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Pakistan
Jamaat-i-Islami
The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the largest and most articulate of
Pakistan's religious parties, was founded in 1941 by Maulana Abul
Ala Maududi as an ideological movement to promote Islamic values
and practices in British India. It initially opposed the Pakistan
movement, arguing that Islam was a universal religion not subject
to national boundaries. It changed its position, however, once
the decision was made to partition India on the basis of religion.
In 1947 Maududi redefined the JI's purpose as the establishment
of an Islamic state in Pakistan. In order to achieve this objective,
the JI believed it was necessary to purge the community of deviant
behavior and to establish a political system in which decision
making would be undertaken by a few pious people well versed in
the meaning of Islam. Maududi's writings also gained a wide audience.
He retired as head of the party in 1972.
In order to rid the community of what it considered to be deviant
behavior, the JI waged a campaign in 1953 against the Ahmadiyya
community in Pakistan that resulted in some 2,000 deaths, brought
on martial law rule in Punjab, and led Governor General Ghulam
Mohammad to dismiss the Federal Cabinet. The antiAhmadiyya movement
resulted in 1974 in a bill successfully piloted through the National
Assembly by then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto declaring
the Ahmadiyyas a non-Muslim minority.
The JI's views on Islamization and limited political participation
were opposed by those people who saw the party's platform as advocating
religious dictatorship. The question of whether the JI was a political
party or an organization working to subvert legitimate political
processes was raised in the courts. The Supreme Court ultimately
decided in favor of the JI as a lawful political organization.
Prominent in political life since independence, the JI was the
dominant voice for the interests of the ulama in the debates leading
to the adoption of Pakistan's first constitution. The JI participated
in opposition politics from 1950 to 1977.
Under party chief Mian Tufail Muhammad, the JI supported the
Zia regime's Islamization program, but it clashed with him over
the 1984 decision to ban student unions because this ban affected
the party's student wing, the Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam (Islamic
Society of Students). The Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam had become increasingly
militant and had been involved in clashes with other student groups
on Pakistani campuses. Aspiring student activists, supportive
of religious issues, have flocked to the Jamiat-i- Tulaba as a
means of having an impact on national politics. The Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam
also has been a major source of new recruits for the JI; it is
thought that one-third of JI leaders come from the Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam.
The JI envisions a state governed by Islamic law and opposes Westernization--including
capitalism, socialism, and such practices as bank interest, birth
control, and relaxed social mores.
The JI's influence has been far greater than its showing at the
polls suggests. In 1986, for example, two JI senators successfully
piloted the controversial Shariat Bill through the Senate, although
it did not become law at that time. In addition, the movement
of student recruits from the Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam into the
JI has created a new bloc of Islamist voters. Through the Jamiat-i-Tulaba,
the JI is working to leave a permanent mark on the political orientation
of the country's future leaders. However, the Pakistani electorate
has been resistant to making religion a central factor in determining
statecraft. In 1990 the JI was an important component of the IJI
but nevertheless won only four seats. Furthermore, in the 1993
national elections, the Islamization factor was even more muted
because the religious parties--spearheaded by the JI--were not
aligned with the two main contenders, the PML-N and the PPP. The
JI and its political umbrella group, the Pakistan Islamic Front,
captured only three seats in the National Assembly.
Data as of April 1994
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