Javed Ahmad Ghamidi

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi
Scholar, Exegete, and Educationist
President
Al-Mawrid, Institute of Islamic Sciences

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi was born on April 18, 1951. He belongs to the Farahi-Islahi school of thought, extending the work of his mentor ‘Amin Ahsan Islahi’ who split up with Jamaat-e-Islami way back. It happened so the serious differences emerged between Maulana Maududi and Islahi, two founding members of the Jamaat. The organization was becoming increasingly politicized, and Ghamidi and Islahi split. Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is the founder of ‘Al-Mawrid Institute of Islamic Sciences’ and its sister organization ‘Danish Sara’. He is a member of the ‘Council of Islamic Ideology’ since January 2006. He also taught at Civil Services Academy from 1980 until 1991. He is labeled as a modernist and a liberal scholar who makes it a point to negate the conservatives and extremists by digging out logical arguments from Quran and Hadith.Ghamidi offers a more forceful and profound deconstruction of the violent and bitter version of Islam that appears to be gaining ground in many parts of the Muslim world, including Pakistan. He challenges what he views as retrograde stances -- on jihad, on the penal code of rape and adultery, on the curricula in the religious schools, or madrassas -- but he does so with a purely fundamentalist approach: he rarely ventures outside the text of the Quran or prophetic tradition. He meticulously recovers detail from within the confines of religious text, and then delivers decisive blows to conservatives and militants who claim to be the defenders of Islam. His many followers are fond of comparing his influence in South Asia to that of Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss Muslim Islamic thinker of global repute, in Europe. Early days and up-bringing:Ghamidi was born in a peasant family of Kakazai tribe near Sahiwal. He went to Islamia High School Pakpattan from where he did his matriculation in 1967, while pursuing his religious education in tandem from Maulvi Nur Ahmed who equipped him with sound knowledge of Quran and Arabic & Persian languages. He later graduated from Government College Lahore with a degree in English Literature. He then worked with Amin Islahi and Maulana Maudaudi and later choose to become a true disciple of the former. He gained interest in Islamic Sciences particularly exegesis and Islamic law.Ghamidis father was a follower of Sufism, which Ghamidi later disapproved of and and wrote criticism on Sufism in his various writings.Fall-out from Jamat-e-Islami:Ghamidi worked closely with Maulana Maududi for nine long years after voicing his first difference of opinion with him, which eventually resulted in his expulsion from Jamat-e-Islami in 1977. Later, he developed his own view of religion based on hermeneutics and ijtihad under the influence of his mentor, Amin Ahsan Islahi, a well-known exegete of the Indian sub-continent who is author of Tadabbur-i-Qur’an, a Tafsir. Ghamidi, for his part, disagreed with Maulana Maududi. Ghamidi argued that the basic obligation in Islam is not the establishment of an Islamic world order but servitude to God, and that it is to help and guide humans in their effort to fulfill that obligation for which religion is revealed. Therefore, Islam never imposed the obligation on its individual adherents or on the Islamic state to be constantly in a state of war against the non-Islamic world. In fact, according to Ghamidi, even the formation of an Islamic state is not a basic religious obligation for Muslims.Ghamidi’s School of thought:Ghamidi’s ideology is clearly manifested in his book ‘Mizan’. His inspiration from his mentor, Amin Ahsan Islahi and non-traditionalist approach to the religion has parted him from traditionalist understanding on a number of issues, but he never goes out of the traditional framework. He is frequently labeled a modernist for his insistence on the historical contextualization of Muhammad's revelation in order to grasp its true moral import. He is one of the scholars from South Asia, besides Abul Kalam Azad, Muhammad Iqbal, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, Muhammad Asad, Amin Ahsan Islahi, Khurshid Ahmad, and Israr Ahmed, who have fashioned an internally consistent and thoroughgoing Islamist worldview.View on Jihad/ Holy War:Ghamidi rejects the notion of suicide bombing – come what may, by focusing on one verse (5:32) of the Quran: "He who killed a human being without the latter being guilty of killing another or being guilty of spreading disorder in the land should be looked upon as if he has killed all mankind."Ghamidi believes that there are certain directives of the Qur’an pertaining to war which were specific only to the Prophet Muhammad and certain specified peoples of his times (particularly the progeny of Abraham: the Ishmaelites, the Israelites, and the Nazarites). Thus, the Prophet and his designated followers waged a war against Divinely specified peoples of their time (the polytheists and the Israelites and Nazarites of Arabia and some other Jews, Christians, et al) as a form of Divine punishment and asked the polytheists of Arabia for submission to Islam as a condition for exoneration and the others for jizya and submission to the political authority of the Muslims for exemption from death punishment and for military protection as the dhimmis of the Muslims. Therefore, after the Prophet and his companions, there is no concept in Islam obliging Muslims to wage war for propagation or implementation of Islam. The only valid basis for jihad through arms is to end oppression when all other measures have failed. According to him Jihad can only be waged by an organized Islamic state. No person, party or group can take arms into their hands (for the purpose of waging Jihad) under any circumstances. Another corollary, in his opinion, is that death punishment for apostasy was also specifically for the recipients of the same Divine punishment during the Prophet's times -- for they had persistently denied the truth of the Prophet's mission even after it had been made conclusively evident to them by God through the Prophet.Ghamidi negates the idea of formation of Islamic State as the Muslims’ Mission on earth, he states Servitude to God as the mission:The formation of an Islamic state is not a religious obligation per se upon the Muslims. However, he believes that if and when Muslims form a state of their own, Islam does impose certain religious obligations on its rulers as establishment of the institution of salah (obligatory prayer), zakah (mandatory charity), and 'amr bi'l-ma'ruf wa nahi 'ani'l-munkar (preservation and promotion of society's good conventions and customs and eradication of social vices; this, in Ghamidi's opinion, should be done in modern times through courts, police, etc. in accordance with the law of the land which, as the government itself, must be based on the opinion of the majority.View on Muslim head covering and Rights of women:Ghamidi believes that head covering for women is a cherished part of Muslim social custom and tradition, but it is not a directive of the shariah (Divine law). The Qur'an states norms for male-female interaction in surah An-Nur while in surah Al-Ahzab, there are special directives for wives of Muhammad and directives given to Muslim women to distinguish themselves when they were being harassed in Medina. The Qur'an has created a distinction between men and women only to maintain family relations and relationships.Work on Islamic Penal Laws and Sources of Islam:Ghamidi has done elaborate work on the Penal Laws regarding Hudood Ordinance and rape. He even resigned from the Council of Islamic Ideology when the issue of Hudood Ordinance became complicated but his resignation was rejected.Ghamidi's resignation was prompted by the Pakistani government's formation of a separate committee of ulema to review a Bill involving women's rights; the committee was formed after extensive political pressure was applied by the MMA. Ghamidi argued that this was a breach of the CII's jurisdiction, since the very purpose of the council is to ensure that Pakistan's laws do not conflict with the teachings of Islam. He also said that the amendments in the bill proposed by the Ulema committee were against the injunctions of Islam. This event occurred when the MMA threatened to resign from the provincial and national assemblies if the government amended the Hudood Ordinance, which came into being under Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization. The Hudood Ordinances have been criticised for, among other things, insisting upon an exceptionally difficult and dangerous procedure to prove allegations of rape.Ghamidi believes that all that is Islam is constituted only of Quran and Sunnah and only they are the strong sources of Islam. Ahadith further enunciate what Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) stood for.An orator of towering impression:It is typical of Ghamidi to speak -- at conferences, on television, on the radio -- about the most politically charged issues with calm religious authority. The popular media gravitates to him for his impeccable oratory and the ease with which he makes common sense out of millennium-old religious texts. Of late he has become a bit of a rock star -- adored, hated, popular, and notorious all at once -- thanks to his extraordinary interpretation of Islamic Law.