Let Us Be Muslims. Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi

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Let Us Be Muslims - Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi


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A popular series has been that of six separate booklets – Haqiqat-i-Iman, Haqiqat-i-Islam, Haqiqat-i-Sawm-o-Salat, Haqiqat-i-Zakat, Haqiqat-i-Hajj, Haqiqat-i-Jihad. Translations in Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujrati, Telgu, Sindi, Pushto and many other subcontinental languages have also been made and published since the early 1950s. The English translation came out thirty-five years later under the title The Fundamentals of Islam (Islamic Publications, Lahore, 1975). In all these different forms and languages, it has gone through innumerable reprints and is being constantly reprinted from many places. Many organizations, even individual admirers, have published its parts for mass distribution. Yet its need remains as fresh and its demand as high as ever.

      Sayyid Mawdudi’s impact on the contemporary Muslim world is not to be measured by the sale of his books, great as they have been. It is doubtful if any other Muslim writer of our day has so many readers, or is so avidly read, but what is important is that his sincere, convincing and passionate voice has left indelible imprints on the minds and lives of his readers. The real measure of his impact, therefore, is the emergence of whole new generations of men and women who have been inspired by him to lead lives of meaningful faith, Iman, in Allah, His Messenger, and His Book, and of dedicated struggle, Jihad, in His cause. No doubt his example in launching and leading a major Islamic movement has played a crucial role in this process, but it is his writings which have made a greater impression, deep and lasting, far and wide.

      Of all those writings, Sayyid Mawdudi’s words in Khuṭubāt, though spoken in the narrow confines of a mosque in a far-flung part of the world, have exercised an influence very far and beyond the time and place in which they were first spoken. They have found a response in the hearts and minds of their readers in true proportion to the sincerity and depth of his message and purpose. They have led many to recognize their inner inconsistencies and make their faith and commitment sincere.

      Here, in Let Us Be Muslims, then, are the words which have touched many hearts and evoked many responses. What fills them with life and power? What makes this book extraordinary?

      For, on the face of it, what Sayyid Mawdudi has said in these addresses is very ordinary and commonplace; indeed so ordinary that many readers might, after one quick look, want to put the book away, without reading any further. Is this not the same stuff, they would say, which we hear, day in day out, from our pulpits? Obey Allah and His Messenger, pray and fast, and everything is going to be alright.

      To such readers I would say: let us together explore, at some length, what Let Us Be Muslims means to say.

      Read the book, and you will find that even ordinary things, once placed in Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse, acquire quite an extraordinary quality, or, at least, in our time, that quality has become extraordinary. This is because he makes those words breathe the same sense and purpose, as against their merely lexical or cultural meanings, which they are given in the Qur’ān. Thus moulded afresh by the Quranic message and burnt in the crucible of his heart, the very things which look so lifeless and irrelevant to life, such as Iman and Islam and the five pillars, acquire a life and revolutionary ardour that they must have had when they were originally proclaimed and instituted. Then, the placid world of our beliefs and practices which we had always taken for granted begins to tumble down. Then, we begin to find the will and courage to ‘be Muslims’.

      Equally extraordinary is his style, the way he says these things.

      Sayyid Mawdudi was not the traditional preacher. His voice did not roar in the air, nor did his body shake on the pulpit. He did not employ racy anecdotes, nor did he chant poetry. Yet his voice, in this book, has the quality which makes it rise from the lifeless, printed pages and penetrate our hearts.

      Let us examine more closely, then, both his direct but powerful style and simple but profound message that make this book one of his best.

      II

      What gives Sayyid Mawdudi’s voice the quality that makes it penetrating and irresistible? How does it acquire the power to quicken hearts and galvanize lives?

      Obviously the primary force is the nature of his message, its truth and simplicity, and his sincerity and passionate conviction of its relevance to real life. But, no less important is the manner in which he communicates his message. The secret of his persuasive power therefore lies simply in that he has something important and urgent to say and he says it sincerely, clearly and passionately.

      Firstly, he speaks to people in their ‘language’, a language that makes his message lucid and luminous. His language and logic, his idiom and metaphors, all are plain and simple, rooted in the everyday life of his audience. They are not derived from speculative philosophy, intricate logic, or mysterious theology. For, sitting before him were ordinary folk and almost illiterate farmers and servicemen. They knew neither philosophy nor theology, neither history nor politics, neither logic nor rhetoric, nor even the chaste and scholarly Urdu he, until then, always used to write and speak. He therefore uses words which they used in their common life and could understand well, employs a logic which they could easily comprehend, and coins metaphors which could make them recognize reality through their everyday experience.

      Secondly, clear and direct reasoning imparts to Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse a measure of economy and grace which is quite unusual. In very few words he conveys many important themes, all beautifully reasoned. Every word, every argument, every example does its duty; they make his readers use their reason and commit themselves wholeheartedly to the task of ‘being Muslims’.

      This appeal to reason, thirdly, is one of the most outstanding characteristics of Sayyid Mawdudi’s discourse. However ordinary and illiterate his addressees may be, for him they are responsible, intelligent, and reasonable people. They are supposed to think for themselves, and they are capable of doing so. That is how God has made them. That is why Sayyid Mawdudi does not treat us as objects to be manipulated by cheap rhetoric and non-rational appeals. Instead, he persistently appeals to our reason with cogent reasoned arguments.

      For this purpose, he again and again confronts us with questions rather than dogmatic statements. These questions are artful premises from which we can easily deduce the necessary conclusions, or they reinforce his argument, or they serve as conclusions which, though irrefutable, we are still free to accept. The question-answer style, constantly employed thoughout the book, turns his discourse into a dialogue


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