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.
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