Assalamualaikum,
This is a refutation of Maulana Maududi’s interpretation of Islamic
history. With all due respect, we acknowledge the fact that Maulana Maududi
is widely regarded as a respected scholar. This is some food for thought.
Fareena
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THE PREACHING OF ISLAM: TWO CONFLICTING VIEWS
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When every method of persuasion (over 13 years of preaching) had
failed, the Prophet(saw) took to the sword … that sword removed evil and
mischief, the impurities of the heart and the filth of the soul. The sword
did something more. It removed their blindness they could see the light
of truth and also cured them of their arrogance which prevents people
from accepting the truth … stiff necks and proud heads bowed with humility.
Maulana Abul Ala Maududi
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Muhammad preached Islam with a sword in one hand and the Quran in
the other. Prof. Wilfred Cantwell Smith
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The critics are blind. They cannot see that the only sword Muhammad
wielded was the sword of mercy, compassion, friendship and forgiveness
the sword that conquers enemies and purifies hearts. His sword was sharper
than the sword of steel. Gyanandra Dev Sharma Shastri
These are two conflicting views about the way in which the message of Islam
was conveyed to the world. Critics, especially orientalists, claim that the
wars the Prophet(saw) fought were offensive wars and that people were
converted by force. According to objective historians, however, this view
is not upheld by the facts. The Prophet(saw) did not use force to preach
and all the battles he fought were defensive. The expansion of Islam was
due to the Prophet’ssaw spiritual and moral power.
Nevertheless, the view that Islam was spread by force is, unfortunately,
held by some Muslim leaders. They, like the orientalists, divide the life
of the Prophet(saw) into Meccan and Medinite periods. They maintain that at
Mecca he was weak and powerless, hence that compromising and submissive
attitude of peaceful co-existence. Then, having gained some power at
Medina, he resorted to the sword, according to this school of thought.
Had he not done so there would have been no spiritual revolution in Arabian
and Islam would not have spread. The late Maulana Abul Ala Maududi1 was a
leading proponent of this view. In his book, Al-Jihad fil Islam, the
Maulana says:
The Messenger of Allah(saw) invited the Arabs to accept Islam for 13 years.
He used every possible means of persuasion, gave them incontrovertible
arguments and proofs, showed them miracles and put before them his life as
an example of piety and morality. In short, he used every possible means of
communication, but his people refused to accept Islam.
It grieves my heart to quote the rest of this passage but it needs to be
set out.
When every method of persuasion had failed, the Prophet(saw) took to the
sword. That sword removed evil mischief, the impurities and the filth of
the soul. The sword did something more it removed their blindness so that
they can see the light of truth, and also cured them of their arrogance;
arrogance which prevents people from accepting the truth, stiff necks and
proud heads bowed with humility. As in Arabia and other countries, Islam’s
expansion was so fast that within a century a quarter of the world accepted
it. This conversion took place because the sword of Islam tore away the
veils which had covered men’s hearts.2
The above statement is doubly unfortunate because it was made by a Muslim
scholar who claimed to be mizaj-shanasi-Rasul, the one who found himself in
complete harmony with the heart of the Prophet(saw), so much so that he
acquires a measure of authority in explaining the true meanings of the
words and deeds of the Prophet(saw) a claim which, if accepted, would
give the claimant as much or more right to represent than the Holy
Prophet(saw) enjoyed vis-à-vis his understanding of the Word of God. This
means that the Maulana’s understanding is tragic beyond words it has been
made by a Muslim Leader and repeats a baseless assertion of Islam’s
enemies. It is the biased orientalists who accused the Prophet (saw) of
converting people by force. The Maulana’s phraseology appears to glorify
Islam, but in reality it endorse the accusation of the European critics of
Islam. R. Dozy said: ‘Muhammad’s generals preached Islam with a sword in
one hand and the Quran in the other.’ Smith asserted that it was not the
generals but the Prophet (saw) himself who ‘preached with a sword in one
hand and the Quran in the other’.
George Sale wrote: ‘When the followers of the Prophet increased in number
he claimed that God had allowed him to attack the unbelievers so that
idolatry be destroyed and true religion be established.’
The Revd Dr C. G. Pfander, who was actively engaged in missionary work
among Indian Muslims during the latter part of the nineteenth century,
provoked great unrest by writing controversial tracts to expose as he out
it, ‘The false Prophet of Islam’. In one such tract he said:
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For 13 years Muhammad preached his new religion in conciliatory
terms with great patience.
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Now (in Medina) he became Al-Nabiyyusaif, ‘The sword-wielding
Prophet’, and since then Islam’s strongest argument has been the sword.
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If we study we study the behavior of Muhammad’s followers we notice
that they thought it was not necessary for them to follow religious and
moral code. God demanded from them only one thing: that they should fight
for God with swords, arrows, daggers and sabers to continue to kill.3
And after this introduction the Revd Dr Pfander concluded: ‘You have to
choose between Jesus, Word of God, and Hazrat Muhammad, son of Abdullah;
Between one devoted his life to acts of piety and one who dedicated his
life to the sword.’4
Aloy Spranger, Henry Copey and many other critics of Islam followed the
same line of attack on both Islam and the Prophetsaw. Washington Irving
went a step further; printed on the title page of one of his books is an
imaginary painting of the Prophetsaw with a sword in one hand and the Quran
in the other.5
If one compares all that has been quoted above with the opening quotation
of Maulana Maududi’s Al-Jihad fil Islam, one finds the Prophet’s(saw)
critics in agreement. Both the Maulana and the orientalists maintained that
Islam had a violent nature. Yet, despite this belief, the Maulana believed
in Islam while they rejected it. Apart from the wording, there is no
difference between paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the quotation from Maulana
Maududi above and the quotation from Dr Pfander above. But one shows the
respect of a
Muslim; the other, the sarcasm of a bitter critic.
The snide remarks of the orientalists about the Prophet of Islam(saw) are
as unsurprising as they are hurtful. They are sometimes made out of
ignorance, but mostly out of malice. The hostility towards Islam colors the
objectivity of even the most balanced historian. But most hurtful of all
are the writings of Muslims who claim devoutly to follow the Prophetsaw,
yet present him, either through ignorance or arrogance, as a barbarian who
wielded the sword to convert and conquer.
Maulana Maududi was not convinced of the inherent beauty of Islam or that
it could hearts by its spiritual force alone, either in the past or
present. He said:
Human relations and associations are so integrated that no state can have
complete freedom of action within its own principles, unless those same
principles are in force in a neighboring country. Therefore, Muslim groups
will not be content with the establishment of an Islamic state in one area
alone. Depending on their resources, they should try to expand in all
directions. On one hand, they will spread their ideology and on the other
they will invite people of all nations to accept the creed, for the
salvation lies only in it. If their Islamic state has power and resources
it will fight and destroy non-Islamic governments and establish Islamic
states in their place.6
Maulana Maududi supports Sir William Muir’s twisted views of the
Prophet(saw) of Islam. In his biography of the Prophet(saw), which he wrote
to expose ‘the false Prophet of Islam’7 at the request of Dr Pfender, Sir
William Muir said: ‘The sword of Mohomet, the Coran are the most fatal
enemies of civilization, liberty and truth which the world has yet known.’8
The great Hindu leader, Gandhiji, in his earlier days, must have been
influenced by a distorted picture of Islam such as this when he said:
‘Islam was born in an atmosphere of violence. At that time its determining
force was the sword and even today it is the sword.’ But Gandhiji was an
observer of great insight and subsequently he corrected himself and wrote
in Young India: ‘The more I study the more I discover that the strength of
Islam does not lie in the sword.’
Other Hindus even Arya Samajists, who made an objective study of Islam
followed Gandiji in his ‘discovery’. Pandit Gyanandra Dev Sharma Shastri said:
Biased critics of Islam and especially those who want to provoke
Hindu-Muslim riots in the country say that Hazrat Muhammad after acquiring
power in Medina could not maintain his façade of mercy and kindness. There
he used force and violence and became a murderous prophet to achieve his
life-long aim of power, status and wealth. He fell shorts of his own ideal
of patience, moderation and endurance. But this is the view of those
observers who are prejudicial and partisan, who are narrow-minded and whose
eyes are covered by a veil of ignorance. They see fire instead of light,
ugliness instead of beauty bad evil instead of good. They distort and
present every good quality as a great vice. It reflects their own depravity…
The critics are blind. They cannot see that the only ‘sword’ Muhammad
wielded was the sword of mercy, compassion, friendship and forgiveness
the sword that conquers enemies and purifies their hearts. His sword was
sharper than the sword of steel.9
No comment! One only wishes that Maulana Maududi, a follower of the
Prophet Muhammad(saw), had been as fair to the Prophet(saw) as a follower
of Krishna had been. Non-Muslims who have studied the history of Islam have
had to admit that the Prophet(saw) was not only magnanimous and kind, but
also a paragon of human virtues. Another Hindu editor of the Sat Updaish,
wrote:
Some people say Islam was preached by the sword, but we cannot agree with
this view. What is forced on people is soon rejected. Had Islam been
imposed on people through oppression, there would have been no Islam today.
Why? Because the Prophet of Islam had spiritual power, he loved humanity
and he was guided by the ideal of ultimate good.10
The anti-Muslim stance of the Arya Samaj movement is well known. Its
founder, Swami Dayanand, was highly critical of Islam and its Prophetsaw
and yet the following statement was made by a Hindu at a meeting sponsored
by the Arya Samaj in Lahore. The editor of the Vedic Magazine and a former
professor of Gurukul, Kangri Ram Dev, said:
Sitting in Medina, Muhammad Sahib (peace be to him) held the Arabs
spellbound; he filled them with spiritual strength; strength that makes
devtas [gods] out of men … it is incorrect to say that Islam spread with
the force of the sword. It is a fact that the sword was never wielded to
propagate Islam. If religion can be spread by force then let anyone try it
today.11
The last sentence of the above passage is a challenge no one would ever
accept not even Maulana Maududi. No sword can change a heart and turn
belief into disbelief. There was a long chain of prophets before the
Prophet of Islam(saw) and it is an historical truth that every prophet was
opposed by force. Every time a prophet taught the true religion he was
opposed by the sword and yet true religion spread and the sword failed to
cut it back. If all past prophets and their followers could stand against
the sword’s might, how is it possible that Muhammadsaw could have adopted a
different approach and taken to the sword the instrument of oppression,
not truth? There is no greater injustice than to accuse him of using force
to change people’s beliefs.
Another non-Muslim scholar, Dr D. W. Leitz, in rebutting this false charge,
based his argument on the Quran itself. He said:
All these arguments, advanced to prove that the purpose of jihad was to
spread Islam by force, are contradicted by the Quran. The Quran says that
the purpose of jihad is to protect mosques, churches, synagogues and
cloisters.12
After such a clear defence of the Prophet(saw), let so-called Muslims who
accuse him of wielding the sword answer this Quranic question: ‘Do they not
ponder over the Quran, or is it that their hearts are locked up from
within?’ (47.25) Maulana Maududi, the author of the voluminous commentary
on the Quran, Tafhim-ul-Quran, must have read this verse many times. Did it
not occur to him that interpreting the Quran for political purpose might
lead the commentator astray? The Maulana then says:
This was the policy which was adopted by the Prophet(saw) and his rightly
guided caliphs. Arabia, where the Muslim Party was first formed, was the
first to be put down. After this, the Prophet(saw) sent invitations to all
neighboring countries, but did not wait to see whether these invitations
were accepted. As soon as he acquired power, he started the conflict with
the Roman Empire. Abu Bakr became the leader of the Party after the
Prophetsaw and attacked both the Roman and Persian Empires and Umar finally
won the war.13
This is virtually a declaration of war against all non-Muslim neighboring
states They are safe only as long as the Muslim state is weak. Had the
above passage been written by a Marxist historian from the Communist Party,
one would not have given it a second glance.
But it is the considered opinion of a Muslim leader of Maulana Maududi’s
stature. As such, it is certainly far more insulting to the Prophet(saw)
than all that Muir, Pfender, Smith and other critics of Islam have written.
The above passage was translated from the Maulana’s original Urdu. The
words: ‘Muslim Party’ were used deliberately by Maududi. He was degrading
the Muslim ummah to the status of a political party. He was well aware of
the difference between the two words, for in another book he said: ‘The
other word the Quran has used for “party” is ummah.’14 Having dubbed
Muslims a political party, the Maulana either subconsciously or, more
likely, deliberately, equates the Prophet(saw) with a political party
leader, assigning to him the morals of a politician. How else can one
explains the following passage written by the Maulana?
After this the Prophet(saw) sent invitations to all the neighboring
countries, but he did not wait to see whether these invitations were
accepted or not. As soon as he acquired more power he started the conflict
with the Roman Empire.
It is amazing that a Muslim scholar could even by implication suggest that
the Prophet was guilty of a Hitler-style invasion Naaidhu billah.15 The
Prophet(saw) was the Prince of Peace, not an invader. Maulana Maududi loved
political power and, unfortunately, this colors his interpretation of
Islamic history. But Islam does not need politics to prop it up. In Bengal,
now Bangladesh, Muslims were an infinitesimal minority in the middle of the
eighteen-century when the British took over the administration from the
Mughals. By the time Bengal became independent in 1947 it had a Muslim
majority. Muslim had no political control of the area nor was there any
migration of Muslims from northern India during British rule. This increase
in Bengal’s Muslim population was owing to peaceful conversion by
travelling sufis, the roving Muslim missionaries and the Imams of the
village mosques.
Thomas Arnold’s observation on the subject is significant. He said: ‘Islam
has gained its greatest and most lasting missionary triumphs in times and
places which its political power has been weakest.’16 Maulana Maududi
probably never read the history of Islam in Bengal, Malaysia and Indonesia.
He was so enthralled by the Turko-Afghan and Mughal conquests that he never
had time to note that the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia,
never had a Muslim conqueror that there was no fighting nor any violence
there. That was the case also in Malaysia.
The Prophet(saw) was obviously innocent. He took up the sword only in
self-defence and only when oppression became unbearable. Here is what an
objective Sikh has to say on the subject:
In the beginning the Prophet’s enemies made life difficult for him and his
followers. So the Prophet asked his followers to leave their homes and
migrate to Medina. He preferred migration to fighting his own people, but
oppression went beyond the pale of tolerance he took up his sword in
self-defence. Those who believe religion can be spread by force are fools
who neither know the ways of religion nor the ways of the world. They are
proud of this belief because they are a long, long way away from the Truth.17
Who knows better: a Sikh journalist or the mizaj shanasi nubuwwat?18
Reference:
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Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the amir (head) of Jamaati Islami until his
death, spent his early life in the former princely Indian state of
Hyderabad. The young Maududi left school before completing his secondary
education because of his father’s death. For some time he worked as editor
of the Al-Jamiat of Delhi, the newspaper of the Jammat Ulamai Hind. In 1927
he resigned his editorship and, having worked so long with the Deoband
ulema, he decided to devote himself to the study of theology. He was
self-taught in theology, Arabic and English. Despite his great learning,
immense knowledge and forceful style of Urdu, which has all the ingredients
of scholarship, his critics especially ulema of the Doeband and Lucknow
schools say that his lack of training in theological discipline was his
great weakness. In 1941 the Maulana founded the Jammati Islami and assumed
its leadership. He criticized the Jamiyat Ulamai Hind for its composite
nationalist theory which exposed Muslim India to the grave dangers of
religion-cultural absorption into Hinduism, and at the same time assailed
Qaid-i-Azam’s Muslim nationalism as no less dangerous than Congress
nationalism. To him, it made no difference whether the irreligious Muslims
of India survived in the form of Pakistan or not (Musalman aur Maujudah
Siyasi Kashmakash, Pathankot, 1946, 6-7) -
Al-Jihad fil Islam, 137-8
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Revd Dr C. G. Pfander, Mizanul Haq, 648, 499.
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Revd Dr C. G. Pfander, Tatimma Mizanul Haq.
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Washington Irving, Mohamet and His Successors, 2 vols. (New York: G.P.
Putman’s Sons, 1868). -
Haqiqat-i-Jihad (Lahore: Taj Company Ltd, 1964), 64; emphasis added.
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For details of Dr Pfender’s campaign against Islam, see ‘The Mohommedan
controversy’, -
The Culcutta Review (Calcutta, July December 1845), vol. IV, 420.
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Sir William Muir, The Life Of Mohomet (London: Smith Elder & Co., 1859),
vol. I, 111. Translated from an Urdu speech by Pandit Shastri at a
Gorakhpur (India) meeting, 1928, to commemorate the Prophet’s (saw) birth,
see Dunya ka Hadi Ghairon ki Nazar Main, 57, 61. -
Sat Updaish, Lahore, 7 July 1915; see Barguzida Rasul Ghairon Main
Maqbul, 12, 13. -
Prof. Ram Dev, The Prakash, see Burguzida Rasul Ghairon Main Maqbul, 24.
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Dr D. W. Leitz, Asiatic Quarterly Review, October 1886. Dr Leitz has
referred to verses 40 and 41 of chapter 22 of the Quran, Al-Hajj. The
verses say: ‘Permission to fight is granted to those against war has been
made because they have been wronged. Allah indeed has the power to help
them. They are those who have been driven out of their homes because they
affirmed that our Lord is Allah. If Allah did not repel the aggression of
some by the means of others, then surely cloisters, churches, synagogues
and mosques where His name is honored would be destroyed?’ -
Haqiqat-i-Jihad, op.cit., 65
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Masala’-i-Qaumiyat (Pathankot: Maktaba Jamaati Islam, 1947), 105.
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We seek the protection of Allah from this blasphemous use of language,
which only Maulana Maududi could use. -
W. Thomas Arnold, The Preaching of Islam; a History of the Propagation
of the Muslim Faith, 2nd ed. (London: Constable and Co. Ltd, 1913), 279-80. -
Nawan Hindustan, Delhi, 17 November 1947
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Literally, ‘The knower of the psyche of the Prophet’ or ‘The observer
of the Prophet’s mind’.
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