During the same period (1920s-30s), another (though lesser known) Islamic scholar in undivided India got smitten by the 1917 Russian revolution and Marxism.
Hafiz Rahman Sihwarwl saw Islam and Marxism sharing five elements in common: (1) prohibition of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the privileged classes (2) organisation of the economic structure of the state to ensure social welfare (3) equality of opportunity for all human beings (4) priority of collective social interest over individual privilege and (5) prevention of the permanentising of class structure through social revolution.
The motivations for many of these themes he drew from the Qur’an, which he understood as seeking to create an economic order in which the rich pay excessive, though voluntary taxes (Zakat) to minimise differences in living standards.
In the areas that Sihwarwl saw Islam and communism diverge were Islam’s sanction of private ownership within certain limits, and in its refusal to recognise an absolutely classless basis of society.
He suggested that Islam, with its prohibition of the accumulation of wealth, is able to control the class structure through equality of opportunity.
Basically, both Sindhi and Sihwarwl had stumbled upon an Islamic concept of the social democratic welfare state.
