Abul A'la Maududi, Pakistani theologian, Islamic scholar and jurist (born 1903)

Abul A'la al-Maududi was an Islamic scholar and the author of Tafhim-ul-Quran, who was active in British India and later, following the partition, in Pakistan. Described by Wilfred Cantwell Smith as "the most systematic thinker of modern Islam", he authored numerous works, which "covered a range of disciplines such as Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, law, philosophy, and history". These were originally penned in Urdu, and later translated into a number of other languages, including English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Burmese, and Malayalam. He sought to revive Islam, and, more specifically, to propagate what he understood to be "true Islam". He believed that this Islam was essential for the proper functioning of the national political order; this pivotal role provided his followers with their primary goal of bringing about the legal adoption of sharia. This was seen as entailing both the popular revival of an Islamic culture, mirroring traditional beliefs regarding widespread social norms and practices during the reigns of the Rashidun Caliphs, and the abandonment of immorality and what Maududi viewed as the modern evils of secularism, nationalism and socialism. He viewed these last three as foreign influences, the remnants of Western imperialism.