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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Islam was brought to the South Asian subcontinent in
the
eighth century by wandering
Sufi (see Glossary)
mystics known as
pir (see Glossary).
As in other areas where it was
introduced by Sufis, Islam to some extent syncretized with
preIslamic influences, resulting in a religion traditionally
more
flexible than in the Arab world. Two Sufis whose shrines
receive
much national attention are Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore (ca.
eleventh century) and Shahbaz Qalander in Sehwan, Sindh
(ca.
twelfth century).
The Muslim poet-philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal first
proposed
the idea of a Muslim state in the subcontinent in his
address to
the Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930. His proposal
referred to
the four provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and the
NorthWest Frontier--essentially what would became the post-1971
boundary of Pakistan. Iqbal's idea gave concrete form to
the "Two
Nations Theory" of two distinct nations in the
subcontinent based
on religion (Islam and Hinduism) and with different
historical
backgrounds, social customs, cultures, and social mores.
Islam was thus the basis for the creation and the
unification
of a separate state, but it was not expected to serve as
the
model of government. Mohammad Ali Jinnah made his
commitment to
secularism in Pakistan clear in his inaugural address when
he
said, "You will find that in the 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."
This vision of a Muslim majority state in which religious
minorities would share equally in its development was
questioned
shortly after independence. The debate continued into the
1990s
amid questions of the rights of Ahmadiyyas (a small but
influential sect considered by orthodox Muslims to be
outside the
pale of Islam), issuance of identity cards denoting
religious
affiliation, and government intervention in the personal
practice
of Islam
(see Constitutional Beginnings
, ch. 1;
Islamic Provisions
, ch. 5).
Data as of April 1994
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