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The Deobandi `Ulama' of Jami`at al-`Ulum al-Islamiyya located in the largest city of Pakistan, Karachi, began publishing an Urdu, monthly journal by the name of Bayyinat in 1962 for the expressed purpose of refuting the views and arguments of their opponents, and hence as a vehicle for asserting their religious identity and authority. The case of Bayyinat provides us with an opportunity to study an important and hitherto little considered phenomenon in Islamic modernity, namely, the intervention by the `ulama' to assert traditional claims to religious authority through the modern medium of print journalism in the context of the post-colonial nation state of Pakistan. The present work seeks to examine how the journal was utilized by the `ulama' in constructing their religious authority and to engage in the refutation of the two most prominent twentieth century personalities, Fazlur Rahman and Sayyid Abu'l `Ala Mawdudi.

This study presents a comparative analysis of the interpretative approaches and the religious Weltanschauungs of two Islamic revivalists of Pakistan, especially in relation to jihad and the establishment of Islamic global order. Abu al-A'la Mawdudi (1903-1979) argues that the correct understanding of certain key Qur'anic terms makes it incumbent upon every Muslim to strive for the achievement of the basic objective of Islam, which is to establish an Islamic global order ( izhar-i din) to implement the Divine laws ( iqamat-i din) so that all un-Islamic (and, therefore, oppressive) "systems" of the world be replaced by the "ideal Islamic rule" (khilafat) of "the Islamic State." To strive fully to achieve this end is jihad, which may assume the form of an armed struggle (qital) when the situation so demands and Islamic conditions for it are fulfilled. Mawdudi gives various arguments to assert that this jihad is not a bane but a boon for mankind, and in it lies the only hope for mankind's prosperous existence in this world and the next. Contradicting Mawdudi's worldview, Javed Aḥmad Ghamidi (1951- ) asserts that the basic purpose of Islam as a religion is to purify the human soul to enable a person to worship and serve God as His true subject and servant. The qital done by the Prophet and his companions was essentially and for most part a form of Divine punishment against Divinely specified peoples for denying the truth of the Prophet's message and position after this truth had become evident to them. This form of jihad ended with the Prophet and his companions, and the only valid moral basis for qital now is to end oppression and injustice. Jihad (as qital) cannot be waged to propagate religion or merely to eradicate a non-Islamic "system." This study looks at the implications of these ideas and also delves into the concepts and interpretative approaches on which they are founded.

This thesis constitutes a comparative study on the political thought, more specifically the idea of statehood, of two contemporary scholars of Islam from Pakistan and Indonesia. The two scholars under discussion are Abul A'la Mawdudi and Mohammad Natsir who propose fundamentalist and modernist approaches respectively. In spite of their differences, they hold similar viewpoint on the inseparability of politics and religion. In other words, they reject that religious and state matters are sharply separated. They believe that the state is an important means to guarantee that Islamic law is operative in society. Both Mawdudi and Natsir share views on divine sovereignty, the form of state, the shari'a as the source of state law, the principle of shura, and the title of the head of state. However, they disagree on the form of state, nationalism, the political party system, and the definition of citizenship. / This study concludes by showing that though they differ on many details of an Islamic state, in general principles they share more similarities than differences. In their differences, Mawdudi's views can be described as idealistic, rigid, and uncompromising, whereas Natsir's views are more realistic, flexible, and compromising. However, neither of them present comprehensive or detailed concepts of an Islamic state, which are fully applicable to their respective countries or to other parts of the Muslim world.

The publication of Qur’an commentaries authored by contemporary Muslims provide glimpses into influential trends that have been competing for the attention of contemporary Muslims. This dissertation primarily examines three works of Qur’anic translation and exegesis (Ar. Tafsīr) in the English language. These works are representative of three influential trends or schools of thought in contemporary Islam: an “Islamist” or “Activist” trend represented by Abu’l ‘Ala Mawdudi, a rationalist-modernist trend represented by Muhammad Asad, and a Salafi trend represented by the Mubarakpūrī English abridgement of the medievalist Ibn Kathīr's hadith-based tafsir. These commentators often engage earlier Qur’anic commentaries and make choices about which voices and positions from the “classical legacy” they foreground, highlighting what they believe may resonate with their readers. The first chapter provides an historical overview to some of the major trends in Qur’anic exegesis. The second chapter provides background on the commentators, including the social and political contexts of the commentators as well as their education and important aspects of their careers. The third and fourth chapters focus on two chapters of the Qur’an (Q12 and Q18) as these appear in the three commentaries, highlighting how modern commentators reflect their own concerns and context and their various reform projects in their interpretations of Muslim scripture. I supplement the main three commentators with a sample of contemporary living voices who also comment on these two Qur’anic chapters to highlight how Muslims continue to reinterpret the Qur’anic texts in relation to what they see as most relevant and meaningful. Chapter five looks at how these works have been received and considers how they offer a window into the contestation taking place in contemporary Islam. I conclude with a reflection upon my own teaching of these two chapters in a university setting. While the Islamic scholarly traditions and Qur’anic commentaries are a multilayered, polyvalent tradition, these traditions are often (unfortunately) truncated by many contemporary Muslims. I try to highlight certain areas where the contemporary commentaries are, on the one hand, generally narrower than the rich polyvalent traditions of the premodern exegetical tradition, but on the other hand, move in new directions as Muslims today relate their readings of scripture to contemporary concerns. This analysis of contemporary Qur’anic commentaries and their commentators moves beyond freezing Muslims into the fixed category of the “premodern.” Though the three commentaries were chosen to be representative of three important trends in modern Islam, the dissertation is also careful to show that the boundaries between these approaches are often fluid, providing concrete examples of how contemporary Muslims are reinterpreting Muslim scripture, affirming and selecting from the premodern tradition, critical of certain aspects of that tradition, and also adding their own voices to make the Qur’anic text speak to their modern situations.

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This dissertation explores the concept of revelation in the writings of Ahmad Khan, Azad, and Mawdudi Using as its framework the development of modern Western thought on revelation, it raises questions related to religious epistemology and finds that the Muslims studied offer three interpretations of revelation: (1) part mystico-subjective and part natural intuitive, (2) part traditional and part mystico-subjective, and (3) traditional. The thesis concludes that out of a preoccupation with apologetics, all three authors failed to develop a coherent theory of revelation: Mawdudi did not understand modern problems surrounding revelation and hence did not feel the need for a solution to them; Azad, because of an ambivalent position regarding modernity, contradicted his own views; only Ahmad Khan was able to appreciate the modern threat to revelation and attempted a new interpretation. However, his interpretation was expressed in medieval philosophic molds and found little acceptance among Muslims at large.