The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism (26 page)

A Note on Methodology

Though I have called this book “a tale,”
The Convert
is fundamentally a work of nonfiction. However, unless her words are accompanied by quotation marks and a specific citation, the actual and imaginary letters of Maryam Jameelah do not appear here as she wrote them. As I make clear at the close of the book, I have rewritten and greatly condensed these letters. I have also moved an anecdote or thought from one letter to another, or taken an anecdote or thought from an essay and put it into a letter.

Throughout these reconstituted letters, I have tried to retain Maryam’s distinctive voice, one that often came more easily to me than my own. I do not ascribe to her feelings or thoughts that she did not have. I do not make anything up. Some readers might find this simply unorthodox, others may well feel misled. In my defense I can only say that faced with the particular puzzle the letters presented and the moment in history when I found them, I tried to use them, as Maryam Jameelah herself often used them, as a way of making narrative sense of her life and my response to it. The Mawlana Abul Ala Mawdudi letter that opens the book exists both in Urdu and in a rough English translation that I have polished and shortened slightly. This letter and Herbert Marcus’s reply (which is unchanged) can, like the rest of the letters I have drawn on here, be found in the Maryam Jameelah collection on deposit at the Manuscripts and Archives Division at the New York Public Library. Maryam’s letters to me I’ve shortened or combined but basically left untouched.

Transliteration is notoriously tricky and I have tried my best to be consistent. As is clear in the endnotes that cite his translated works Mawdudi’s name has been rendered in the Roman alphabet in different ways over the years. For the first citation I’ve used the name as it is spelled on the book’s cover; for subsequent citations of that same book, I’ve used the more up to date Mawdudi. I’ve followed the
New York Times
in rendering the names of public figures (Ayub Khan, General Zia, Mian Tufail Muhammad) and common Arabic words (madrasa, hajj), but rather than impose consistent spelling of the Arab honorific “Sayyid” on a speaker of Urdu or Persian, I’ve used “Syed” and “Seyyed,” respectively.

Unless otherwise noted, quotations from the Qur’an are from Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s
The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an,
revised and edited into modern standard English by Arafat K. El-Ashi and republished by Amana Publications in 1996. The book’s opening epigraph, the part II epigraph, and the account of the Prophet’s advice to his questioners in chapter 9 are from A. N. Matthews’s 1809 translation of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah Kahtib al-Tibrizi’s
Mishkat al-Masabih
(Calcutta: printed by T. Hubbard). Two excerpts from poems by Mahmud Shabistari, the thirteenth-century Sufi poet, provide the epigraph for
chapters 6
and
9
; Mas’ud-e-Bakk, from the Chisti tradition (the same Sufi tradition that Mawdudi’s family was from) provides the epigraph to the part III opener. The quotations from Abul Ala Mawdudi’s letters to Maryam are drawn on those I found in the archive, rather than from Maryam’s published version of those same letters.

Finally, Maryam did not ask to read the manuscript before publication. She trusted, as the reader will have to trust, that I would do my best to remain true to the facts of her life and to my own (perpetually faltering) efforts to imagine and understand.

Notes

PART I: THE MARBLE LIBRARY

Chapter 1:
al-Hijrah
—The Escape

13–14   
“Maryam Jameelah’s significance… across the Muslim world.”
John L. Esposito, ed.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 60.

14   
“Vali Nasr, Mawdudi’s biographer… was revolutionary.”
Personal communication with Vali Nasr and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, October 2007.

19   
“Islam’s borders are bloody… superiority of their culture.”
Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,”
Foreign Affairs,
Summer 1993, 31, 40.

19   
“any compromise with… defeat of the latter.”
Maryam Jameelah,
Islam Face to Face with the Current Crisis
(Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan & Sons, 1979), 44.

19   
“After Copernicus, the western astronomer… accident or a mistake.”
Maryam Jameelah,
Islam versus the West
(Lahore: Sh.   Mohammad Ashraf, 1962), 30.

25   
“The destruction of the natural environment… life on earth.”
Maryam Jameelah,
The Resurgence of Islam and Our Liberation from the Colonial Yoke
(Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan & Sons, 1980), 28.

25   
For so-called “primitive” peoples, “the impact… often their extinction.”
Maryam Jameelah,
Westernization and Human Welfare
(Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1976), 81.

25   
American oil companies… a proud desert culture
. Jameelah,
The Resurgence of Islam,
7.

25   
“our political sovereignty is more nominal than real   .   .   . determined to keep it that way.”
Maryam Jameelah,
Islam and Modern Man
(Delhi: Crescent Publishing Co., n.d.), 9.

25   
“Orientalism is not a dispassionate, objective… culture as obsolete.”
Maryam Jameelah,
Islam and Orientalism
(Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1971), 105. See also Maryam Jameelah,
Western Imperialism Menaces Muslims
(Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1978), 30–34.

26   
Quoting Malcolm X… traditions and faith.
Jameelah,
Westernization and Human Welfare,
24–25.

Chapter 2: The Mawlana

35   
When Abul Ala Mawdudi’s grandfather… English education.
Masudul Hasan,
Sayyid Abul A’ala Mawdudi
(Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1984), 3–4, 7.

36   
Only when the family… represent the innocent.
Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr,
Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revival
(New York: Oxford, 1996), 10–11.

36   
The rest of his life… world as it was.
Syed As’ad Gilani,
‘Maududi’: Thought and Movement,
trans. Hasan Muizuddin Qazi (Lahore: Farooq Hasan Gilani, 1978), 43.

37   
“a revolutionary ideology and program… tenets and ideals.”
Text of Abul Ala Mawdudi, “Jihad in Islam,” an address delivered on Iqbal Day, April 13, 1939, at the Town Hall in Lahore (Salimiah, Kuwait: IIFSO; Lagos: Ibrash Waqf Foundation, 1980?), 4.

38   
A caliph’s life… unsparing in the hereafter.
Mawdudi, “Jihad in Islam,” 27.

38–39   
In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan… enforcement was erratic.
Abul A’la Maududi,
The Islamic Law and Its Introduction in Pakistan,
ed. and trans. Khurshid Ahmad (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1960), 38–39 fn.

39   
Among the many challenges… contemporary constitutional frameworks.
Ibid., 199–200.

39   
All these questions… fight for independence?
Ibid., 37–40.

39   
Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim… on this basis?
Ali Rahnema, ed.,
Pioneers of Islamic Revival
(London: Zed Books, 1994), 91.

40   
Once the fundamental principles… in the past.
Mawdudi,
Islamic Law and Its Introduction in Pakistan,
31.

40   
Naturally, religious minorities… would be just.
Mawdudi, “Jihad in Islam,” 24–25, and Abul A’la Mawdudi,
Islamic Law and Constitution,
ed. Khurshid Ahmad (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1969), 141.

40–41   
The Sharia dictates… chaste and honest.
Mawdudi,
Islamic Law and Constitution,
50–51.

41–42   
“unusually deep insight… and all the major problems of life.”
Abul A’la Maududi,
A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam,
trans. al-Ash’ari (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1963), 41.

42   
The Jamaat declared itself victorious, but Mawdudi was noticeably restrained.
For a detailed discussion of Mawdudi’s role in the struggle over the constitution of Pakistan, see Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr,
The
Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama’at-I Islami of Pakistan
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 116–46, 193–94. Nasr’s biographical study,
Mawdudi and the Making of the Islamic Revolution,
was also critical to my thinking about Mawdudi, the world he came from, and the evolution of his political philosophy.

42   
Though its treasury… the democratic process.
Charles J. Adams, “The Ideology of Mawlana Mawdudi” in
South Asian Politics and Religion,
ed. Donald E. Smith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), 376–78. See also Gilani,
‘Maududi’: Thought and Movement,
79.

43
   “If the expectation… remote and uncertain?”
Mawdudi,
A Short History of the Revivalist Movement,
43.

43   
It was actually formed… along religious lines.
Adams, “Ideology of Mawlana Mawdudi,” 375.

44   
The profession of faith… military and police.
Mawlana
Mawdudi,
Haqiqat-i-Jihad,
16–17, as quoted in Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad,
Murder in the Name of Allah
(Cambridge: Lutterworth, 1989), 44.

45   
“All these so-called… to this fact.”
Margaret Marcus to Abul Ala Mawdudi, December 5, 1960, (New York Public Library). See also
Correspondence between Maulana Maudoodi and Maryam Jameelah
(Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1969); I have relied on the “original” letters on deposit in the Jameelah archive in dating and quoting from this correspondence.

45   
“Does not an evil remain… sympathy than society?”
Jameelah,
Islam versus the West,
124.

45
   “Would this [sovereignty]… very
raison d’etre
?”
Ibid., 52.

46   
By the time Mawdudi described… another way.
Abul Ala Mawdudi to Margaret Marcus, December 16, 1961, NYPL.

46   
It was no exaggeration… would be heard.
Ibid.

46   
He also exchanged letters… among his correspondents.
Mawdudi had met Qutb’s brother Mohammad on a trip to Cairo in 1960 and had received copies of his prison writings. “Each one of us knows the other fully,” Mawdudi wrote Margaret Marcus on June 20, 1961, NYPL.

47   
Mawdudi immediately drew up… Ayub Khan’s government.
Adams, “Ideology of Maulana Mawdudi,” 377–79.

47
   “eye-opener for Muslim youth.”
Abul Ala Mawdudi to Margaret Marcus, June 20, 1961, NYPL.

54
   “rightful place to accommodate… an ‘asylum.’”
Gilani,
‘Maududi’: Thought and Movement,
58.

54   
Mawdudi also believed… “lest [they] should, like Adam himself, be lured into a life of pleasure.”
Abul A’la Maududi,
Purdah and the Status of Woman in Islam,
ed. and trans. al-Ashari (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1972), 10–11.

58   
“There are certain eras… born of affliction.”
Susan Sontag,
Against Interpretation and Other Essays
(New York: Anchor Books, 1961), 49.

58   
“America is allegedly… four million are slain.”
Maryam Jameelah, “A Manifesto of the Islamic Movement” (Lahore: Matbaat,
El-Maktaba-il-Ilmiyyah, June 1969), 14. Later reprinted and reworked as
Islam Face to Face with the Current Crisis.

Chapter 3: Doubt

62   
Some of the less… Prophet’s household.
G. H. A. Juynboll,
Encyclopedia of Canonical Hadith
(Leiden: 2007), xxix.

63   
Reading this, an early scholar… not true Muslims.
Ibn Taymiya, Al-Ihtijaj bil-Qadar, in his Rasa’il, Cairo 1323 AH, II, 96–97, as cited in Fazlur Rahman,
Islam
(Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1968), 133.

64   
The Mawlana, however, was impatient with medieval hermeneutics.
Adams, “Ideology of Mawlana Mawdudi,” 386.

64   
He claimed he could tell… the Prophet’s intentions.
“I have sensibly understood the Deen by a direct access to the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah, and not from the exegesis of the present or the past. Therefore in order to know, sensibly, what the Deen expects and demands of
me, I shall never try to quote the answer given by certain scholars, or the examples lived by others. I shall only try to ascertain, ‘What does the Qur’an say; what did Rasulullhah do?’” Gilani,
‘Maududi’: Thought and Movement,
56.

64–65   
While he was in the Holy Land… over the precious cloth.
Maryam Jameelah,
Islam in Theory and Practice
(Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1967), 233–34.

65–66   
“She is simply suffering from hysteria… like-minded Muslim gentleman.”
May 29, 1963, edition of
Nawai Waqt,
as cited in
Tolu-e-Islam,
July 1963.

67–70   
Mawlana Mawdudi has said… change our destiny.
Tolu-e-Islam,
July 1963. I have reworked a very rough translation.

70   
There are even hints… this particular view.
Nasr,
Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revival,
has a discussion of this work, including Maryam Jameelah, “Who is Maudoodi?” (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1973), 140.

71   
His unpublished memoirs… “true benefactor.”
As quoted in Khurshid Ahmad’s foreword to Syed Abul ‘Ala Maudoodi,
Towards Understanding the Qur’an,
trans. Zafar Ishaq Ansari (Leicester, UK: Islamic Foundation, 1988), vol. I, xii.

72   
“Just as in logic… a particular society.”
Sayyed Abul ala Maudoodi,
The Process of Islamic Revolution, an Address Given at Aligarh Muslim University
(Lahore: M. Abdul Waheed Khan, 1947), 3.

72   
“Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx… producing thereon huge volumes.”
Translator’s foreword,
Towards Understanding the Qur’an,
xii.

73   “
drove a quiet, kind-hearted man… a world gone astray.”
Mawdudi,
Towards Understanding the Qur’an,
24.

73   
First, as the Qur’an… God’s commands.
Ibid., 9.

74   
“Nothing is missing… no part is vague or wanting.”
Mawdudi,
Islamic Law and Constitution,
197.

74   
Each of the Qur’an’s 114… same large questions.
Mawdudi,
Towards Understanding the Qur’an,
23–24.

74   
There will also be… states of mind.
Ibid., 4.

74   
There will be words… long in disuse.
See Mawdudi,
Islamic Law and Constitution,
198. “The Quranic terms relating to constitutional matters, as also those of Hadith and Fiqh, have long been out of use and have by now become incomprehensible.… That is why, on hearing of the constitutional concepts and directives of the Qur’an, even fairly well-read people [are amazed].”

74   
He was simply preserving… scholarly obscurantism.
Gilani,
‘Maududi’: Thought and Movement,
51.

74–75   
There is room… “blocks of wood.”
Mawdudi,
Towards Understanding the Qur’an,
29.

75   
Only those who read… similarly damned.
Ibid., 28–30.

75–76   
“spread confusion and disorder… all around him.”
Abul A’la Maududi,
Towards Understanding Islam,
revised ed., trans. Khurshid Ahmad (Lahore: Islamic Foundation, 1960), 20–22.

76   
For Mawdudi, it was “a principle of creation” that women be docile and acquiescent.
Mawdudi,
Purdah and the Status of Woman in Islam,
234.

76–77   
Picture making was the first step… before coming to Pakistan.
Abul Ala Mawdudi to Maryam Jameelah, March 30, 1962, NYPL, and interview with Maryam Jameelah, December 2007.

77   
In his editorial… Islam by force.
Tolu-e-Islam,
July 1963.

78   
Parwez trotted out… precipitated Maryam’s mental collapse.
Ibid.

79   
The Paagal Khanaah on Jail Road… five hundred women.
“Janet Hanneman: PCV in Pakistan,”
The Rotarian,
June 1964, 12–15.

83   
“Nobody who knows me or has seen me has ever or can truthfully ever describe me as ‘charming,’” she once commented.
Maryam Jameelah to Herbert and Myra Marcus, February 28, 1977, NYPL.

PART II:
JAHILIYYA
—THE AGE OF BARBARISM AND IGNORANCE

Chapter 5: Paagal Khanaah

116   
“Sometimes, deprivation will be so important… into a state of active need.”
Lawrence Kubie,
Practical and Theoretical Aspects of Psychoanalysis
(New York: International Universities Press, 1975), 86–89.