With a focus upon the social dimension of worship Maudoodi's original approach to religious ritual and self-purification considers worship's transformative role in social life, as well as on the spirit. This work offers an illuminating and unique study of the nature and significance of Islamic spirituality by a leading Muslim intellectual from the twentieth century.

Worship in Islam is an in-depth study of the nature and significance of Islamic spirituality by Syed Abul Ala Maudoodi, one of the leading Muslim intellectuals of the twentieth century, with special reference to the concepts of God’s Oneness (tawhid), the finality of Prophethood (risalah) and the Islamic system of worship (ibadah) and a focus upon prayer (salah) and fasting (ṣawm) and their role in the development of the Islamic personality and Islam’s social order. The distinguishing feature of Mawdūdī’s approach is his elaboration of the social dimension of worship, which extends the traditional approach found in Islamic jurisprudence, with its focus upon ritual and self-purification, to consider worship’s transformative role in social life. Presenting a holistic view of the Islamic system, Mawdūdī highlights Islam’s social, economic and political dimensions, which he argues have the capacity to resolve emergent issues and problems that humankind faces.

Edited and translated into accessible English by Ahmad Imam Shafaq Hashemi, this book is an authoritative compilation of a leading Islamic revivalist’s reflections upon the central matter of worship’s role in Islam. This historic text should be of wider interest to both students and specialists in contemporary Islamic thought, and includes an introduction by Professor Anis Ahmad.

About the Author

Syed Abul Ala Maudoodi (1903-1979) was a leading Muslim intellectual and a chief architect of the Islamic revival in the twentieth century. In 1941 he founded Jama'at-i-Islami, a political party in Pakistan, which he led until 1972. He authored more than a hundred works on Islam, both popular and scholarly, and his writings have been translated into some forty languages.