MAUDUDI'S VISION OF ISLAMIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN ADDRESSING CURRENT UMMATIC CHALLENGES

Syed Abul Ala Al Maududi, writing at the dawn of the twentieth century, clearly analyzes the state of Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent, the factors leading to and perpetuating the crisis among Muslims and offers solutions to remedy the crisis. Even though he focuses on the state of Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent, his analysis stands true for Muslims all over the world. The primary causal factor for the backwardness of Muslims is education. The purpose of education is to fulfill our role as vicegerent of Allah on Earth. He opposed the bifurcation of knowledge into sacred and secular and called for a “Reconstruction of modern disciplines”. At a conceptual level, his advocacy for educational reformation is very similar to the Islamization of Knowledge (IOK) project. IOK could be perceived as a movement initiated by various thinkers around the world, who realized the implication of the dual education system on Muslims and called for a harmonious unification wherein knowledge be perceived, analyzed, and applied from an Islamic framework. IOK as an idea has been appraised and critiqued by many scholars for over a century; however, the movement has slowly been progressing. Maududi seeks to offer a practical application of IOK at all levels of education and does not confine to reformation of curricula alone but focuses on training teachers to improve their competency for carrying out the mission of IOK. He calls for change in the educational environment to conform with the teachings of Islam. His methodology places a strong emphasis on “emancipation of the captive mind” as elucidated by Hussein Alatas. This paper seeks to analyze the educational philosophy of Maududi and his methodology for the reconstruction of modern sciences. IOK, as a concept, explained by Maududi seeks to imbue the ethics of Islam from children’s primary education, aiming to nurture students of moral integrity, a need felt by secularists themselves. This paper is a testament to the progressiveness of his thought that even after a century his ideas remain relevant and partially realized. To strengthen the Muslim Ummah from within is to reconstruct education based on Islamic epistemology and principles.