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Pakistan
Role of Islam
Pakistan has provided a unique setting for experiments in synthesizing
Islamic principles with the needs of a modern state. Although
Pakistan's independence movement was articulated in Western terminology
and centered on the right of national selfdetermination , it was
also rooted in the Islamic concept of society and of what constitutes
legitimate political authority for a Muslim. The basis of the
ideal Muslim polity is the sharia (see Glossary), the sacred law
of Islam as embodied in the Quran. Efforts to apply Quranic law
in a modern political context have had a direct impact on Pakistan's
political history and have also complicated the nation's constitutional
evolution (see Politicized Islam , ch. 2).
Data as of April 1994
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