A Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Jahiliyyah in the Thought of Twentieth-Century Thinkers (Case Study: Ayatollah Kharqani, Sayyid Qutb, and Abul A‘la Maududi)

Abstract

The colonization of Islamic societies by the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries generated numerous reactions. Muslim intellectuals sought to understand the causes behind the decline of Islamic societies, which had led them into a position of defeat vis-à-vis the West. Many responses were proposed, foremost among them the attempt to locate the roots of this decline within Muslim societies themselves. Accordingly, thinkers such as Ayatollah Kharqani in Iran, Sayyid Qutb in Egypt, and Maududi in India classified Islamic society into historical phases similar to those of the period of the Prophet’s mission, in an effort to identify a path out of the crisis faced by Islamic societies under extensive cultural, political, and social pressures. In their view, contemporary Muslim societies resemble the pre-prophetic era, and the state of jahiliyyah affecting them may even be more intense than during the time of the Prophet. The present study seeks, through a comparative approach, to examine the concept of jahiliyyah in the thought of these three thinkers.