Abu al-A`la Mawdudi (1903-1979) was a major Muslim scholar-activist of the Indian subcontinent. His writings, which deal with an extraordinarily wide range of subjects, and the political organization he founded, Jama`at-i Islami (Islamic Party), to give practical expres-sion to his programme of Islamic revivalism, have deeply - in some instances, decisively - influenced the religious landscape of the sub-continent and the larger Muslim world.
This book aims to provide a compact introduction to Mawdudi's contribution to Islamic scholarship and activism, and a reappraisal of that contribution in the light of the best scholarship about him. Mawdudi, his works, and his political party have been the subject of numerous studies. Mustansir Mir brings into relief the central motif of Mawdudi's many-sided work, namely Islam as a system of thought and practice. The idea of Islam as a system predates Mawdudi, but it is Mawdudi's working out of that idea that distinguishes him from his contemporary thinkers and writers. Speaking overall, Mawdudi, more than any other modern Muslim thinker, can be said to have redefined the Islamic problematic for the present age.
