Pakistan befor Pakistan—I  Forgotten Debate Between Maududi & Parwez 

Recovering the lost dialogue between Tolu-e-Islam and Tarjuman-ul-Qur’an

History is never finally written. Every generation returns to forgotten archives and asks new questions of familiar documents. Sometimes an obscure letter, a neglected journal or an overlooked controversy transforms our understanding of an entire political movement. 

Distinguished historians have examined the constitutional negotiations between the British Government, the Congress and the Muslim League; the politics of communal representation; the tragedy of Partition; the evolution of Muslim nationalism; and the competing visions of the future Indian state. However, one remarkable contemporary debate appears to have escaped sustained historical reconstruction.

It did not occur in the Central Legislative Assembly. Neither in the Cabinet Mission, nor in the correspondence between the Viceroy and Whitehall. It unfolded month after month in two Urdu journals that represented sharply different understandings of Islam and Muslim politics—Tarjuman-ul-Qur’an and Tolu-e-Islam.

These journals were not discussing theology in the abstract. They were debating the legitimacy of Pakistan before Pakistan came into existence.

The writings of Ayesha Jalal, Ian Talbot, David Gilmartin, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Venkat Dhulipala and many other scholars have transformed our understanding of the Pakistan Movement. Indian and Pakistani historians after 1947 have enriched the literature by examining communal politics, Partition violence, nationalism and constitutional developments from multiple perspectives.

Equally important are the works of Ali Usman Qasmi, particularly Questioning the Authority of the Past and later Qaum, Mulk, Sultanat. His scholarship substantially advances our understanding of Ghulam Ahmad Parwez and the intellectual history of modern Islam in Pakistan.

Our examination of the available literature suggests that the sustained exchange between Tarjuman-ul-Qur’an and Tolu-e-Islam over the religious, constitutional and civilisational justification of Pakistan has not itself been reconstructed as an independent historical narrative.  The importance of this neglected exchange lies in what it reveals. The controversy was not whether Muslims believed in Islam. Nor whether the Muslim League was sufficiently religious.

The real question was whether the creation of Pakistan could be justified through the Qur’an, whether territorial Muslim nationhood was compatible with Islam, whether nationalism itself constituted an alien Western doctrine, and whether Muslims could establish a modern constitutional state inspired by Qur’anic principles of justice, equality and human dignity.

In other words, Pakistan was debated not only in constitutional conferences but also in the pages of contemporary religious journals. To appreciate why this forgotten debate mattered, we must return to the constitutional crisis of late-colonial India. The central issue was not whether Hindus and Muslims had lived together—they had shared the subcontinent for centuries—nor whether every Hindu was hostile to every Muslim. The more fundamental question was whether a democratic polity based upon permanent numerical majorities and minorities could provide constitutional equality to all its constituent communities. 

British colonial rule had transformed religious identities into political categories through censuses, representative institutions and communal electorates. At the same time, the decline of Muslim political influence after 1857, coupled with educational and economic backwardness in many regions, generated a profound sense of insecurity. The debate over Pakistan therefore arose not merely from religious sentiment but from a constitutional and civilisational anxiety about the future distribution of political power.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah did not begin his political career as an advocate of Partition. For decades he remained the foremost constitutionalist of Indian politics and was celebrated as the “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity”. His persistent search was for an honourable constitutional settlement that could reconcile representative democracy with meaningful safeguards for India’s Muslims. 

Jinnah believed in legislation, parliamentary government, judicial institutions and negotiated constitutional arrangements rather than priestly authority. His support for legislation validating Muslim waqfs demonstrated that constitutionalism and the protection of Muslim civil institutions were not contradictory but complementary objectives.

It was only when successive constitutional negotiations failed to produce an enforceable framework of political equality that the demand for Pakistan gradually acquired intellectual and political legitimacy. Even leaders committed to composite nationalism, such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, recognised the destructive potential of communal politics, while Jawaharlal Nehru consistently opposed religious obscurantism. 

However, neither Congress nor the British succeeded in devising constitutional arrangements capable of dispelling Muslim apprehensions regarding permanent majority rule. Pakistan, therefore, cannot be understood merely as a territorial demand. It was equally an argument about constitutional security, civilisational continuity and the possibility of constructing a modern state inspired by principles of equality, justice and human dignity.

It was precisely because these questions had become politically decisive that Muhammad Ali Jinnah sought the support not of ecclesiastical authority but of enlightened Muslim intellectuals capable of answering ideological objections to the Muslim League. Among them was Ghulam Ahmad Parwez—an accomplished civil servant in the Government of British India, an independent Qur’anic thinker and later the moving spirit behind Tolu-e-Islam. 

The correspondence reproduced in Tehreek-i-Pakistan aur Parwez [edited by Umar Draz, published by Tolu-e-Islam, 1st edition, August 1989] suggests a relationship considerably closer than later political narratives have generally acknowledged. The book is titled as Forgotten Pages of Tehreek-i-Pakistan [Tehreek-i-Pakistan Key Gumshuda Auraq].

The facsimile of Jinnah’s letter dated June 14, 1947 deserves careful scholarly attention, not merely as personal correspondence but as evidence of Jinnah’s engagement with a modernist Muslim intellectual who sought to defend the constitutional case for Pakistan through reasoned interpretation of the Qur’an rather than sectarian polemics.

The purpose of this series is neither to canonise one school of thought nor to reopen old sectarian controversies. It is to reconstruct, from contemporary publications themselves, a remarkable intellectual dialogue that unfolded before the birth of Pakistan. If the evidence withstands scrutiny, it may compel us to rethink not only the ideological origins of Pakistan but also the methods through which its history has been written. 

Political negotiations have been studied exhaustively; the contemporaneous conversation between Tarjuman-ul-Qur’an and Tolu-e-Islam has not received comparable attention. Recovering that conversation is the task before us.

[To be continued]

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Dr. Ikramul Haq, Advocate Supreme Court, Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Visiting Senior Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), holds an LLD in tax laws. He was full-time journalist from 1979 to 1984 with Viewpoint and Dawn. He also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 1996.