Islamisation in Pakistan
Islamisation or Shariasation—i.e. the implementation of Islamic practices, laws, punishments, legal structures, textbooks, etc. into the governance, social fabric and legal framework of what had originally been a Muslim but primarily secular state—has a long history in Pakistan since the 1950s. It became the primary policy, or "centerpiece" of the government of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the ruler of Pakistan from 1977 until his death in 1988.
Zia is often identified as "the person most responsible for turning Pakistan into a global center for political Islam." Zia-ul-Haq committed himself to enforcing his interpretation of Nizam-e-Mustafa, establishing separate Shariat judicial courts and court benches to judge legal cases using Islamic doctrine.
New criminal offenses, and new punishments, were added to Pakistani law. Interest payments for bank accounts were replaced by "profit and loss" payments. Zakat charitable donations became a 2.5% annual tax. School textbooks and libraries were overhauled to remove un-Islamic material.
Offices, schools, and factories were required to provide praying space. Zia bolstered the influence of the ulama and the Islamic parties, and conservative scholars were often on television. Tens of thousands of activists from the Jamaat-e-Islami party were appointed to government posts to ensure the continuation of his agenda after his death. Conservative ulama were added to the Council of Islamic Ideology.
The effect on Pakistan's national cohesion of state-sponsored Islamisation were mixed. In 1984 a referendum gave Zia and the Islamisation program 97.7% approval in official results. However, there have been protests against the laws and their enforcement during and after Zia's reign. Shia–Sunni religious riots broke out over differences in Islamic jurisprudence —in particular, over how Zakat donations would be distributed.
There were also differences among Sunni Muslims. Women's and human rights groups opposed incarceration of rape victims under hadd punishments, and new laws that valued women's testimony and blood money compensation at half that of a man. Religious minorities and human rights groups opposed the "vaguely worded" Blasphemy Law and the "malicious abuse and arbitrary enforcement" of it.
Possible motivations for the Islamisation programme included Zia's personal piety, desire to gain political allies, to "fulfill Pakistan's raison d'etre" as a Muslim state, and the political need to legitimise what was seen by some Pakistanis as his "repressive, un-representative martial law regime". Under the rule of Pervez Musharraf, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, a coalition of Islamist political parties in Pakistan, called for the increased Islamisation of the government and society, specifically taking an anti-Hindu stance. The MMA led the opposition in the national assembly, held a majority in the NWFP Provincial Assembly, and was part of the ruling coalition in Balochistan.
Background and history
Pakistan was founded on the basis of securing a sovereign homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent to live in self-determination.The idea of Pakistan had received overwhelming popular support among British Indian Muslims, especially those in the presidencies and provinces of British India where Muslims were in a minority such as U.P. According to some sources, the Muslim League leadership, ulama and Muhammad Ali Jinnah had articulated their vision of Pakistan in terms of an Islamic state. Jinnah had developed a close association with the ulama. When Jinnah died, Islamic scholar Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani described Jinnah as the greatest Muslim after the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. Usmani asked Pakistanis to remember Jinnah's message of Unity, Faith and Discipline and work to fulfil his dream:
to create a solid bloc of all Muslim states from Karachi to Ankara, from Pakistan to Morocco. He wanted to see the Muslims of the world united under the banner of Islam as an effective check against the aggressive designs of their enemies.
After the creation of Pakistan in 1947 during East Pakistani language movement, many advocated to Muhammad Ali Jinnah making Arabic the state language of Pakistan as a Muslim nationalist country, which was later supported and reiterated by many, but the proposal ultimately did not gain popular support and popularity. These proposals to make Arabic the state language failed to gain substantial support in any part of Pakistan. However, as this demand is linked to the question of the development of Islamic culture, it indirectly reinforced the demand for the introduction of Arabic script in the state language Urdu and Bengali in some quarters.
Contradicting this mythology are statements by Jinnah: "... in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state... ", and by Moonis Ahmar, who writes, "in the formative phase of Pakistan, the notion of religious extremism was almost non-existent as the founder of the country, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, made it clear that the new state would not be theocratic in nature. However, after his demise on September 11, 1948, his successors failed to curb the forces of religious militancy..." Rather than Islamisation being the natural evolution of what Muslims intended Pakistan to be, secularists describe it as a reaction to events of the 1970s: the traumatic breakaway of Bangladesh in 1971, the growing power of Islamic revivalism and Islamic political parties in Pakistan, leading to the declaring the Ahmadiyya Community to be non-Muslims, the banning alcohol, gambling and night clubs, and the 1977 overthrow of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by a conservative pious Muslim, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the ruler of Pakistan until his death in 1988.
The first formal step taken to transform Pakistan into an ideological Islamic state was in March 1949 when the country's first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, introduced the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly. The Objectives Resolution declared that sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty. The president of the Muslim League, Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, announced that Pakistan would bring together all Muslim countries into Islamistan - a pan-Islamic entity. Khaliquzzaman believed that Pakistan was only a Muslim state and was not yet an Islamic state, but that it could certainly become an Islamic state after bringing all believers of Islam into a single political unit. Keith Callard, one of the earliest scholars on Pakistani politics, observed that Pakistanis believed in the essential unity of purpose and outlook in the Muslim world:
Pakistan was founded to advance the cause of Muslims. Other Muslims might have been expected to be sympathetic, even enthusiastic. But this assumed that other Muslim states would take the same view of the relation between religion and nationality.However, Pakistan's pan-Islamist sentiments were not shared by other Muslim governments at the time. Nationalism in other parts of the Muslim world was based on ethnicity, language and culture. Although Muslim governments were unsympathetic with Pakistan's pan-Islamic aspirations, Islamists from all over the world were drawn to Pakistan. Figures such as the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Al-Haj Amin al-Husseini, and leaders of Islamist political movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, became frequent visitors to the country. After General Zia-ul-Haq took power in a military coup, Hizb ut-Tahrir expanded its organisational network and activities in Pakistan. Its founder, Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani, would maintain regular correspondence with Abul A’la Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, and he also urged Israr Ahmed to continue his work in Pakistan for the establishment of a global caliphate.
Social scientist Nasim Ahmad Jawed conducted a survey in 1969 in pre-divided Pakistan on the type of national identity that was used by educated professional people. He found that over 60% of people in East Pakistan professed to have a secular national identity. However, in West Pakistan the same figure professed to have an Islamic and not a secular identity. Furthermore, the same figure in East Pakistan defined their identity in terms of their ethnicity and not Islam. But it was the opposite in West Pakistan where Islam was stated to be more important than ethnicity.
After Pakistan's first ever general elections the 1973 Constitution was created by an elected Parliament. The Constitution declared Pakistan an Islamic Republic and Islam as the state religion. It also stated that all laws would have to be brought into accordance with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah and that no law repugnant to such injunctions could be enacted. The 1973 Constitution also created certain institutions such as the Federal Shariat Court and the Council of Islamic Ideology to channel the interpretation and application of Islam.
On 5 July 1977, General Zia-ul-Haq led a coup d'état. In the year or two before Zia-ul-Haq's coup, his predecessor, leftist Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had faced vigorous opposition which was united under the revivalist banner of Nizam-e-Mustafa. According to supporters of the movement, establishing an Islamic state based on sharia law would mean a return to the justice and success of the early days of Islam when the Islamic prophet Muhammad ruled the Muslims. In an effort to stem the tide of street Islamisation, Bhutto had also called for it and banned the drinking and selling of wine by Muslims, nightclubs and horse racing.
On coming to power, Zia went much further than Bhutto, committing himself to enforcing Nizam-e-Mustafa, i.e. sharia law. Most accounts confirm that Zia came from a religious family and religion played an important part in molding his personality. His father worked as a civilian official in army headquarters and was known as Maulvi Akbar Ali due to his religious devotion. Zia joined the army before partition and occasionally offended his British superiors with his refusal to give up religious and cultural traditions. Zia attributed his personal resistance to the lifestyle of the British Indian cavalry to his faith in
In his first televised speech to the country as head of state he declared that
Pakistan which was created in the name of Islam will continue to survive only if it sticks to Islam. That is why I consider the introduction of Islamic system as an essential prerequisite for the country.
While in the past, "many a ruler did what they pleased in the name of Islam", he would not.
Unlike in Iran, Islamisation in Pakistan was politically conservative, working against, not with leftist forces and ideas. Zia had little sympathy with Bhutto or his populist, socialist philosophy—captured in the slogan, "Food, clothing, and shelter". General Zia explained in an interview:
While Zia initiated the Islamisation programme, he came under attack from conservative Sunni forces who considered his process too slow. He distanced himself from some of the ulama in 1980, and in 1983 religious opponents spread the rumour that Zia was an Ahmadi. Zia was "forced to deny this allegation publicly and denounce the Ahmadis as kafirs ".
In 1984 a referendum was held on Zia, the Islamisation program, and giving him a five-year presidential term. Official results reported 97.7 in favor and voter participation of 60%. Independent observers questioned whether 30% of eligible voters had voted.
Opposition to state-sponsored Islamisation or aspects of it came from several quarters. Religious riots broke out in 1983 and 1984. Sectarian divisions between Sunnis and Shia worsened over the issue of the 1979 Zakat ordinance, but differences in fiqh jurisprudence also arose in marriage and divorce, inheritance and wills and imposition of hadd punishments.
Among Sunni Muslims, there were disputes between Deobandis and Barelvis. Zia favored Deobandi doctrine. So the Sufi pirs of Sindh joined the anti-Zia Movement for the Restoration of Democracy.
From its inception, Pakistani leaders have leveraged religious sentiments as a means to fortify the nation's identity. This approach resulted in the promotion of Islamisation, which fostered an educational system churning out millions of religious students annually. Unfortunately, this policy has often been associated with sympathies toward extremism, violence, and the encouragement of religious and communal divides.