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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
From the outset, politics and religion have been
intertwined
both conceptually and practically in Islam. Because the
Prophet
established a government in Medina, precedents of
governance and
taxation exist. Through the history of Islam, from the
Ummayyad
(661-750) and Abbasid empires (750-1258) to the Mughals
(1526-
1858) and the Ottomans (1300-1923), religion and statehood
have
been treated as one. Indeed, one of the beliefs of Islam
is that
the purpose of the state is to provide an environment
where
Muslims can properly practice their religion. If a leader
fails
in this, the people have a right to depose him.
In 1977 the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto outlawed
alcohol and changed the "day off" from Sunday to Friday,
but no
substantive Islamic reform program was implemented prior
to
General Zia's Islamization program. Starting in February
1979,
new penal measures based on Islamic principles of justice
went
into effect. These carried considerably greater
implications for
women than for men. A welfare and taxation system based on
zakat and a profit-and-loss banking system were
also
established in accordance with Islamic prohibitions
against usury
(see Policy Developments since Independence
, ch. 3).
Zia's Islamization program was pursued within a rather
complicated ideological framework. His stance was in
contrast of
the popular culture, in which most people are "personally"
very
religious but not "publicly" religious. An unexpected
outcome was
that by relying on a policy grounded in Islam, the state
fomented
factionalism: by legislating what is Islamic and what is
not,
Islam itself could no longer provide unity because it was
then
being defined to exclude previously included groups.
Disputes
between Sunnis and Shia, ethnic disturbances in Karachi
between
Pakhtuns and muhajirs, increased animosity toward
Ahmadiyyas, and the revival of Punjab-Sindh tensions--can
all be
traced to the loss of Islam as a common vocabulary of
public
morality. More profoundly, in a move that reached into
every
home, the state had attempted to dictate a specific ideal
image
of women in Islamic society, an ideal that was largely
antithetical to that existing in popular sentiment and in
everyday life.
A major component in the Islamization program, the
Shariat
Bill, was passed in May 1991. This bill required that all
laws in
the country conform with Islam. Women's groups in
particular were
concerned that the reforms in the Muslim Family Laws
Ordinance of
1961 could be jeopardized by the new bill.
A controversial law, Section 295-C of the Pakistan
Penal
Code, drew a great deal of attention from critics
associated with
the Human Rights Commission in 1993-94. Introduced in 1986
by
Zia, the law, referred to as "the blasphemy trap," states
that
"whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible
representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or
insinuation,
directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the
Prophet
Muhammad shall be punished with death or imprisoned for
life and
shall be liable to fine." The law extends to Muslims and
nonMuslims alike, but it has been indiscriminately used
against
members of minorities. According to Amnesty International,
several dozen people had been charged under Pakistan's
blasphemy
laws by early 1994. In all cases, these charges appear to
have
been arbitrarily brought and to have been based on an
individual's minority religious beliefs or on malicious
accusations. The current government of Benazir Bhutto,
sensitive
to Pakistan's image in the world community, has attempted
to
approve changes in the blasphemy law in order to "curb
abuses of
the law"--especially those involving false accusations and
fabricated cases. Critics claim, however, that Benazir,
constantly under attack for being too liberal by the
religious
right, has been overly cautious and slow to introduce
amendments
to the law.
Data as of April 1994
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