Syed Abul Ala Maududi Quotes

God has prohibited the unrestricted intermingling of the sexes and has prescribed purdah [a word of Persian origin meaning the religious and social practice of female seclusion]

Finally, no less a figure than Sayyid Abu ’l-‘Alā’ Mawdūdī, one of the major thinkers behind modern Islamist ideology, said that in an Islamic state as envisioned by him, “no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect, the Islamic state bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist states.”

Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of the standard-bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. Islam requires the earth—not just a portion, but the whole planet .... because the entire mankind should benefit from the ideology and welfare programme [of Islam] … Towards this end, Islam wishes to press into service all forces which can bring about a revolution and a composite term for the use of all these forces is 'Jihad'. .... the objective of the Islamic 'Jihād' is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of state rule.

In the jihad in the way of Allah, active combat is not always the role on the battlefield, nor can everyone fight in the front line. Just for one single battle preparations have often to be made for decades on end and the plans deeply laid, and while only some thousands fight in the front line there are behind them millions engaged in various tasks which, though small themselves, contribute directly to the supreme effort.

[Muslims (of the right-thinking kind) constitute a Revolutionary Party whose objective] is to expend all the powers of body and soul, your life and goods in the fi ght against the evil forces of the world, not that having annihilated them you should step into their shoes, but in order that evil and con- tumacy should be wiped out and God’s law should be enforced in the world.

Islam is a revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals.

It is made clear that one need not guard one’s private parts from two kinds of women – one’s wives and slave-girls.

[Unbelievers] “have, however, absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines. For if they are given such an opportunity, corruption and mischief will ensue. In such a situation the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.”