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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the largest and most
articulate of
Pakistan's religious parties, was founded in 1941 by
Maulana Abul
Ala Maududi as an ideological movement to promote Islamic
values
and practices in British India. It initially opposed the
Pakistan
movement, arguing that Islam was a universal religion not
subject
to national boundaries. It changed its position, however,
once
the decision was made to partition India on the basis of
religion. In 1947 Maududi redefined the JI's purpose as
the
establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan. In order to
achieve this objective, the JI believed it was necessary
to purge
the community of deviant behavior and to establish a
political
system in which decision making would be undertaken by a
few
pious people well versed in the meaning of Islam.
Maududi's
writings also gained a wide audience. He retired as head
of the
party in 1972.
In order to rid the community of what it considered to
be
deviant behavior, the JI waged a campaign in 1953 against
the
Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan that resulted in some
2,000
deaths, brought on martial law rule in Punjab, and led
Governor
General Ghulam Mohammad to dismiss the Federal Cabinet.
The antiAhmadiyya movement resulted in 1974 in a bill successfully
piloted through the National Assembly by then Prime
Minister
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto declaring the Ahmadiyyas a non-Muslim
minority.
The JI's views on Islamization and limited political
participation were opposed by those people who saw the
party's
platform as advocating religious dictatorship. The
question of
whether the JI was a political party or an organization
working
to subvert legitimate political processes was raised in
the
courts. The Supreme Court ultimately decided in favor of
the JI
as a lawful political organization. Prominent in political
life
since independence, the JI was the dominant voice for the
interests of the ulama in the debates leading to the
adoption of
Pakistan's first constitution. The JI participated in
opposition
politics from 1950 to 1977.
Under party chief Mian Tufail Muhammad, the JI
supported the
Zia regime's Islamization program, but it clashed with him
over
the 1984 decision to ban student unions because this ban
affected
the party's student wing, the Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam
(Islamic
Society of Students). The Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam had
become
increasingly militant and had been involved in clashes
with other
student groups on Pakistani campuses. Aspiring student
activists,
supportive of religious issues, have flocked to the
Jamiat-i-
Tulaba as a means of having an impact on national
politics. The
Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam also has been a major source of
new
recruits for the JI; it is thought that one-third of JI
leaders
come from the Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam. The JI envisions a
state
governed by Islamic law and opposes
Westernization--including
capitalism, socialism, and such practices as bank
interest, birth
control, and relaxed social mores.
The JI's influence has been far greater than its
showing at
the polls suggests. In 1986, for example, two JI senators
successfully piloted the controversial Shariat Bill
through the
Senate, although it did not become law at that time. In
addition,
the movement of student recruits from the
Jamiat-i-Tulaba-i-Islam
into the JI has created a new bloc of Islamist voters.
Through
the Jamiat-i-Tulaba, the JI is working to leave a
permanent mark
on the political orientation of the country's future
leaders.
However, the Pakistani electorate has been resistant to
making
religion a central factor in determining statecraft. In
1990 the
JI was an important component of the IJI but nevertheless
won
only four seats. Furthermore, in the 1993 national
elections, the
Islamization factor was even more muted because the
religious
parties--spearheaded by the JI--were not aligned with the
two
main contenders, the PML-N and the PPP. The JI and its
political
umbrella group, the Pakistan Islamic Front, captured only
three
seats in the National Assembly.
Data as of April 1994
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