KARACHI, Sept 28: Maulana Syed Abul-ala Maudoodi’s invitation to Islam and ideology has been instrumental in preparing millions of people to strive for the supremacy of Islam and convinced them to enforce Islam in every sphere of life including the government, politics, judiciary, society, economy, civilization and culture.

These tributes were paid to the founder of Jamaat-i-Islami by Mian Tufail Muhammad, who is his closest colleague and a former chief of the JI.

He was one of the speakers at the 100th birth anniversary gathering, organized by the party at Shuahda Ground on Sunday, which was attended by hundreds of people.

Mr Tufail, being one of the founder members, recalled the history of JI that was started with 75 members in the year 1941. He said that the party had turned into a heartbeat of millions of people in the year 2003.

He said that the message and ideology presented by Maulana Maudoodi was purely based on Quran and Sunnat, which had changed the life of millions of human beings. “His writings and speeches still guide us and its impacts are present everywhere in the world,” he said.

Syed Munawwar Hasan said that Maudoodi’s invitation to Islam was in a period when there was a conflict between communism and capitalism. At present, communism was not in existence anywhere in the world, he said while adding that the day is not far when the fate of capitalism would not be different from that of the communism.

He said that Muslim Ummah was with the global Islamic movement and there was a realization among the people that their rulers, including Gen Musharraf and Hamid Karzai, had been the obstacles in their way.

Zafar Jamal Baloch said that it was the outcome of the collective training of IJT that its associates had kept the torch of religion burning and offered their lives for the protection of the ideological and geographical frontiers of the country.

Siraj-ul-Haque said that the IJT training had provided an opportunity to turn the Frontier province into a model of Islamic justice, development and prosperity.

Hafiz Muhammad Idrees said that Maulana Maudoodi was born when the entire world of Islam was dominated by foreigners but it was Maulana Maudoodi and Imam Hasan-Al-Banna in Egypt, who faced these challenges with courage.

Sajjad Mir and Dr Mairaj-ul-Huda Siddiqui said that Maulana Maudoodi was the name of an eminent personality that presented the revolutionary concept of religion in the modern era.

Engineer Naveed Anwar said that the Jamiat had accepted the challenge in every era and raised voice against policies aimed at turning education field into a business sector.