Jamaat-e-Islami (Urdu: جماعتِ اسلامی, JI) is a social conservative, and Islamist political party. Its objective is to make Pakistan an Islamic state, governed by Sharia law, through gradual, legal, political process.[2] The JI strongly objects to and opposes concepts such as capitalism, liberalism, socialism and secularism, as well as economic practices such as offering bank interest. The JI is a
vanguard party: its members form an elite, with "affiliates" and then "sympathizers" beneath them. The party leader is called an ameer.[3](p70) Although it does not have a large popular following, the party is quite influential and considered one of the major movements of Islam in Pakistan, along with Deobandi and Barelvi.[4]
The JI came to its modern foundation in Lahore in 1941 in British India by the Muslim theologian and socio-political philosopher, Abul Ala Maududi.[5] In 1947, JI moved its operations to West-Pakistan after Independence.[6](p223)(Members who remained in India, formed an independent organisation called Jamaat-e-Islami Hind). The party came under severe government repression in 1948, 1953, and 1963,[7] but during the early years of the regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq served as the "regime's ideological and political arm",[8] with party members holding cabinet portfolios of information and broadcasting, production, and water, power and natural resources.[9]
In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, JI opposed the independence of Bangladesh. However, in 1975, it established a new branch, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami in the new nation. Abbas Ali Khan (Joypurhat) was the founder & first Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami . Other offshoots of Jamaat-e-Islami, (which split into separate independent organizations following the Partition of India in 1947) include Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in India, and Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir in Jammu & Kashmir.
