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.
Sayyid Mawdudi’s chief concern is that real Iman which will find acceptance in the sight of Allah, which will bring rewards of dignity and success in this world as well as in the Hereafter. See how with a simple example he is able to demonstrate that such Iman cannot be attained by mere verbal profession, it must be lived by: ‘Suppose you are shivering in cold weather and you start shouting “cotton quilt, cotton quilt!” The effect of cold will not be any less even if you repeat these words all night a million times on beads or a rosary. But if you prepare a quilt stuffed with cotton and cover your body with it, the cold will stop.’1
Nor can it be a birthright, that he establishes with a plain rhetoric question: ‘Is a Muslim born a Muslim just as a Hindu Brahman’s son is born a Brahman, or an Englishman’s son is born an Englishman, or a white man’s son is born a white man …’2 Obviously, even an illiterate man would say, No.
Again, look how through an argument which derives its force from the everyday experience of his addressees Sayyid Mawdudi convincingly shows the inextricable link between a life of faith and righteousness in this world and, as its consequence, a life of eternal bliss in the next. As they were farmers, what could serve better as an example than a crop. ‘If you sow wheat, only wheat will grow. If thorns are sown, only thorns will grow. If nothing is sown, nothing will grow.’3 Therefore, ‘if you follow his [the Prophet’s] way, you will reap a fine harvest in the Hereafter, but if you act against his way you will grow thorns in this world and reap only thorns in the Hereafter.’4
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 rather than a monologue. Thus we become equal partners in his explorations instead of remaining passive receivers of his findings.
For example: Iman implies the possibility of disbelief. The idea that a Muslim is different from an unbeliever is deeply ingrained in our minds. On the basis of this firmly-held notion Sayyid Mawdudi drives home the true nature of Iman. ‘Does it mean that if an unbeliever has two eyes, a Muslim will have four? Or that if an unbeliever has one head, a Muslim will have two? You will say: “No, it does not mean that”.’5 We all think that Muslims will go to Heaven and unbelievers to Hell. But unbelievers, he appeals forcefully to our sense of fairness, which is inherent in every decent human being, ‘are human beings like yourselves. They possess hands, feet, eyes and ears. They breathe the same air as you, drink the same water and inhabit the same land. The God who created you also created them. So why should they be ranked lower and you higher? Why should you go to Heaven and why should they be cast into Hell?’.6
Obviously, an unbeliever is one because he ‘does not understand God’s relationship to him and his relationship to God’, nor, therefore, does he live by it. But, Sayyid Mawdudi asks us to think, ‘If a Muslim, too, grows up ignorant of God’s will, what ground can there be to continue calling him a Muslim rather than an unbelievers?’.7 Now he leaves it to us to answer the unpleasant but crucial and unavoidable question which must follow as its conclusion: ‘Now, in all fairness, tell me: if you call yourselves Muslims but in fact are as ignorant and disobedient as a unbeliever, can you in reality be superior to the latter merely on the strength of bearing different names, wearing different clothes and eating different food? Can you on this basis be entitled to the blessings of God in this world and in the Hereafter?’8
But, fourthly, Sayyid Mawdudi’s argument is never the dry bones of rational logic; it is always alive, a piece of flesh and blood, throbbing with emotion and feeling. The power of his discourse is greatly heightened because he combines the plain and simple logic of everyday life with the emotional argument; we find both deeply intertwined at every step of his writing. He suffuses his rationality with passion, which is an equally important constituent of our being. It is not the passion of frenzy, it is the passion which springs from sincerity and truth.
Put simply: his logic has the warmth of emotion, his emotion the force of logic. Cool arguments joined with burning appeals, with ironic contrasts, with charming eloquence, soak into the very depth of our existence. Together they hammer the
