Abul A'la Maududi (, Abul Alā Mawdūdī – alternative spellings of last name Maudoodi, Mawdudi; – ) was an Islamic scholar, Islamist ideologue, Muslim philosopher, jurist, historian, journalist, activist and scholar active in British India and later, following the partition, in Pakistan. Described by Wilfred Cantwell Smith as "the most systematic thinker of modern Islam”, his numerous works, which "covered a range of disciplines such as Qur’anic exegesis, hadith, law, philosophy and history", were written in Urdu, but then translated into English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Burmese, Malayalam and many other languages. He sought to revive Islam, and to propagate what he understood to be "true Islam". He believed that Islam was essential for politics and that it was necessary to institute "sharia" and preserve Islamic culture similar to the reign of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and abandon immorality, from what he viewed as the evils of secularism, nationalism and socialism, which he understood to be the influence of Western imperialism.