Dr. Ishiaq Ahmad's provocative and indispensable article

[Syed Gohar A Shah]

"Reclaiming Pakistan's Pacifist Religious Creed"

The article was published as a chapter in the book titled The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009 (Washington, DC: The Middle East Institute, July 2009).



If there is a cut-off point in the 62-year old national life of Pakistan, a country created in the name of Islam by secular Muslim leadership, it is 1979. For whatever traditionally pacifist sub-continental Islamic creed with strong Persian influence the country had retained since the partition of 1947 effectively ended that year. Since then, until the rise of al-Qaeda/Wahhabi-inspired Taliban extremism and terrorism in recent years, Pakistan has seen consistent erosion of the broadly inclusive religious tradition it had inherited from pre-independence subcontinent—a heritage in particular of the centuries-old Muslim rule under the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire.
The two epoch-making regional developments of 1979—the revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—were instrumental in conservative military leader General Ziaul Haq’s efforts to consolidate political power and institutionalize religious radicalism in the country. Pakistan’s association with the Afghan jihad during his rule and with Kashmir jihad in its aftermath strengthened radical religious tendencies in state and society. The extremist ideologies and terrorist practices of al-Qaeda and its local affiliates, especially since the start of the Afghan war in 2001, has also reinvigorate religious radicalism in the country.
The Musharraf regime was no doubt an antidote to the Zia rule, but its inherently authoritarian nature was perhaps the main hurdle in reversing the radical religious legacy of the latter. Pakistan’s current civilian democratic government does not face such limitation, and, therefore, has a unique opportunity to do what its civilian and military predecessors could not in the past couple of decades: re-institutionalize the founding ideals of the nation grounded in one of the finest statements on secularism ever made. Founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah said in is his August 11, 1947 presidential address before the Constituent Assembly:
“You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State…We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State…Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”
Pakistan’s greatest tragedy is that the last three decades negate every visionary word Jinnah uttered about the future destiny of the country on the eve of its creation. What could be more ironic than the fact that the very Islamists who had opposed the very idea of Pakistan, including Jama’at-e-Islami, have hijacked its destiny during this period, which has seen bloody Sunni-Shiite sectarianism starting in late 80s and culminating into Taliban-led suicidal terrorism at present.
The question of Sharia in Swat, Taliban sanctuaries in Waziristan, the spread of Talibanization to regions far from the country’s frontier with Afghanistan, and much more: Was it for all this that Jinnah had founded a separate homeland for the Muslims of subcontinent? His idea of Pakistan was simply that of a constitutionally secular, politically progressive, and religiously tolerant nation—one that would emulate all the attributes which had helped the Sultans and Mughals establish a benevolent Muslim reign in Hindu-majority India for several centuries before the arrival of the British.
Had Jinnah not died so early, the face of Pakistan might have been different today. For like Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey and Jawaharlal Nehru in India, he would have had enough time to the basic constitutional and structural foundations of a secular state, thereby clearing all the societal confusions about the country’s real national destiny. Consequently, even in the wake of the radical regional developments of 1979, the country might not have experienced the consistently regressive trend leading up to the current religiously-rooted terrorist quagmire.
It is true that the national context for the sudden upsurge of religious radicalism in the 80s was already there. Within a year of the death of Jinnah, the Constituent Assembly adopted the Objectives Resolution, which stated:
“Whereas sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty alone, and the authority which He has delegated to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust...Wherein the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed...Wherein the Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accord with the teaching and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Qur'an and the Sunna”
This Resolution forms a preamble to every constitution Pakistan has had, and is a direct rebuke to Jinnah’s secular vision for the country as expressed in his historic speech before the Constituent Assembly. It empowered the Islamists, reinforcing their claim to be the custodians of Pakistan as an Islamic state, and providing a legitimate excuse for neo-Taliban organizations such as Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi in Swat today to demand Sharia.
Despite this, it can be safely argued that religious radicalism remained a peripheral force in the country until the end of the 1970s. Except the anti-Ahmadi riots of the 50s, Pakistan never experienced any major instance of violence in the name of religion until the decade of the 70s, which in itself is a popular reference point for all those who have seen exclusivist dogmatic Islam overtake the traditionally pacifist Islamic creed of the country in the last 30 years. Those who have lived the 70s often recall the nightlife of Karachi, and liquor shops doing business in broad daylight across the country during those golden years. The era of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is still hailed as the last of the liberal times the people enjoyed.
However, factors such as the 1971 dismemberment of East Pakistan on the basis of ethnicity, Mr. Bhutto’s weakening power-base and deterioration in US-Pakistan ties did push the Bhutto regime to respectively play Islamic card to prevent ethnic disunity, appease the religious right and bring the country closer to Saudi Arabia. All of this may have had the unintended consequence of empowering radical Islamic forces and transforming the country’s traditionally pacifist religious creed with strong Persian/sub-continental influence into a new, potentially violent, Arabist-Wahhabist Islamist culture that has griped the entire nation in the three decades post-1979.
Reclaiming Pakistan’s pacifist religious creed may take as much time, if not more. However, an essential first step in this regard may be to immediately initiate a national debate on rethinking the country’s founding ideals in accordance with the secular vision of its founding father—the need for which is all the more clear and urgent when the very Islamic foundation of the state has become its principal weakness and a major source of religious extremism and terrorism.

Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmad has been an authority on the subject of Terrorism. He is considered one of the best scholars, on terrorism, of the world. Currently, He has been teaching at Quaid-e-azam university's International relations department and writes in many renowned national as well as international newspapers and magazines.

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Lenin said:
Terrorism is; "to terrify the masses"

Syed Gohar Altaf
M.Sc international relations.