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Pakistan
Politicized Islam
From the outset, politics and religion have been intertwined
both conceptually and practically in Islam. Because the Prophet
established a government in Medina, precedents of governance and
taxation exist. Through the history of Islam, from the Ummayyad
(661-750) and Abbasid empires (750-1258) to the Mughals (1526-
1858) and the Ottomans (1300-1923), religion and statehood have
been treated as one. Indeed, one of the beliefs of Islam is that
the purpose of the state is to provide an environment where Muslims
can properly practice their religion. If a leader fails in this,
the people have a right to depose him.
In 1977 the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto outlawed alcohol
and changed the "day off" from Sunday to Friday, but no substantive
Islamic reform program was implemented prior to General Zia's
Islamization program. Starting in February 1979, new penal measures
based on Islamic principles of justice went into effect. These
carried considerably greater implications for women than for men.
A welfare and taxation system based on zakat and a profit-and-loss
banking system were also established in accordance with Islamic
prohibitions against usury (see Policy Developments since Independence
, ch. 3).
Zia's Islamization program was pursued within a rather complicated
ideological framework. His stance was in contrast of the popular
culture, in which most people are "personally" very religious
but not "publicly" religious. An unexpected outcome was that by
relying on a policy grounded in Islam, the state fomented factionalism:
by legislating what is Islamic and what is not, Islam itself could
no longer provide unity because it was then being defined to exclude
previously included groups. Disputes between Sunnis and Shia,
ethnic disturbances in Karachi between Pakhtuns and muhajirs,
increased animosity toward Ahmadiyyas, and the revival of Punjab-Sindh
tensions--can all be traced to the loss of Islam as a common vocabulary
of public morality. More profoundly, in a move that reached into
every home, the state had attempted to dictate a specific ideal
image of women in Islamic society, an ideal that was largely antithetical
to that existing in popular sentiment and in everyday life.
A major component in the Islamization program, the Shariat Bill,
was passed in May 1991. This bill required that all laws in the
country conform with Islam. Women's groups in particular were
concerned that the reforms in the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance
of 1961 could be jeopardized by the new bill.
A controversial law, Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code,
drew a great deal of attention from critics associated with the
Human Rights Commission in 1993-94. Introduced in 1986 by Zia,
the law, referred to as "the blasphemy trap," states that "whoever
by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation
or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly,
defiles the sacred name of the Prophet Muhammad shall be punished
with death or imprisoned for life and shall be liable to fine."
The law extends to Muslims and nonMuslims alike, but it has been
indiscriminately used against members of minorities. According
to Amnesty International, several dozen people had been charged
under Pakistan's blasphemy laws by early 1994. In all cases, these
charges appear to have been arbitrarily brought and to have been
based on an individual's minority religious beliefs or on malicious
accusations. The current government of Benazir Bhutto, sensitive
to Pakistan's image in the world community, has attempted to approve
changes in the blasphemy law in order to "curb abuses of the law"--especially
those involving false accusations and fabricated cases. Critics
claim, however, that Benazir, constantly under attack for being
too liberal by the religious right, has been overly cautious and
slow to introduce amendments to the law.
Data as of April 1994
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