First Phase: Informal Conversation

To help you understand why these explanations were unsatisfactory for me, I will briefly mention some of them here.

1.        My first discussions on this matter began in 1959 with a central figure regarded as one of the highest-ranking members of the Jamaat in India. We had prolonged conversations, yet he could not provide me with any conclusive answers. He himself had certain grievances with the Jamaat but did not offer any specific guidance to help resolve my intellectual struggles. Once, when we were discussing the Quranic verse about “He may make it prevail over every other religion” (9:33, 48:28, 61:9), I said, “You interpret this as the mission of the Prophet and, by extension, the objective of the Muslim community. If, indeed, this verse specifies the mission for which Allah continued the chain of prophethood and revelation, then why do these words only appear in relation to the final Prophet’s mission in the Quran? Why are such expressions not used for the purpose of the earlier prophets’ missions as well?” His response was, “Perhaps the purpose of prophethood was changed to ‘establishment of religion’ after the final Prophet.” (Or so he said.)

2.        Another senior figure, one of the most respected members of the Jamaat, engaged in numerous conversations with me over time. However, he continually tried to convince me that there was no substantial difference between my thoughts and the ideology of the Jamaat; both were essentially the same. These discussions took place from June 1960 to September 1961 in Rampur, Delhi, and Azamgarh. In July 1960, when the Majlis-e-Shura nominated me as the editor of the Urdu magazine Zindagi, I declined to accept it on the grounds that, given my differing views from the Jamaat’s ideology, I did not consider it appropriate to take on editorial responsibilities for the Jamaat’s publication. At that time, he again tried to assure me that it was merely my heightened sensitivity making me feel my ideas were different from those of the Jamaat, although there was no difference. He advised me to dispel this notion and accept the editorial role for the magazine Zindagi.

There were also some individuals who tried to convince me that this is merely a difference in wording and that, in essence, there is no real difference between the two.