NEW DELHI, October 26 (IslamOnline) - Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH), one of the most popular and dedicated Muslim organizations in the country, is holding the all India conference of its members who have converged on Delhi from all over the country.

The conference began Friday, October 25 afternoon, at the organization’ s sprawling headquarters in south Delhi. The meeting will conclude October 28, after deliberating for four days on various issues confronting the Indian Muslim community at home and abroad as well as the country.

JIH conference on this national level is held every five years. This meeting comes after major violent incidents which shook the country and the Muslim community to the core - the anti-Muslim pogroms in the communally-sensitive western state of Gujarat.

Ejaz Ahmed Aslam, JIH secretary for press and publications, told IslamOnline today that the organization had been holding such conferences from time to time to take stock of the situation prevailing in the country and the world and to discuss important social issues as well to revise its own activities.

“A conference on this level was organized at Hyderabad in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in 1997,” he said adding that nearly 5,000 Jamaat arkan (core cadres) and a large number of women are participating in the four-day conference. JIH has over 6000 arkan.

Providing details about the program, Mr. Aslam said that conference is discussing issues like the present policies of JIH in India, its relevance and methodology, resurgence of capitalism and imperialism, Indian democracy, review of the onslaught against Islam and Muslims and how to combat it.

According to Ejaz Aslam, the meeting is also deliberating on the increasing menace of fascism, present needs and requirements of the Islamic Movement and how to meet them, problems faced by women during movement activities and their solutions, causes and remedies of poverty and backwardness among Muslims, mutual relations and dealings, and the menace of terrorism and how to counter it. On the concluding day, resolutions on various important issues would be passed.

However, when IOL sought further information about what has so far been deliberated upon, Mr. Farooq, the chief organizer of the conference, declined to provide more details.

JIH was established in 1941, when India was still under the British colonial yoke and the nation was not partitioned. Its founder, Maulana Syed Abul A’la Maududi, was born in what is now the state of Andhra Pradesh in south India. His family lineage comes down from a long line of Sufis, and his name Maudud is derived from Khwaja Qutbuddin Maudud, founder of the Chisti order.

The personality of Maulana Maududi stands out as a giant in the field of Islamic revivalism in the 20th century. His teachings and thought have ignited a spark in the Subcontinent and have influenced the Muslim outlook throughout the world.

After the country's partition, the Indian Jamaat ceased to function as an organization for some time. It regrouped under late Maulana Abul Laith Islahi. The Jamaat severed its ties from its parental organization and was re-named "Jamaat-e-Islami Hind."

The JIH stands today as the most organized religious and political organization in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and has become a force to reckon with. The Jamaat in both Pakistan and Bangladesh is a political force today.

The organization in India is vigorously engaged in Islamic Da'wah through literature, publications and field work. It was instrumental in translating Islamic books, especially the Qur'an, into many regional languages of India.