Azamgarh: November 8, 1962
Respected Maulana Abul Lais Sahib,
Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind,
Assalamu Alaykum,
I received your letter dated October 27. I must regretfully say that the approach you used in this letter, as well as the previous one on October 19, is entirely legalistic and overly rational. Such an approach is not appropriate for someone truly trying to resolve an issue. The only result of such a method of reasoning is that a person convinces himself that he has proved one egg to be two in his imagination. But clearly, arguments of this kind cannot alter reality.
I want to clearly restate the main issue before you and ask that you give a clear response on this key matter.
The issue began when I had intellectual disagreements with Jamaat-e-Islami. I clearly documented my thoughts and submitted them to you. According to your words, “Maulana Sadruddin was formally appointed to provide a detailed commentary on my writing, as he was considered the most suitable person for this task by the Jamaat.” When I received this commentary, I found no convincing arguments against my position. As a result, I wrote to you on August 10, stating that, despite reviewing the commentary multiple times, my core perspective remained unchanged.
Following your directive, I sent a summary of my impressions on this matter on August 19. I was even prepared to conduct a detailed analysis of Maulana Sadruddin’s writing, explaining why it was unacceptable to me, allowing him to try once more to satisfy me. However, you people didn’t agree to further dialogue on this matter. You wrote, “Maulana Sadruddin is prepared to respond to your impressions, provided that the tone of your writing is different from before.” But I consider this condition a refusal because my approach simply involves presenting intellectual reasons that prevent me from accepting his views. I cannot abandon this approach and accept his perspective without reason. Therefore, this condition will likely never be met, and he may never respond.
Therefore, no effort was made to answer my questions. Instead, it was said about me, “Maulana Sadruddin has given complete answers to everything, but he insists on his view. Who can make such a person understand? What’s the point of further discussion in this situation?”
I acknowledge that some errors were pointed out in the brief commentary I submitted to you, but those “errors” are so trivial that I am surprised they were even mentioned. For example, you may recall when you visited Rampur on September 6, 1962, and we discussed my issue in the office of the head of the institution. Besides yourself, Maulana Sadruddin, Afzal Hussain Khan, Abdul Hai, Urooj Qadri, and Jalaluddin Ansar Sahib. were also present. I insisted on receiving feedback on my response, yet neither you nor Maulana Sadruddin engaged with it until the end. However, during the discussion, Maulana Sadruddin remarked, “You’ve made such a major referencing error in your response that…” Hearing this, I felt alarmed, thinking I had made a significant error. But despite my inquiries, he did not clarify, nor did anyone feel the need to ask him to explain. A few days later, when I visited his office and asked about that, I discovered that the referencing error was merely that I had omitted the phrase “of this nature” in quoting a passage from his text. Firstly, the absence of these words did not affect the main argument. Moreover, this oversight was more his responsibility than mine, since he had crossed out the phrase with two bold lines and then placed a small mark indicating “correct” (ص ص)—a symbol commonly used in Urdu—beside it in fine pen. I had missed noticing this mark during my reading, and thus, that was left in my quotation.
After hearing such a minor critique, I thought to myself, “If only Maulana Sadruddin hadn’t brought this up, it would have been better for him to keep quiet.”
Next, let’s consider Maulana Jalil Ahsan, who, according to you, was requested “to correspond with me to understand my thoughts and explain the Jamaat’s perspective.” However, he adopted a peculiar approach which, regardless of any other merit it may have, cannot be called “explaining the Jamaat-e-Islami’s perspective.” My issue has been before them for the past nine months, yet to this day they have not written a single word addressing the real issue. Instead, he focused on various unrelated issues, one of which was his “condition” that he would read my “lengthy article,” ask questions, seek clarification, and discuss the evidence presented. I agreed to this condition, but when I received his questionnaire, I found that it contained no questions related to the main text, no requests for clarification of my arguments, and no discussions on my evidence. Instead, it consisted of vague questions with no indication of their relevance to the issue. When a second questionnaire arrived, it was identical in nature. Honestly, if I hadn’t been corresponding with Maulana Jalil Ahsan and had received these questions unexpectedly, I would have returned them, assuming they were an exam paper sent by mistake.
When I pointed out the unsuitability of this correspondence style, his reply was as follows:
“I am committed to my style of communication, and the approach others have taken is unhelpful for you and ineffective for them. You know I practice ‘teaching and learning.’ Why should I abandon my teaching style? If it troubles you in your high level of knowledge and scholarship, I apologize. This is the only method available for examining the matter at hand, which you call ‘teaching and learning.’”
Maulana Jalil Ahsan’s response had taunt and objection but contained no rationale as to why his preferred method of correspondence was suitable for “explaining the Jamaat-e-Islami’s perspective.” When someone claims that Jamaat-e-Islami’s ideology is incorrect and provides specific arguments for this claim, then you should raise questions about that claim and its evidence. Instead, if you begin asking isolated questions without any preamble—such as, “Tell me, what is the antecedent of wali’alam in such-and-such verse?” or “What is the referent of dhalika in such-and-such verse?”—then these questions appear random and unrelated to the main issue. Maulana Jalil Ahsan’s questionnaires were full of such questions. You are welcome to review them whenever you like.
Regarding my complaints about you, they are as follows:
I feel strongly that, in this discussion, you have not demonstrated genuine righteousness and pursuit of truth. Instead, it seems like you see this as just a matter of responding to or dismissing an objection. If the situation were such that you had convincing answers to the questions I raised, and after careful study and consideration, you were completely sure that I was wrong, then such an approach might be appropriate. However, according to your own admission, this is not the case. Whenever I asked for your opinion on these issues, your response was always that “I have not had the time to sufficiently prepare to give an opinion on this, nor do my current commitments allow me to do so.”
In such situations, I believe your stance after reading my response was not appropriate. The commentary I sent you on August 19 regarding Maulana Sadruddin’s writing, I am confident, included points that deserved your careful consideration. You should have consulted Maulana Sadruddin about his response to those points. However, the tone of the letter you wrote to Sadruddin Sahib regarding my work is such that it appears as though nothing had happened at all. Even now, Sadruddin Sahib’s words seem to you to be just as conclusively established as they were before. I am most surprised by your letter dated August 28 (addressed to Maulana Sadruddin), which is the first letter you wrote after reading my response. Yet, it is astonishing that you made no mention of my significant criticisms, such as the misattribution to two commentators on the interpretation of the verse “aqeem-ud-deen.”
A person genuinely seeking truth would immediately ask, “What is going on here?” when faced with such a situation. The verse on which Jamaat-e-Islami’s revolutionary ideology is based is being argued by one individual to have a different interpretation according to scholars. These scholars supposedly agree that the term “deen” in the verse does not imply the entire Shariah but rather the fundamental teachings of deen, and therefore, no revolutionary objective can be derived from this verse. In response, a well-respected scholar of Jamaat conducts extensive research for several months, finds two references, and asserts that the claim is incorrect because there exist interpreters who believe that the command for establishing deen includes all the detailed laws of Shariah—in their entirety.
Now, the claimant returns and points out that these attributions are completely wrong. He provides the full quotations from those scholars, clearly showing that what was said about the Quranic phrase ‘alladhi awhayna ilayk’ (42:13)—that is, which We have revealed to you —was wrongly connected to the phrase aqeem-ud-deen. The interpreters explicitly clarified that no general application was intended for the latter phrase under discussion. I fail to understand, despite such clear criticisms, how your silence and your letter to Maulana Sadruddin, as if, in your view, nothing has changed, is correct. This approach suggests that the main issue here is not a pursuit of truth but simply to counter my perspective. Instead of examining the arguments and facts, it seems you are only concerned with addressing the critique in any way possible.
The approach you have taken has leaned more toward advocating for Jamaat-e-Islami rather than seeking the truth. As I previously mentioned, a clear example of this is Maulana Sadruddin’s writing on the verse qatiloohum hatta la takoon fitnah (2:193)—that is, fight them until there is no more fitna— in his commentary, Tayseer al-Quran, where he expressed the same viewpoint, I am presenting. However, in responding to my writing, he took an opposing stance because doing so was necessary to uphold Jamaat-e-Islami’s position. Although my criticism is directed at Maulana Sadruddin, since his writing was presented to me with your endorsement, you, too, share responsibility for it until you explicitly disassociate yourself from it.
My second grievance is that your attitude has not demonstrated goodwill toward me. Your letter to Maulana Sadruddin, dated August 28, is a clear example of this, which, despite your explanations, remains deeply objectionable to me. Your indirect admission of this is evident in your acknowledgment that “this was a private note that you should not have read.” Your comment in your letter dated October 27 reveals more about your own psychological state, implying that you view this note as something I should not have seen. A psychologist could interpret this comment as nothing other than a reflection of your own underlying feelings on the matter.
From the points I have outlined above, the following conclusions emerge:
1. The intellectual disagreements I’ve developed with Jamaat-e-Islami have not been satisfactorily addressed by your side. While you initially responded to my questions, when those responses failed to convince me and I raised further questions, you refused to provide additional answers, claiming that my way of questioning makes them unanswerable. Maulana Jalil Ahsan is still willing to respond, but what he calls a “response” is merely a pointless line of questioning that has no real connection to the main issue.
2. If intellectual disagreements with the literature could not be resolved, the only alternative for me to remain associated with the Jamaat would have been for you to state unequivocally that “Maulana Maududi’s writings are not the authoritative interpretation of Jamaat-e-Islami’s thought”. I presented this proposal during the discussion in Rampur on September 6, 1962, but this suggestion was not accepted and was outrightly rejected.
3. Instead of genuinely trying to resolve my intellectual disagreements, rumors have spread widely that I am stubborn and attached to my views, and that if I don’t change my stance on my own, explaining things to me is pointless.
This is the reality of the situation. Now tell me, under such circumstances, what other choice do I have but to resign from Jamaat-e-Islami?
Sincerely, Wahiduddin
