A critical appraisal of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami

What is it about?

The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI) is the largest Islamist Party in Bangladesh. It was founded in 1941 in British-India, by Maulana Mawdudi, a prominent South Asian Islamist leader. The BJI has undergone political vicissitudes during its eight-decade-long political history. The most notable political success of the Party was to have a couple of cabinet positions as a coalition partner in the Nationalist–Islamist Government between 2001 and 2006. Since the beginning of the 2010s, the Party has been in severe crisis: most of its national leaders were convicted of war crimes and put to death in the period 2011–2016. This article aims to examine the BJI’s growth and development and role in political Islam in Bangladesh. It also explores the challenges to, and responses of, the Party and their sociopolitical implications for the future of political Islam in Bangladesh. The methodology of the article is a critical analysis based on an exhaustive review of published secondary literature about the Party. The author argues that the BJI has generated a massive Islamic movement and made an enormous contribution to political Islam in Bangladesh. Yet it has failed to reform its almost-century-old organizational structure and modus operandi and effectively respond to the changed social and political contexts of Bangladesh, which has affected its organizational mobility and success.

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Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Why is it important?

BJI is the largest Islamist party and has been working to establish Islamic political system over last seven decades in both East Pakistan and Bangladesh. It has undergone political ups-and-downs throughout its history existence. It is still struggling and keeps trying, in its way, to contribute to the society socially, economically, politically and intellectually. While doing so, it has encountered various challenges and also responded to them. Thus it is interesting to learn these challenges it faced and the responses it threw.

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