Pakistan
and
Islamic Militancy in South Asia
Pakistan and Islamic Militancy in South Asia
by
Syed Ramsey
Alpha Editions
Copyright 2017
ISBN : 9789386367433
Design and Setting By
Alpha Editions
email - alphaedis@gmail.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The views and characters expressed in the book are of the author and his/her imagination and do not represent the views of the Publisher.
Contents
Preface
1. Pakistan and Islam
2. Islamic Militancy
3. Criticism of Islamic Terrorist Ideology
4. Pakistans Military Organizations
5. Islamic Militancy in Pakistan and South Asia
6. Islam Movement in South Asia
7. Islamic Terrorism and Pakistani Intelligence Agency in South Asia
8. The Islamic Doctrine of Jihad in South Asia
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Islamic militancy is going on in many parts of the world notable among which are Palestine, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir and parts of Central Asia. However, what is surprising to many people is that secular institutions and Western countries also produce Islamic militants.
As the nation deemed to be the South Asian homeland for Muslims, Pakistan is the second largest Muslim nation in the world, with 97 percent of its population practicing Islam. Within the Muslim population, around 75 percent are Sunnis and 25 percent are Shias. Since independence in 1947, debates surrounding the relationship between Islam and the state remain unresolved; various religious-minded political parties continue to push forcefully for the establishment of a true Islamic state.
The nations gradual Islamization since the 1970s has neither been fast enough nor comprehensive enough for many of them. Islamists are themselves deeply divided, however, between those groups that want to continue working through the existing political system and those that reject its legitimacy. Since 2001, radial Islamist politics has increasingly intersected with and grafted itself upon tribal, regional and class grievances against the Pakistani state. All the matter is just compiled and edited in nature.
This book contains the fundamental and basic information of the subject and is useful for teachers, students and researchers.
Editor
ligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Quran and the Sunnathe sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Precedents and analogy applied by Muslim scholars are used to address new issues. The consensus of the Muslim community also plays a role in defining this theological manual. Sharia developed several hundred years after the Prophet Mohammeds death in 632 CE as the Islamic empire expanded to the edge of North Africa in the West and to China in the East. Since the Prophet Mohammed was considered the most pious of all believers, his life and ways became a model for all other Muslims and were collected by scholars into what is known as the hadith. As each locality tried to reconcile local customs and Islam, hadith literature grew and developed into distinct schools of Islamic thought: the Sunni schools, Hanbali, Maliki, Shafii, Hanafi; and the Shiite school, Jafari. Named after the scholars that inspired them, they differ in the weight each applies to the sources from which sharia is derived, the Quran, hadith, Islamic scholars, and consensus of the community. The Hanbali school, known for following the most Orthodox form of Islam, is embraced in Saudi Arabia and by the Taliban. The Hanafi school, known for being the most liberal and the most focused on reason and analogy, is dominant among Sunnis in Central Asia, Egypt, Pakistan, India, China, Turkey, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. The Maliki school is dominant in North Africa and the Shafii school in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and Yemen. Shia Muslims follow the Jafari school, most notably in Shia-dominant Iran. The distinctions have more impact on the legal systems in each country, however, than on individual Muslims, as many do not adhere to one school in their personal lives.
Controversy: Punishment and Equality under Sharia
Marriage and divorce are the most significant aspects of sharia, but criminal law is the most controversial. In sharia, there are categories of offences: those that are prescribed a specific punishment in the Quran, known as hadd punishments, those that fall under a judges discretion, and those resolved through a tit-for-tat measure (i.e., blood money paid to the family of a murder victim). There are five hadd crimes: unlawful sexual intercourse (sex outside of marriage and adultery), false accusation of unlawful sexual intercourse, wine drinking (sometimes extended to include all alcohol drinking), theft, and highway robbery. Punishments for hadd offencesflogging, stoning, amputation, exile, or executionget a significant amount of media attention when they occur. These sentences are not often prescribed, however. In reality, most Muslim countries do not use traditional classical Islamic punishments, says Ali Mazrui of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies in a Voice of America interview. These punishments remain on the books in some countries but lesser penalties are often considered sufficient.
Despite official reluctance to use hadd punishments, vigilante justice still takes place. Honour killings, murders committed in retaliation for bringing dishonour on ones family, are a worldwide problem. While precise statistics are scarce, the UN estimates thousands of women are killed annually in the name of family honour (National Geographic). Other practices that are woven into the sharia debate, such as female genital mutilation, adolescent marriages, polygamy, and gender-biased inheritance rules, elicit as much controversy. There is significant debate over what the Quran sanctions and what practices were pulled from local customs and predate Islam.
Those that seek to eliminate or at least modify these controversial practices cite the religious tenet of tajdid. The concept is one of renewal, where Islamic society must be reformed constantly to keep it in its purest form. With the passage of time and changing circumstances since traditional classical jurisprudence was founded, peoples problems have changed and conversely, there must be new thought to address these changes and events, says Dr. Abdul Fatah Idris, head of the comparative jurisprudence department at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Though many scholars share this line of thought, there are those who consider the purest form of Islam to be the one practiced in the seventh century.
Sharia vs. Secularism
In a 2007 University of Maryland poll, more than 60 percent of the populations in Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and Indonesia responded that democracy was a good way to govern their respective countries, while at the same time, an average of 71 percent agreed with requiring strict application of [sharia] law in every Islamic country. Whether democracy and Islam can coexist is a topic of heated debate. Some Islamists argue democracy is a purely Western concept imposed on Muslim countries. Others feel Islam necessitates a democratic system and that democracy has a basis in the Quran since mutual consultation among the people is commended (42:38 Quran). John L. Esposito and John O. Voll explain the debate in a 2001 article in the journal Humanities
