Today's world offers us many examples of the explosive mixture of religion and politics: in places like Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Sudan, religious minorities are engaged in a violent struggle against what they see as systematic discrimination by the authorities. But not all situations where religious minorities try to assert their identity lead to violent conflict. Pakistan is a case in point.
Pakistan's raison-d'être is its religion. The country was created to provide a haven for the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent, in order to avoid dominance by the Hindu majority. However, Pakistan has always had religious minorities of its own. This article outlines the - sometimes tense - relationship between the Pakistan government and the religious minorities in the country.
Nazeem is a Muslim. At least, she thinks of herself as a Muslim. But the government of Pakistan has declared her non-Muslim and member of a religious minority.
(note...)Nazeem is an Ahmeddin, a follower of Ahmed, a 19th century Indian Muslim who claimed to be the Prophet that succeeded Islam's one-and-only Prophet, Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him). Although this is a serious deviation from Islamic orthodoxy, for decades Ahmeddins (or Quadianis) were seen as just one of many sects within Islam. But following serious outbreaks of violence in 1953 and 1974, Muslim leaders in Pakistan called for the ousting of the Ahmeddins. As a result, the Pakistani government amended its brand new constitution to include Ahmeddins in the list of non-Muslim minorities.
The authorities in Saudi Arabia adopted the same position. This means that Nazeem, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, can neither visit her family in the country, nor ever visit the holy sites in that country. She can therefore never fulfil one of the five duties of every Muslim: the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hadj).
The case of the Ahmeddins is not unique. At present, Muslim leaders in Pakistan are aiming their criticism at the small Zikree sect in Balochistan province. At the same time, the Fiqqah-e-Jafferiya sect is under threat of being declared non-Muslim. And, more ominously, the country is being plagued by violence between the two main sects in Islam, the Sunnis and Shiites. Sunni-Shiite sectarian bombings and shootings have claimed dozens of lives this year.
Pakistan has always had a rather tense relationship with its religious minorities. The very reason for the creation of the country 50 years ago, was that the Muslims of India felt that they weren't just a religious minority in the country but that they constituted a separate nation, with its own legal, ethical, artistic and historical identity. The partitioning of British India and the creation of the new states of India (Hindustan) and Pakistan was accompanied by an enormous wave of "ethnic cleansing" in both countries. Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims killed and raped each-other on an unprecedented scale, while millions of people fled from one country to the other: Indian Muslims to Pakistan and Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs to India.
But this does not mean that present-day Pakistan is a 100% Muslim country. Christians, Hindus, Parsi, Sikhs, Buddhists, Baha'i and Ahmeddins make up around 2% of the population. They often are the poorest people in the country.
The founding father of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, resisted Ullama pressure and declared Pakistan a secular state. In his famous first address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in August 1947 he said:
"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of 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."
However, the 1973 Constitution declared that "Islam shall be the state religion of Pakistan" and changed the name of the country into Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The Constitution also gives a definition of Muslims and non-Muslims.1 Under the regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, Islamic courts were set up and several laws were adopted making it punishable to defile the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Separate electoral systems were set up for Muslims and non- Muslims and religion became a mention on people's identity cards.
In itself, the efforts of recent governments to islamise the state are not a problem for most Pakistanis, including non-Muslims. A state which is run on the Islamic principles of justice, peace, tolerance, tranquility and social well-being is acceptable to the vast majority of people. The issue is whether the state should be a theocracy, ie. run by (Islamic) religious leaders and, if so, which interpretation of the Quran and Sunna will be dominant. Many Pakistanis wonder whether a theocracy can at the same time be a liberal democracy, guaranteeing the rights of minority groups?
But maybe the issue is not the Islamic nature of the state. Maybe what is important is the identity of Pakistan as a nation. Because of its enormous ethnic and cultural diversity, and because of the country's history, being "Pakistani" has often meant being Muslim. It was thought that, despite their differences, the one thing all Pakistanis have in common, is their religion. Hence the genuine confusion when people who are not Muslim say that they are Pakistani. If you are Christian, then why do you want to live in a Muslim state? Love it or leave it, Islam included.
It seems that, rather than willfully plotting the oppression of minority religions, Pakistan's leaders simply are overlooking the importance of civil and minority rights in their efforts to build a nation out of diversity. To date, the rights of ordinary Pakistanis - Muslim and non-Muslim - are often violated by police, employers and husbands. Pakistan's huge and rapidly growing population is extremely poor and badly educated. The country is struggling with poverty, rising crime rates, communal violence, pollution, corruption and - on top of that - a form of identity crisis. A situation in which many countries have proved good breeding grounds for less liberal political philosophies.
In the end, the question is not whether Pakistan should be an Islamic state or not, or whether an Islamic state can tolerate religious minorities. The question is whether the country can withstand pressures to look for scape-goats and whether the state, Islamic or otherwise, can bring about justice, peace, and social-economic development for all.
