Islam in Pakistan
Islam was brought to the South Asian subcontinent in the eighth century by wandering Sufi mystics known as pir. As in other areas where it was introduced by Sufis, Islam to some extent syncretized with preIslamic influences, resulting in a religion traditionally more flexible than in the Arab world. Two Sufis whose shrines receive much national attention are Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore (ca. eleventh century) and Shahbaz Qalander in Sehwan, Sindh (ca. twelfth century).
The country has a population of 170 million. Official figures on religious demography, based on the most recent census taken in 1998, showed that approximately 97 percent of the population was Muslim. Groups comprising 2 percent of the population or less include Hindus, Christians, and others, including Ahmadis. The majority of Muslims in the country are Sunni, with a Shi'a minority ranging between 10 to 20 percent. Parsis (Zoroastrians), Sikhs, and Buddhists each had approximately 20,000 adherents, while the Baha'i claimed 30,000. Some tribes in Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP) practiced traditional animist religious beliefs.
While there is no census data regarding the different sects, it is thought by some that Deobandis and Barelvis have equal numbers of adherents in Pakistan. By another estimate, some 15% of Pakistan's Sunni Muslims would consider themselves Deobandi, while some 60% are in the Barelvi tradition, based mostly in the province of Punjab. It is generally agreed that at least 60% of the total seminaries are run by Deobandis, and 25% by the Barelvis.
- The Deobandi trace their origin to Islamic revivalism from the Madrassa in the town of Deoband, in Uttar Pradesh, India, which was founded in 1867. The purpose of this movement and the madrassa was to counter the influence of Islamic leaders who favored European-style education desired closer ties with British colonialists, and who wanted to liberalize or modernize Islam. One of Pakistan’s larger religious parties, Jamaat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI), is a Deobandi sectarian organization.
- The Barelvi sect is the major Sunni sub-sect within Pakistan. Ahmed Raza Khan of Bareilly founded this sub-sect of Sunni Islam in 1906 in reaction to the austerity and conservatism of the Deobandi. Jamiaat-e-Ulamma-Pakistan / Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) is the religious political party linked to the Barelvi.
- The Ahl-e-Hadith / Salafi is one of the smaller and the most puritanical Sunni sub-sect in Pakistan. Ahle-Hadith, founded by Sayyed Ahmed Barelvi [confusingly] in the early nineteenth century, is closely linked to the teachings of Arabian thinker Muhammad bin Wahhab. Ahle-Hadith is linked to the largest jihadi group in Pakistan, Jamaat-Dawah, formerly known as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
The universal characteristics of Islamic State are derived from the teachings of the holy Quran, as embodied in the political practice or the Prophet Mohammed. An Islamic State is closely linked with the society because Islam is accepted as a comprehensive integrated way of life. The State is only the political expression of an Islamic society.
After the end of the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman caliph had become the symbol of Islamic authority and unity to Indian Sunni Muslims. A pan-Islamic movement, known as the Khilafat Movement, spread in India. It was a mass repudiation of Muslim loyalty to British rule and thus legitimated Muslim participation in the Indian nationalist movement. The leaders of the Khilafat Movement used Islamic symbols to unite the diverse but assertive Muslim community on an all-India basis and bargain with both Congress leaders and the British for recognition of minority rights and political concessions.
Muslim leaders from the Deoband and Aligarh movements joined Gandhi in mobilizing the masses for the 1920 and 1921 demonstrations of civil disobedience and noncooperation in response to the massacre at Amritsar. At the same time, Gandhi endorsed the Khilafat Movement, thereby placing many Hindus behind what had been solely a Muslim demand.
Despite impressive achievements, however, the Khilafat Movement failed. Turkey rejected the caliphate and became a secular state. Furthermore, the religious, mass-based aspects of the movement alienated such Western-oriented constitutional politicians as Jinnah, who resigned from Congress. Other Muslims also were uncomfortable with Gandhi's leadership. The British historian Sir Percival Spear wrote that "a mass appeal in his [Gandhi's] hands could not be other than a Hindu one. He could transcend caste but not community. The [Hindu] devices he used went sour in the mouths of Muslims."
Islam and the Pakistani State
Pakistan’s very identity has dictated certain courses of action, since it was formed as an Islamic nation in conscious opposition to India’s secular nature. A dilemma confronted Pakistan immediately after independence. On one side was the desire of the founding fathers that Pakistan be a modern western style democracy. However, this would not galvanize the Muslims of the sub-continent to break away from India and form a separate state. The rationale for an Independent Pakistan was the two-nation theory and for this Muslim sentiment had to be harnessed along overtly religious lines. This raised expectations among the clergy and the common man of an Islamic Pakistan, wherein everything would be in accordance with the tenets of Islam. The use of religious leaders in mobilizing public opinion for Pakistan accorded undue power to the clergy which manifested itself in the power politics of the new state.
To make the people of the new country into a unified nation the Muslim League government adopted an ideological approach, which was consistent with its pre-independence ideology. It relied on religion to unite the people and solved contemporary problems and issues. The government in order to build morale in the face of unprecedented social and economic dislocations used the religious slogans and exhortations. It used religious nationalism to unite the country behind the Kashmir war despite divergent sectional interests, to encourage private and provincial effort for the rehabilitation of refugees, to promote a tolerant attitude towards the Hindu minority in accordance with Islamic tradition.
Jinnah's lieutenant, Liaquat Ali Khan, inherited the task of drafting a constitution. Himself a moderate (he had entered politics via a landlord party), he subscribed to the parliamentary, democratic, secular state. But he was conscious that he possessed no local or regional power base. He was a muhajir ("refugee") from the United Provinces, the Indian heartland, whereas most of his colleagues and potential rivals drew support from their own people in Punjab or Bengal. Liaquat Ali Khan therefore deemed it necessary to gain the support of the religious spokesmen (the mullahs or, more properly, the ulama). He issued a resolution on the aims and objectives of the constitution, which began, "Sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone" and went on to emphasize Islamic values.
In 1956 the Constituent Assembly adopted a constitution that proclaimed Pakistan an Islamic republic and contained directives for the establishment of an Islamic state. It also renamed the Constituent Assembly the Legislative Assembly. The lawyer-politicians who led the Pakistan movement used the principles and legal precedents of a nonreligious British parliamentary tradition even while they advanced the idea of Muslim nationhood as an axiom. Many of them represented a liberal movement in Islam, in which their personal religion was compatible with Western technology and political institutions. They saw the basis for democratic processes and tolerance in the Islamic tradition of ijma (consensus of the community) and ijtihad (the concept of continuing interpretations of Islamic law). Most of Pakistan's intelligentsia and Westernized elites belonged to the group of ijma modernists.
In contrast stood the traditionalist ulama, whose position was a legalistic one based on the unity of religion and politics in Islam. The ulama asserted that the Quran, the sunna, and the sharia provided the general principles for all aspects of life if correctly interpreted and applied. The government's duty, therefore, was to recognize the role of the ulama in the interpretation of the law. Because the ulama and the less-learned mullahs enjoyed influence among the masses, especially in urban areas, and because no politician could afford to be denounced as anti-Islamic, none dared publicly to ignore them. Nevertheless, they were not given powers of legal interpretation until the Muhammad Zia ul-Haq regime of 1977-88. The lawyer-politicians making decisions in the 1950s almost without exception preferred the courts and legal institutions they inherited from the British.
Another interpretation of Islam was provided by an Islamist movement in Pakistan, regarded in some quarters as fundamentalist. Its most significant organization was the Jamaat-i-Islami, which gradually built up support among the refugees, the urban lower middle-class, and students. Unlike the traditional ulama, the Islamist movement was the outcome of modern Islamic idealism. Crucial in the constitutional and political development of Pakistan, it forced politicians to face the question of Islamic identity.
During the 1950s, however, the fundamentalist movement led by Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the founder and leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami, succeeded only in introducing Islamic principles into the 1956 constitution. The principles contained injunctions against the consumption of alcohol and the practice of usury. The substance of the 1956 clauses reappeared in the 1962 constitution, but the Islamist cause was undefeated.
After the military coup etat of 1958 General Ayub Khan's government imposed martial law in the country, abrogated the constitution and dropped the Islamic Republic from the nomenclature of Pakistan, thus signaling a rejection of Islamic commitment. But as soon as the martial law was eased the debate about the secular and Islamic nature of the Pakistan re-emerged.
Pakistan lost Bangladesh in the 1973 war and consequently recast itself from a secular to an Islamic state as a defensive move against India to gain world-wide Islamic support. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto introduced certain Islamic practices, notably prohibition of alcoholic beverages, into the army, and Zia encouraged still more, including the assignment of mullahs as chaplains, some of whom reportedly go into combat with the troops. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq who is usually held uniquely responsible for Islamization of Pakistan's legal system restored matters by setting limits on the Islamization of the country. Sharia courts were established under Zia. In affect Zia had established a dual system of Anglo-Indian-type modernist law where Islamic law was relegated to a minor role. Gen. Zia came with a Islamic agenda and political expediency also demanded that he take a position diametrically opposed to the one taken by his military precursors Gen. Ayub and Gen. Yahya Khan. Zia also brought an alliance of sorts between the military and the Islam Pasand (favoring) parties. Zia also used Islam as an instrument of foreign policy to strengthen Pakistan's relations with Muslim countries.
Under Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif in the early 1990s, the sharia was proclaimed the basic law of the land.
Modest mosques have been built in military training areas, Islamic texts were introduced into training courses, mid-grade officers must take courses and examinations on Islam, and there are serious attempts under way to define an Islamic military doctrine, as distinct from the "Western" doctrines that the Pakistanis have been following. At the personnel level, the generation of cosmopolitan officers who were trained in British and United States traditions and consider religion a purely personal matter is passing from the scene. The new generation of officers is less exposed to foreign influences and is, increasingly, a product of a society that has been much more influenced by "orthodox" Islam, in which the primacy of Islam is continually emphasized and accepted.
Relatively few Pakistanis have turned to Islamic fundamentalism, and because of the demands of their profession, Pakistani officers and soldiers seem likely to keep at least one foot in the modernist camp. Senior generals are reportedly concerned about religion looming too large in military affairs, but unless there are major changes in society and politics, the armed forces may increasingly see itself as an Islamic as well as a nationalist force.
In Pakistan, fundamentalist religious parties have felt duty-bound to monopolise Islam, but they have never at any time gained much support in the public. Their poor electoral results in various elections have clearly demonstrated that.
Madrassahs
Sufi Islam is usually eclectic and tolerant towards other faiths. Sufi shrines and the countless variations in celebrating the local saints lend a truly Indian color to the Muslim practices in the sub-continent. However, the orthodox Sunni Islam has a strong tendency to build up an “ideological edifice” on the foundation of puritanical and literalist Islam which imposes a uniformity of belief and practice through the extensive network of traditional schools and colleges.
Deobandis in the contemporary Pakistan constitute the most important Muslim segment which exercises enormous control over the religious seminaries (madaris). Around 65 percent of the madaris belong to this school of thought and are the most militant in their demands for the Pakistani state to become truly Islamic -- as they would define it.
Islamic schools known as madrassahs are traditional institutions for Muslims seeking a purely religious education. In recent years many madrassahs have taught extremist doctrine in support of terrorism. In many rural communities, they are the only form of education available. The principal reasons for the phenomenal growth of the madaris (particularly Deobandi) are funnelling of the funds from Persian Gulf monarchies and particularly from Saudi Arabia. They viewed the turn of Pakistan’s politics towards the Left in the late 1960s and the early 1970s with alarm, and supported all kinds of Islamic activities with the aim of strengthening Islamic institutions and ideology as a bulwark against the Left.
In an attempt to curb the spread of extremism, the 2002 Madrassah Registration Ordinance required all madrassahs to register with one of the five independent boards (wafaqs), cease accepting foreign financing, and accept foreign students only with the consent of their government. According to the Interior Ministry, 95 percent of foreign madrassah students had departed by President Musharraf's July 2005 deadline. According to the Religious Affairs Ministry, approximately 11,000 of an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 madrassahs had registered by the end of the reporting period. This statistic was disputed by many civil society organizations and education experts.
In December 2005 President Musharraf laid out the framework for cooperative registration of madrassahs with the Government, including provision of financial and educational data and a prohibition on the teaching of sectarian or religious hatred and violence. The Government and the independent madrassah boards agreed to a phased introduction of secular subjects, including math, English, and science, at all madrassahs. The reform initially stalled due to political upheaval and jurisdictional battles within the previous government. The newly elected coalition government listed madrassah reform as a priority.
A March 2007 report indicated that unregulated, extremist madrassahs in Karachi continued to thrive in the sprawling city with a large population of young, unemployed men. International Crisis Group reported that after 5 years of trying to reform madrassahs, the Government's program had not fully succeeded, and that extremist groups were operating mosques and madrassahs in the open in Karachi and elsewhere, due to lack of consistent regulation. Despite the fact that reforms were stalled, the majority of the country's madrassahs have been registered, foreign students are now required to obtain a no-objection certificate before attending madrassah classes, and all madrassahs are required to report their finances. Additionally, the new government announced that there would be a uniform curriculum in the madrassahs, with a more secular tone to be introduced.
All wafaqs mandated the elimination of teaching that promoted religious or sectarian intolerance and terrorist or extremist recruitment at madrassahs. Inspectors mandated that affiliated madrassahs supplement religious studies with secular subjects, including English, math, and science. Wafaqs also restricted foreign private funding of madrassahs. Examination concerns remained under active discussion with the Government. Some unregistered and Deobandi-controlled madrassahs in the FATA, Karachi, and northern Baluchistan continued to teach extremism. Similarly, the Dawa schools run by Jamat-ud-Dawa continued such teaching and recruitment for Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
In July 2007 Pakistan Army and security forces launched a military operation against the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad that resulted in the deaths of 10 security force members and approximately 79 militants, including the mosque's leader. From March through June 2007, militants who took over the mosque and its adjoining girls' madrassah kidnapped brothel owners, policemen, and foreign massage parlor workers. Fighting erupted when militants fired upon security forces attempting to cordon off the mosque. The confrontation prompted the Government to renew its efforts to curb the teaching of extremism in madrassahs across the country. The Supreme Court ordered the mosque to be reopened in October 2007 and appointed new leadership. The Court also ordered the reconstruction of the madrassah on the original land and adjacent property would be used to construct an Islamic research center.
