Jamaat-e-Islami, or Jamaat as it is commonly known, is an Islamist political party based in Pakistan and founded by Abul Ala Maududi. It is the Pakistani successor to Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in colonial India in 1941. Its objective is the transformation of Pakistan into an Islamic state, governed by Sharia law, through a gradual legal, and political process. JI strongly opposes capitalism, communism, liberalism, and secularism as well as economic practices such as offering bank interest. JI is a 'vanguard party', whose members are intended to be leaders spreading party beliefs and influence. Supporters not thought qualified to be members may become 'affiliates', and beneath them are 'sympathizers'. The party leader is called an 'ameer'. Although it does not have a large popular following, the party is quite influential and considered one of the major Islamic movements in Pakistan, along with Deobandi and Barelvi.

Abul A'la al-Maududi 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, Telugu, Tamil, 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 similarly as to that during the reign of the Rashidun Caliphs 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.