Ṭawāf: Walking Round the House
Sa’ī: Hurrying Between Ṣafā’ and Marwah
Wuqūf (Stay) at Minā’, ‘Arafāt and Muzdalifah
Ramī Jimār: Stoning the Pillars
The Impact of Hajj
Hajj, a Collective Worship
27. Renewal of Society
Growth in God-consciousness
A Season of Reawakening
Inspiring Spectacle of Unity
Greatest Movement for Peace
Centre of Peace and Equality
Our Lack of Appreciation
Deriving Full Benefit From Hajj
PART VII: JIHAD
28. Meaning of Jihad
The Ultimate Objective
Root of All Evil
The First Step
Origin of Corrupt Rule
God’s Lordship Over Man
Temptation of Power
Rituals, a Training Course
Governments Run by God-conscious People
29. Central Importance of Jihad
Din, Shari’ah and ‘Ibadah
Duality of Din
Every Din Wants Power
Popular Sovereignty — Monarchy — British Rule
Din of Islam
Jihad in Islam
Recognizing True Believers
Change Only Through Struggle
Preface to the Eighth Reprint
Index of Quranic Verses
I
Sayyid Abul A‘la Mawdudi’s Khuṭubāt, of which Let Us Be Muslims is the new and edited English translation, is no ordinary book.
A collection of ordinary, familiar themes and plain truths, expounded before ordinary, illiterate people in plain words from their everyday language, it has, by the mercy of Allah, stirred more hearts and impelled more lives to alter their course to live in commitment to their Creator than any of his more erudite works. Many, I am sure, would share this impression of mine who like me have been led by his inspiring writings to join the cause of Allah. For who can forget those gatherings where the participants often reminisced about things that had brought them to the Islamic movement. As one person after another rose to tell his story and mentioned Sayyid Mawdudi’s writings, I still vividly recollect, one answer overshadowed all others: the Khuṭubāt.
To express my own indebtedness to this book, I can do no better than to confess that I have now been reading it for nearly four decades and every time I have found it as fresh and inspiring as ever. Even today, I find myself speaking and writing, without the least embarrassment, words and ideas from the Khuṭubāt, as if they were my own.
How did this book come into being? As Sayyid Mawdudi tells in his Preface, soon after migrating to Darul Islam, near Pathankot (now in the Punjab, India) – on 16 March, 1938 – he started to gather the nearby villagers for the Friday Prayers. To them, in every congregational address (Khuṭubah), he tried to explain the essential message, the basic teachings, and the spirit of Islam. Those addresses were collected and published as Khuṭubāt.
First published in 1940, since then it has been published in various forms and languages. 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
