Islamism and the Islamic Caliphate in Israr Ahmed’s Thoughts

With the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, the idea of reviving the Islamic caliphate spread from the east to the west of the Islamic world. It was as if the Sunnīs, who had not experienced the world without a caliph before, were astonished and each of them formulated the idea of the caliphate in the Islamic world. As a well-known Pakistani writer, Israr Ahmed is one of the most important theorists in this field in the eastern part of the Islamic world. His thought was a reflection of the three streams of thought that started from Azad, Iqbal, and Maududi, showing its influence in a period and under its socio-political conditions. In the present article, the main issue is to introduce the ideas of Islamism and the Islamic Caliphate as well as the intellectual transformation of Israr Ahmed in a chronological manner and historical context and to explain his political thought in this field. According to the historical-analytical method, Israr Ahmed first followed Azad’s thoughts in the idea of returning to the Qur’ān and the idea of Iqbal's intellectual reform. To do so, he established Markazi Anjuman for Khuddam-ul-Quran in 1972 and publicized it in his writings. Next, the effects of the revolutionary thoughts of Maududi and the reforming views of Iqbal manifested themselves in his views. He then established Tanzeem-e-Islami in 1975 and Tahreek-al-Khilafah in 1991, returning to Azad’s views and Maududi’s Islamic Revolution in order to realize an overarching revolution as well as the caliphate system. The latter stage in his political theory was a combination of traditional Sunnī views on the caliphate system and modern western governance.