Jamaat-e-Islami

Jamaat-e-Islami (Urdu: جماعتِ اسلامی) is an Islamic political organisation and social conservative movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamist theologian and socio-political philosopher, Abul Ala Maududi.

Along with the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1926, Jamaat-e-Islami was one of the original and most influential Islamist organisations, and the first of its kind to develop "an ideology based on the modern revolutionary conception of Islam".

The group split into separate independent organisations in India and Pakistan -- Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind—following the Partition of India in 1947. Other groups related to or inspired by Jamaat-e-Islami developed in Bangladesh, Kashmir, Britain, and Afghanistan (see below). The Jamaat-e-Islami parties maintain ties internationally with other Muslim groups.

Maududi created the party to influence the leadership of the Muslim community, dominated by the Muslim League, who sought a separate, independent state for Muslims (to be called Pakistan) following the withdrawal of the British from India. The Muslim League wanted to prevent domination of Muslims by the majority Hindus, but expressed no interest in an Islamic state, i.e. ruling the state according to Sharia law, the traditional injunctions of the Quran and Sunnah. These included abolition of interest-charged on loans, sexual separation and veiling of women, hadd penalties such as flogging and amputation for alcohol consumption, theft, fornication, and other crimes.