The Whale Who Wanted to Fly

In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the International Declaration of Human Rights, a document designed to hold both individuals and nations accountable for their treatment of fellow human beings-regardless of religious or cultural affiliations. Since then, debates surrounding the reach and scope of the Declaration have been lively and wide-ranging, with the compatibility of Islam and human rights emerging as a particularly thorny issue of international concern. The question has been addressed by Muslim rulers, conservatives, and extremists, as well as Western analysts and policymakers, all of whom have commonly agreed that Islamic theology and human rights cannot coexist.

Worship in Islam is in-depth study of the nature and significance of Islamic spirituality by Abul A‘la Mawdudi (1903–79), 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) with a focus upon prayer (salah) and fasting (sawm) and their role in the development of the Islamic personality and Islam’s social order. The distinguishing feature of Mawdudi’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, Mawdudi highlights Islam’s social, economic and political dimensions, which he argues has the capacity to resolve emergent issues and problems that humankind faces.

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.

Edited and translated into accessible English by Ahmad Imam Shafaq Hashemi, this book is an authoritative compilation by a leading Islamic twentieth-century revivalist on the central matter of worship’s role in Islam.