Mattson and Maududi

Koran 65, verses 1 and 4.  The following is taken from James Arlandson's article on the "Answering Islam" website:

"65:1 O Prophet, when you (and the believers) divorce women, divorce them for their prescribed waiting-period and count the waiting-period accurately . . . 4 And if you are in doubt about those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, (you should know that) their waiting period is three months, and the same applies to those who have not menstruated as yet. As for pregnant women, their period ends when they have delivered their burden."

 (from Maududi's translation, in his tafsir (exegesis) of the Koran, The Meaning of the Qur’an, vol. 5, pp. 599 and 617, emphasis added)

...

Maududi correctly interprets the plain meaning of verse 4:

Therefore, making mention of the waiting-period for girls who have not yet menstruated, clearly proves that it is not only permissible to give away the girl at this age but it is permissible for the husband to consummate marriage with her. Now, obviously no Muslim has the right to forbid a thing which the Qur’an has held as permissible. (Maududi, vol. 5, p. 620, note 13, emphasis added)

... Maududi also rebukes Muslims who deny that this verse is valid.

* * *

And who is Maududi, you might ask?  Let's let Ingrid Mattson tell us.  Ingrid is a Canadian convert to Islam who held the position of President of the influential Islamic Society of North America (overseeing the USA in addition to Canada) and who teaches a course on the Koran in Connecticut as a required course for all prison and military (Muslim) chaplain candidates throughout the USA and Canada (she also, by the way, was featured as a speaker at both Obama Democratic Conventions for his Presidential campaigns). 

According to this fine article by Frank Gaffney:

A course taught by Dr. Mattson at the Hartford Seminary entitled “The Koran and Its Place in Muslim Life and Society” featured readings from texts by two ...most revered figures: Syed Abul A’la Maududi and Sayyid Qutb. She has publicly credited the former with producing “probably the best work of [Koranic commentary] in English.”

It only gets worse:  According to a book on Islamic history, Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh, pp. 212-213, we read this about Maududi:

“The power to rule over the earth has been promised to the whole community of believers,” argued the prominent Islamist Abul Ala Mawdudi(1903-79), founder of the fundamentalist Jamaat Islami in Pakistan.  “A state of this sort cannot restrict the scope of its activities. Its approach is universal and all-embracing. Its sphere of activity is coexistent with the whole of humanity.” This universal state, or rather world empire, was to be established through a sustained jihad that would “destroy those regimes opposed to the precepts of Islam and replace them with a government based on Islamic principles... not merely in one specific region... but [as part] of a comprehensive Islamic transformation throughout the entire world.”

[Note: the phrase the whole community of believers was italicized in the original -- evidently by Maududi himself, preserved by Efraim Karsh; the bolded passage is my emphasis.]

Although Efraim Karsh labels Maududi an "Islamist" and "fundamentalist"; the measure of Maududi's mainstream nature as a Muslim scholar is the esteem in which Ingrid Mattson, a solidly mainstream and influential Muslim, holds him.