Middle East and Far East Asia. You could say he is Pakistan’s first cross-over Islamist icon. And of course, he was a rabble rouser par excellence.
Maududi urged Muslims to assert themselves over non-Muslims because non-Muslims, he said, have:
“absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines.”
Because if they do:
“the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.”
Bangladesh is the first country to ban Maududi’s texts and there are social, historical and political reasons behind the ban. Maududi constructed the religious framework which Jamaat-e-Islam implemented to justify its role in the war-crimes of Bangladesh in 1971. Clerical fascism continues to underpin the ideology of the JI and its various political factions and student-wings. The Awami League, who have imposed this ban, is diametrically opposed to JI’s politics both ideologically and strategically. JI also has the propensity to form easy mutually beneficial alliances with military juntas whenever the country has plunged into bouts of military dictatorship – which has been more often than not.
One positive effect of the ban is that it has set a precedent and identified Maududi as an iconoclast and his sectarian ideas as a danger to pluralism. Unfortunately, banning also has equally dangerous blowback effects. The BBC report quotes
A senior official from Jamaat-e-Islami, ATM Azharul Islam, described the move as an attack on Islam.
“Mr Maududi’s books are being published in many countries and there have been no complaints against his writings so far,” he said.
Bangladesh has set an important precedent and identified what Maududi stands for, however the decision to ban Maududi’s texts is wrongheaded.
Notwithstanding the fact that banning any literature is an assault on the principle of freedom of speech, there are other effects which would be foolhardy to ignore. Whenever extremist religious literature has been banned, it has the unfortunate effect of fetishising the material. Islamists will seek to exaggerate Maududi’s religious significance, which is why banning Maududi will be argued as an “attack on Islam” itself.
The Bangladesh government could do worse than to look to Israel, where Hitler’s Mein Kampf is published as well as translated into English and Hebrew.
The Spittoon contributor Raziq has written about of the legacy of Maududi:
In the UK today there are many organisations which have links to JI or actively support and propagate Mawdudi’s ideas. They include the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, East London Mosque, UK Islamic Mission, Islamic Forum Europe and leading figures in the Muslim Council of Britain. It is a shame that today in Britain we have organisations promoting Mawdudi’s hate-filled works and, if we are serious about defeating extremism in the UK, they must be exposed and challenged.
Analysis and argument of Islamist ideology should be the way to oppose clerical fascism, not by banning it.
12 Comments
I don’t think this part is correct unless I missed it in the news story. The Bangladeshi government has merely taken away the official patronage which is only fair as there should be level playing field for all views.
Islamists love power. They have more (grudging) respect for a country which bans Maududi or any other Islamist than they do for individuals who choose to intellectualise against their position.
They have even less regard for liberal arguments upholding freedom of speech because. Why should they? They don’t give a fuck about liberal principles when they may ban anything they choose to label ‘un-Islamic’.
This is only political revenge as they are not happy the way common and literate people are attracted with the ideology of jammate islami.It is a dream of of Hasina Wajid to curb the jammate islami but her dream can not be fullfilled as his fathers because there are miilions of people across the world especially Asia who are consciouslyy attched to the maududui ideology
Your right DR Sami, unfortunately there are a lot of fascists around.
This is only political revenge as they are not happy the way common and literate people are attracted with the ideology of jammate islami.
How come this is not reflected in general elections?
This is so funny if it weren’t true. You forgot to mention a few things because it doesn’t fit into the story you are pushing:
1) The Awami League is a far left entity who is just as bad as the Jamaat-Islami. You forgot to mention that the Awami League has a tendency to initiate one party rule as they did in the last 18 months. This has nothing to do with ideology, and everything to do with the assault on the country’s democracy.
You forgot to mention also that only recently, the ruling party shut down the opposition Amar Desh newspaper (not jamaat)
2) no doubt you are as pleased as punch that the leaders of the Jamaat were arrested. Do you want to tell is on what grounds?
They were arrested on an antiquated blasphemy charge which accused the leaders of the Jamaat of hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims.
The charges were made by a so aloes Sufi who took exception at the claim made by a Jamaat leader that the trials and tribulations faced by his party was similar to those faced by the Prophet Muhammed.
So much for the anti-clerical agenda of the Awami League
3) talking about anti-clerical stances: your readers might also want to know that this so called secular Awami League was in bed with the Jamaat in the mid 1990s, but more shockingly, went into alliances with more hardcore Islamists (in an anti-Jamaat alliance) the IOJ, just before they got into power.
So you Spittoon Wallahs could try all you like to pull the wool over peoples eyes and say it is a fight against religious supremacists and secularists.
A plague on all your houses.
“So you Spittoon Wallahs could try all you like to pull the wool over peoples eyes and say it is a fight against religious supremacists and secularists.”
It *is* a fight against religious supremacists and clerical fascism, but it won’t be won by banning their texts. And yes, the Awami League are being hypocritical by banning Maududi’s. That’s the basic message, hope that’s clear.
The Awami League is as facist as the JI.
http://criticalppp.com/archives/19218
This non-Bangla reader would be interested to know how the Bangla press in the UK is responding to the ban, if there’s anyone reading here who could tell me.
It might surprise people in Bangladesh or Pakistan to know just how mainstream Maududi is here in East London. I teach Bangladeshi women and at the end of the year a few times I’ve been given a gift set of a book of Maududi (Islamic Foundation editions) plus some pamphlets, the same set a few times so I think it must be recommended at the ELM.
The 3rd or 4th time I I got one actually read the book (I think it was ‘Towards Understanding the Qur’an) and was really dismayed that my lovely students, with whom I like to feel I have a real connection, would feel ok about giving me something that to me was so offensive.
I worry that actions such as the ban in Bangladesh are helping the heirs of the JI re-brand themselves as victims rather than perpetrators of human rights abuses.
@spittoon zindabad
Awami League might have been “far left” but that no longer holds true, as Sajeeb Wajed pointed out in his blog that he isn’t a “socialist” (let alone “far left” or communist). The current Awami League has but a leftist veneer.
“removal” of books and an outright ban are two different things. Which is it that Awami League has done?
Any legislature banning anything ought to be deemed detrimental to the vitality of Bangladesh.
As long as man interprets God power struggles will continue. It is in knowing that we are as God , in the world not of the world that peace will come.