Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Islamization in Pakistan" in English language version.
In Pakistan, 17 people are on death row for blasphemy, and dozens more have been extrajudicially murdered.
The state sponsored process of Islamisation dramatically increased sectarian divisions not only between Sunnis and Shia over the issue of the 1979 Zakat Ordinance, but also between Deobandis and Barelvis.
Zia increasingly realised that a return to the medieval prescriptions of some of the 'ulama could not serve the needs of a modern state. After 1980 he distanced himself from them, although not with respect to the persecution of the Ahmadis.
The most vulnerable of the minority communities, the Ahmadis, suffered most from the amendment of the Pakistan Penal Code. ... in 1983, when religious opponents to the slowness of the Islamisation process spread the rumour that Zia was an Ahmadi. The President was forced to deny this allegation publicly and denounce the Ahmadis as kafirs (infidels).
... following the judicial amendment of the Federal Shariat Court in February 1990, [the Blasphemy Law] carried with it a mandatory death penalty.
... the ushr and zakat taxes did not eliminate rural and urban poverty or reduce the massive inequalities in wealth which had become a traditional feature of Pakistani society.
The Ansari commission, which from 1980s onwards advised the President on uni-Islamic social conventions, recommended that women should be prohibited from leaving the country without a male escort and that unmarried, unaccompanied women should not be allowed to serve overseas in the diplomatic corps. An Islamic dress code was imposed on women in the public eye such as newsreaders and air stewardesses.
The need for stability in the strategic region of Balochistan during the Afghan war led Zia to distance himself from the sectarian conflict between the heterodox Zikri community and the `ulama. ... Significantly standing aside from the issue, Zia lent credence to critics' claim that his call for Islamisation was just a cover for his undemocratic regime rather than a genuine desire.
... Zia made Islam the centrepiece of his administration.
Zia ul-Haq is often identified as the person most responsible for turning Pakistan into a global center for political Islam. Undoubtedly, Zia went farthest in defining Pakistan as an Islamic state, and he nurtured the jihadist ideology ...
... Zia rewarded the only political party to offer him consistent support, Jamaat-e-Islami. Tens of thousands of Jamaat activists and sympathisers were given jobs in the judiciary, the civil service and other state institutions. These appointments meant Zia's Islamic agenda lived on long after he died.
The idea of Pakistan may have had its share of ambiguities, but its dismissal as a vague emotive symbol hardly illuminates the reasons as to why it received such overwhelmingly popular support among Indian Muslims, especially those in the 'minority provinces' of British India such as U.P.
As the book has demonstrated, local ML functionaries, (U.P.) ML leadership, Muslim modernists at Aligarh, the ulama and even Jinnah at times articulated their vision of Pakistan in terms of an Islamic state.
But what is undeniable is the close association he developed with the ulama, for when he died a little over a year after Pakistan was born, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, in his funeral oration, described Jinnah as the greatest Muslim after the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.
Zia ul-Haq is often identified as the person most responsible for turning Pakistan into a global center for political Islam. Undoubtedly, Zia went farthest in defining Pakistan as an Islamic state, and he nurtured the jihadist ideology ...
The social scientist, Nasim Ahmad Jawed has conducted a survey of nationalism in pre-divided Pakistan and identifies the links between religion, politics and nationalism in both wings of Pakistan. His findings are fascinating and go some way to explain the differing attitudes of West and East Pakistan to the relationship between Islam and Pakistani nationalism and how this affected the views of people in both wings, especially the views of the peoples of both wings towards each other. In 1969, Jawed conducted a survey on the type of national identity that was used by educated professional people. He found that just over 60% in the East wing professed to have a secular national identity. However, in the West wing, the same figure professed an Islamic and not a secular identity. Furthermore, the same figure in the East wing described their identity in terms of their ethnicity and not in terms of Islam. He found that the opposite was the case in the West wing where Islam was stated to be more important than ethnicity.
Because the promulgation of the Zina Ordinance entailed the abolition of Pakistan's statutory rape law, girls as young as twelve have been prosecuted for having extra-marital intercourse under circumstances that would previously have mandated statutory rape charges against their assailant.
The grave impact of that legacy was compunded by the Iranian Revolution, and Zia-ul Haq's anti-Shia policies, which added the violence and regimentation of the organization.
Many Shias in the region feel that they have been discriminated against since 1948. They claim that the Pakistani government continually gives preferences to Sunnis in business, in official positions, and in the administration of justice...The situation deteriorated sharply during the 1980s under the presidency of the tyrannical Zia-ul Haq when there were many attacks on the Shia population.
Several hundred Shiite civilians in Gilgit, Pakistan, were massacred in 1988 by Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban fighters (Raman, 2004).
Shias in the district of Gilgit were assaulted, killed and raped by an invading Sunni lashkar-armed militia-comprising thousands of jihadis from the North West Frontier Province.
In the 1940s a solid majority of the Barelvis were supporters of the Pakistan Movement and played a supporting role in its final phase (1940-7), mostly under the banner of the All-India Sunni Conference which had been founded in 1925.
For example, the Barelvi ulama supported the formation of the state of Pakistan and thought that any alliance with Hindus (such as that between the Indian National Congress and the Jamiat ulama-I-Hind [JUH]) was counterproductive.
During the 1946 election, Barelvi Ulama issued fatwas in favour of the Muslim League.
Ironically, Islamic state politics in Pakistan was mostly in favour of Deobandi, and more recently Ahl-e Hadith/Salafi, institutions. Only a few Deobandi clerics decided to support the Pakistan Movement, but they were highly influential.
General Zia became the patron of Islamization in Pakistan and for the first time in the country's history, opened the bureaucracy, the military, and various state institutions to Islamic parties
The fact that the government capitulated to the demands of the Shi'is and exempted them from zakat collection led more and more Pakistanis to declare themselves as Shi'is. This had the effect of hardening anti-Shi'i attitudes among Sunni Islamic activists. State policy therefore intensified sectarian conflict, which has since 1988 become one of the most visible religio-political axes of conflict in the country.
But President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq`s program of Islamizing Pakistan`s political, economic and social life, begun in 1979, has proved to be a divisive wedge between Sunnis and Shiites. `The government says only one code of law-the Sunni code-applies to all, and the Shiites won`t agree to it,` says Ghufar Ahmed, a member of National Assembly from the Sunni fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami Party, an influential opposition group that has spearheaded the campaign to subordinate the state to Islam.
Pakistan`s first major Shiite-Sunni riots erupted in 1983 in Karachi during the Shiite holiday of Muharram; at least 60 people were killed. More Muharram disturbances followed over the next three years, spreading to Lahore and the Baluchistan region and leaving hundreds more dead. Last July, Sunnis and Shiites, many of them armed with locally made automatic weapons, clashed in the northwestern town of Parachinar, where at least 200 died.
This was a time when the wily General Ziaul-Haq was reigning supreme ... Even though the country, at the time was covered by a ... façade of strict conservatism and ... moralistic pretence,... Ironically, it ... also propelled the gradual expansion of the country's urban middle and lower-middle-classes. And it is the youth cultures that emerged from these classes that launched the first shots of the kind of pop culture, scene and music we now call modern Pakistani pop.
The years between 1987 and 1999 constitute the golden age of Pakistani pop and rock music.
This led to violent clashes between the two sects. In 1988, after a brief calm of nearly four days, the military regime allegedly used certain militants along with local Sunnis to 'teach a lesson' to Shias, which led to hundreds of Shias and Sunnis being killed.
Now arises the question why is there so much insistence on abolishing the shari'a punishment for Zina bil Jabr? The reason for this is an extremely unjust propaganda which certain circles are busily spreading ever since the Hudood ordinance has been implemented.
The first important result of the combined efforts of the Jamāʿat-i Islāmī and the ʿulamāʿ was the passage of the Objectives Resolution in March 1949, whose formulation reflected compromise between traditionalists and modernists. The resolution embodied "the main principles on which the constitution of Pakistan is to be based." It declared that "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," that "the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed," and that "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 Qurʿan and Sunna." The Objectives Resolution has been reproduced as a preamble to the constitutions of 1956, 1962, and 1973.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)This law was amended further in 1982 as 295-B, defiling the Holy Qur'an, was added by Presidential Ordinance 1
(a) in matters pertaining to financial or future obligations, if reduced to writing, the instrument shall be attested by two men or one man and two women, so that one may remind the other, if necessary, and evidence shall be led accordingly
A revolt by the Shias of Gilgit was ruthlessly suppressed by the Zia-ul Haq regime in 1988, killing hundreds of Shias. An armed group of tribals from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, led by Osama bin Laden, was inducted by the Pakistan Army into Gilgit and adjoining areas to suppress the revolt.
Many Shias in the region feel that they have been discriminated against since 1948. They claim that the Pakistani government continually gives preferences to Sunnis in business, in official positions, and in the administration of justice...The situation deteriorated sharply during the 1980s under the presidency of the tyrannical Zia-ul Haq when there were many attacks on the Shia population. In one of the most notorious incidents, during May 1988 Sunni assailants destroyed Shia villages, forcing thousands of people to flee to Gilgit for refuge. Shia mosques were razed and about 100 people were killed
In an extraordinary turn of events, Section 295-A was used to register a blasphemy case against Muslim men for damaging a Hindu temple during riots on Ishq-e-Rasool Day.
The first important result of the combined efforts of the Jamāʿat-i Islāmī and the ʿulamāʿ was the passage of the Objectives Resolution in March 1949, whose formulation reflected compromise between traditionalists and modernists. The resolution embodied "the main principles on which the constitution of Pakistan is to be based." It declared that "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," that "the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed," and that "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 Qurʿan and Sunna." The Objectives Resolution has been reproduced as a preamble to the constitutions of 1956, 1962, and 1973.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Now arises the question why is there so much insistence on abolishing the shari'a punishment for Zina bil Jabr? The reason for this is an extremely unjust propaganda which certain circles are busily spreading ever since the Hudood ordinance has been implemented.
This law was amended further in 1982 as 295-B, defiling the Holy Qur'an, was added by Presidential Ordinance 1
Promulgated in the name of Islam, the Zina Ordinance became a tool of oppression at the hands of vengeful husbands and parents intent on punishing their wives or daughters for disobedience. ... successive governments had failed to repeal or amend the law. Whenever even small changes were proposed, religious groups and political parties staged large scale demonstrations in Pakistan