Dr. Israr Ahmad (26 April 1932 – 14 April 2010) was a Pakistani Islamic scholar, theologian and orator. He developed a following in Pakistan and the rest of South Asia and also among some South Asian Muslims in the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. He founded Tanzeem-e-Islami and also served as a member of the National Assembly from 1981 to 1982.
He has written around 60 books in Urdu on Islam and Pakistan, of which twenty-nine have been translated into several other languages, including in English, as of 2017.
In 1956, he left the Jamaat-e-Islami, which had become involved in electoral politics,
to found Tanzeem-e-Islami. Like many other Sunni Islamic activists/revivalists he preached that the teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunnah and divine law of Sharia must be implemented in all spheres of life, that the Caliphate must be restored as a true Islamic state, and that Western values and influences were a threat to Islam and Pakistan. He was also known for his staunch belief that only Pakistan, not any Arab land, should be the foundation for a new caliphate, and that democratic governance was un-Islamic.
He was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, the third-highest civilian award from Pakistan, in 1981.
Dr. Israr Ahmad was born on 26 April 1932, into a Ranghar family of Muslim Rajputs in Hisar, a city in the Punjab Province of British India (now in Haryana, India). His ancestral roots lie in the Muzaffarnagar district of modern-day Western Uttar Pradesh, but following the 1857 War of Independence, his grandfather's properties were confiscated, so the family moved to Hisar. His father was a civil servant in the British government who relocated his family from Hisar to Montgomery, now Sahiwal, in the West Punjab province of the Dominion of Pakistan (now in Punjab, Pakistan).
After graduating from a local high school, Dr. Israr Ahmad moved to Lahore to attend the King Edward Medical University in 1950. He received his MBBS degree from King Edward Medical University in 1954 and began practising medicine. In addition, he obtained his master's degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Karachi in 1965.
Dr. Israr Ahmad worked briefly for Muslim Student's Federation in the Independence Movement and, following the creation of Pakistan in 1947, for the Islami Jami`yat-e-Talaba and then in 1950 joined Jamaat-e-Islami led by Abul Ala Maududi. He left the party when the latter opted for participating in electoral politics in 1957 in the belief that involvement in national politics was irreconcilable with the revolutionary methodology adopted by the Jama'at in the pre-1947 period. His interest in Islam and philosophy grew further and he subsequently moved to Karachi in the 1960s, where he enrolled in Karachi University to study Islam.
Supporters describe his vision of Islam as having been synthesised from diverse sources. Dr. Israr Ahmad worked closely with Syed Abul A'la Maududi (1903–1979) and Amin Ahsan Islahi, (as did Wahiduddin Khan, Naeem Siddiqui and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi). He has also acknowledged the "deep influence" of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, the 18th-century Indian Islamic leader, anti-colonial activist, jurist, and scholar.
"In the context of Qur'anic exegesis and understanding, Dr. Israr Ahmad was a firm traditionalist of the genre of Mahmud Hasan Deobandi and Shabbir Ahmad Usmani; yet he presented Qur'anic teachings in a scientific and enlightened way". Dr. Israr Ahmad believed in what he called "Islamic revolutionary thought," which consists of the idea that Islam – the teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunnah – must be implemented in the social, cultural, juristic, political, and economic spheres of life. In this he is said to follow Muhammad Rafiuddin and Muhammad Iqbal. The first attempt towards the actualisation of this concept was reportedly made by Abul Kalam Azad through his short-lived party, the Hizbullah. Another attempt was made by Abul A'la Maududi through his Jamaat-e-Islami party. Although the Jamaat-e-Islami has reached some influence, Dr. Israr Ahmad resigned from the party in 1956 when it entered the electoral process and believed that such an involvement led to "degeneration from a pure Islamic revolutionary party to a mere political one".
Originally a member of Jamaat-e-Islami, Dr. Israr Ahmad stated that he became disappointed with its turn towards electoral activity, disagreed with it on "significant policy matters", including what he saw as the "lack of effort to create an Islamic renaissance through the revolutionary process." He considered Jamaat-e-Islami's "plunge" into "the arena of power politics," to have been "disastrous." He and some other individuals resigned from JI and in 1956 founded the nucleus of Tanzeem-e-Islami, passing a resolution "which subsequently became the Mission Statement of Tanzeem-e-Islami."
Along with his work to revive what he called "the Qur'an-centered Islamic perennial philosophy and world-view" Dr. Israr Ahmad stated that his goal and the goal of his organizations was to "reform the society in a practical way with the ultimate objective of establishing a true Islamic State, or the System of Khilafah".
In 1971 Dr. Israr Ahmad gave up his medical practice to "launch a movement for the revival of Islam". "As a result of his efforts" the Markazi Anjuman Khuddam-ul-Quran Lahore was established in 1972, Tanzeem-e-Islami was founded in 1975, and Tahreek-e-Khilafat Pakistan was launched in 1991.
Dr. Israr Ahmad was not well known and Tanzeem-e-Islami (TI) was relatively small until 1981 when President at the time Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq—who was working to "Islamize" Pakistan—asked the state-owned Pakistan television channel (PTV), to give Israr a weekly show. It became one of the first shows in Pakistan where a scholar "would sit in front of an audience and deliver lectures on Islam". Israr is thought to have been instrumental in bringing changes to Pakistan TV during that time eliminating Western dress for women and requiring hijab. Israr later refused to appear on TV after segments of his program calling for a ban on televising cricket matches were censored, but by then had developed a large following in Pakistan.
Dr. Israr Ahmad has authored over 60 books in Urdu on topics related to Islam and Pakistan, nine of which have been translated into English and other languages.
Dr. Israr Ahmad opposed modern democracy and the prevalent electoral system, arguing that in a true Islamic state the ruler has the power to overturn the majority decisions of an elected assembly.
While Dr. Israr Ahmad "considers himself a product" of the teachings of "comprehensive and holistic concept of the Islamic obligations" of Abul Ala Maududi, he opposed Jamaat-e-Islami's entry into "the arena of power politics". Instead he believed what was needed was a "revolutionary methodology" pursued by a "disciplined organization".
While many, if not all, Sunni activists seek a return of the Caliphate, an "important aspect of Dr. Israr Ahmad's ideology" was his belief that "the foundations for the caliphate" should not be in Hijaz, Baghdad, or other more traditional sites, but rather in Pakistan, to where he believed that "the spiritual nerve center of the Islamic intellectual movement had shifted."