Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

by Farhan Mujahid Chak

  Chronology of major political events

  xxiii

  May. Extremists conduct a systematic campaign of attacks

  and intimidation, but fail to deter the largest turnout of voters

  since 1970. Secular parties are routed.

  2013

  July – Mamnoon Hussain elected president by parliament.

  2013

  September – More than 80 people are killed in a double

  suicide bombing at a church in Peshawar. It is the deadliest

  attack so far against Christians in Pakistan, while extremists

  claim responsibility.

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  Acknowledgements

  I am eternally grateful to God, the Most Merciful and Most Compassionate,

  for His continuous guidance, support and blessings throughout my life. The

  completion of this book is simply another manifestation of His blessings that

  I could never deny. In all things, I am mindful of my Creator, and, through

  that, my responsibilities to Creation.

  I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my PhD

  supervisor Mehmet Asutay, who I endearingly refer to as ‘Agabey’. He is fine

  gentleman, a sophisticated scholar and a great friend. This achievement

  would not be possible without his genuineness, sincerity and encouragement.

  Thereafter, I wish to sincerely thank my dearest teachers, confidantes and

  guides who have assisted in the course of writing this book. Among them,

  I would like to thank Prof. Saleem M. M. Qureshi, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai,

  Dr Sayyid Saeed, Shaikh Ahmad Totonji, Professor Azzam Tamimi, Professor

  Tariq Ramadan, Professor Stephen Welch, Professor Paul Rogers and Professor

  John Esposito.

  Last, I owe an unending debt of gratitude to the wonderful, dynamic

  people of Qatar. In particular, I wish to graciously thank the love, support

  and encouragement of the eminent Shaikh Muhammad – a gem of a man, his

  entire family, especially sister ‘Umm Hamad’, and numerous other Qatari

  households who have welcomed me into their home as one of their own.

  Knock, and He’ll open the door.

  Vanish, and He’ll make you shine like the sun.

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  Fall, and He’ll raise you to the heavens.

  Become nothing, and He’ll turn you into everything.

  Rumi

  1

  Introduction

  The symbol of Islam is not the Wheel of Dharma, the Shield of David or the

  Crucifix. It is, undoubtedly, the cube of the Kaa’ba. That immovable, stable

  and enduring symbol of permanence represents the absolute character of

  Islam. If there ever was a symbol that so completely represents the spirit of Islam

  it is the Kaa’ba: perpetual certainty, or ‘permanence,’ constantly surrounded by

  the ‘impermanence’ of orbiting believers who represent both dynamism and

  flux. This, after all, sends a powerful message: life is full of change, yet we often live for those things that don’t change. Clearly, ‘meaning’ in our lives exists as a consequence of permanence – and this is precisely what comes under question

  in the modern world. 1 Contrarily, this ‘permanence’ remains the mainspring of an Islamic ethos.

  ‘Once the spirit of Islamic revelation had brought into being, out of the

  heritage of previous civilizations and through its own genius, the civilization

  that may be called distinctly “Islamic”, the main interest turned away from

  change and adaptation’. 2 Henceforth, its corresponding epistemology came to embody a ‘permanence’ premised on the ‘certainty’ of the principles from

  which they issued forth. This ‘permanence’, in fact, is far too often mistaken

  as inertia in Muslim societies. Yet, more succinctly, it reflects the unique bal-

  ance that Islamic civilization instils between enduring principles and changing

  circumstances.

  Today, many Muslim polities attempt to intelligently reconcile the twin

  forces of ‘permanence’ – thabit – and ‘change’ – mutaghayir. Relatedly, this

  reconciliation includes managing modernity and tradition. Though nowhere is

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  the problematic nature of reconciliation better exhibited than when decon-

  structing political culture in Muslim polities. It is here that the antecedents of

  political instability may be understood. Therefore, in recognition of that

  chronic, internal civilizational tussle between permanence and change, this

  book analyzes political culture to understand the roots of its ideological and

  consequential political instability. However, conclusions drawn and insights

  gained are relevant across Muslim majority countries.

  To begin with, this book thoroughly reviews the literature on political culture

  and locates, therein, constant references to the ‘core’, ‘existing meaning’,

  ‘enduring cultural component’ or ‘stock of knowledge’ in a given polity. Then

  2

  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  those unexplained terms are used to describe the essence of political culture,

  alluding to its intrinsic values. Yet that allusion is vague, since what the ‘core’

  exactly consists of, amounts to or how it may alter, is left largely undefined.

  Here we are provided a concept that is meant to do the explaining, which itself

  requires an explanation. Therefore, this book proceeds to define that ‘core’, with

  regard to Muslim polities, and labels it as the ‘foundational’ aspect of Islamic

  political culture. This, effectively, represents its deeply cherished political

  ideals, yet is only the first sphere of inquiry essential to understand the totality of political culture in Muslim polities. Specifically, understanding that totality

  involves grasping the complex interplay between the ‘core’ political ideals that

  are symbolic of permanence, the changing context in which they are evident,

  as in Pakistan, and the approach political leadership chooses to interact with

  both. In other words, understanding Islamic political culture involves three

  spheres of inquiry: ‘foundational’ (what endures or should be), ‘contextual’

  (what is) and ‘individual’ (the agent for movement), illustrated in Figure 1.1 below: Strictly speaking, the solid outer circle is the ‘foundational’ sphere of

  inquiry, which includes those patterns of behaviour, norms, and cultural

  assumptions collectively representing the core ideological and political platform

  of Islam – the ‘ideals’. In this study, it includes the Qur’anic theory of

  knowledge, the political ideals extracted from both the Qur’an and Prophetic

  sayings with, lastly, the Rashidun era. Essentially, these four variables enable

  us to extract deep-rooted political principles and set them forth as an ‘ideal

  type’. These ‘ideals’, then, are manifest not only in Muslim society in Pakistan,

  but throughout the entire Muslim world, albeit to varying degrees. Straight-

  forward to this analytical approach is the assumption that the ideals incorporated

  at the ‘foundational’ sphere of inquiry are of significant consequence, having

  a pivotal impact on the organization and direction of political life. Second,

  the criss-crossing and porous lines inside the circle, symbolic of imperm
anence,

  represent the ‘contextual’ sphere of inquiry. This pertains to the way the

  ‘foundational’ finds expression, depth and meaning, for instance in Pakistan.

  And is representative of the spread of ‘foundational’ ideals of Islam to regions

  beyond Hejaz and its consequent interfacing with divergent sociocultural

  realities. However, to limit the scope of our analysis, the time frame for our

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  Figure 1.1 Graphic representation of the requisites for political stability in Muslim

  polities, which requires a balance between the three spheres of inquiry.

  Introduction

  3

  study begins during the early twentieth century Pakistan movement, moves on

  to include its fractious constitutional development and ends with civil-military

  analysis. Third, the star in the centre, another aspect of impermanence,

  represents the individual that responds to both forces and, similarly, influences

  them in application or form.

  Collectively, these three spheres of inquiry comprise the composite Islamic

  political culture and coexist simultaneously. The ‘core’ values, the manner in

  which they find expression in space-time and the agent for movement directly

  impact its manifestation. Therefore, any analysis focusing singularly on one

  sphere of inquiry would be deficient in revealing its totality. Consequently, this

  trilateral approach is intended to shun simplistic analyses, and is calculated to

  offer a careful framework – without dissociating the inquiry from its sociological

  context. 3 Furthermore, this approach disqualifies both the portrayal of a monolithic Islamic political culture across spatial and temporal bounds, to a

  degree defying empirical realities, and those who insist of there being no

  commonality across Islamdom.

  This triangular relationship lies at the heart of understanding Islamic political

  culture and produces three variant political cultures – namely, ‘traditionalist’,

  ‘secularist’ and ‘revivalist’. More clearly, the differing manner in which ‘indivi-

  dual’ political leaders in their ‘context’, such as Pakistan, choose to interact

  with the ‘foundational’ produces them. This interaction, however, is, largely,

  antagonistic, not solely as a result of their diverse understandings, but also by

  competing for control of the centres of power. As a result, the conflict

  between these variant political cultures contributes towards ideological and

  political instability. Yet the ‘revivalist’ political-culture type manages this rivalry by both a restraining influence and cohesiveness that resolves issues of

  instability insomuch as it hinders development, progress and direction.

  Here, this study proceeds to take into consideration two pioneering figures

  of the Pakistan movement, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Muhammad Iqbal. It

  closely examines and characterizes them as ‘revivalists’ who expressed a vision

  that resonated or connected with their people. Resultantly, they succeeded in

  fostering unity, amidst diversity, towards a common directive. Not only did

  they balance the ‘core’ values of their society with their present-day realities,

  but understood power as meaningless without popular support. Accordingly,

  their narrative was rooted in the sensibilities of their context, based on

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  established tradition, ongoing through the process of enculturation.

  Furthermore, both Jinnah and Iqbal may be portrayed as ‘revivalists’, or

  harbingers of a new ‘asabiyya’, by the manner in which they responded to the

  challenges of their time. 4 That included a clear vision for the future rooted in an appreciation of their cultural and religious past, though not necessarily

  bound by it. Granted, these leaders were competing and contesting dissimilar

  meanings held by ‘traditionalists’ – who were unable or unwilling to synthesise

  Islamic ideals with the idea of the nation-state, or ‘secularists’ who did not

  recognize the importance of Islam in their political narrative. Admittedly, the

  depiction of both Jinnah and Iqbal as ‘revivalists’ may be disputed. Indeed,

  4

  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  today in Pakistan it is a hotly contested issue. Yet what is undeniable is that

  they both chose to not ‘disconnect’ in idea, word or deed, from either the

  historiography – which ‘secularists’ often ignore – or the contemporariness –

  which ‘traditionalists’ often ignore – of their society. Fittingly, they prevented

  delegitimizing themselves in the eyes of their people and succeeded in galva-

  nizing an ethnically diverse mass into a cohesive unit. This, too, irrespective

  of opposition from the traditionalists and secularists, both of whom opposed

  an independent homeland for Muslims. Taking that into account, what has

  popularly been referred to as the ‘Arab Spring’ is simply, another manifestation

  of ‘revivalists’ securing the support of the majority of people in Muslim polities

  and seizing their rightful place at the helm of socio-economic, cultural and

  political affairs. This, too, in spite of resentment and resistance by secularists and traditionalists, who, disregarding lip service, tend to be wary of democratization.

  In total, this book critiques the concept of political culture and offers an

  alternative methodology to explain Islamic political culture. As such, it begins

  by analysing the early foundational mores of an Islamic polity based on four

  variables: its epistemic tradition, the Qur’an, Prophetic sayings and Rashidun

  era. Together, this leads to the analytical formation of the ‘foundational’ sphere

  of inquiry, the first explanatory variable. Then it places that in the context of

  Pakistan and assesses how individuals interact with it. By doing so, this study

  reveals the development of competing political cultures, with their own

  understandings and trajectories, whose interaction broadens ideological and

  political instability.

  Concerning the archetype of the early foundational mores, this book does

  not merely propose to reiterate the early Islamic era as the ideal and the eras

  following as mere efforts to reach or catch up. Instead, there is a reinvention

  of that ‘ideal’ relevant to the context in which it arises, which disqualifies any

  contradiction towards the foundational insomuch as it seeks to garner legitimacy.

  Certainly, for one to ‘catch up’ to an ideal it must, from the onset, be accepted

  as the benchmark to achieve. For that reason, this study insists ‘ideals’ exist as a consequence of principles espoused by its epistemic tradition and enculturation. 5

  The challenge, then, is to create it anew, acknowledging that renewal is not

  linear, in that there needs to be a return to a specific ideal thought to exist in

  the past. Utopia is not, necessarily, mimicking of bygone days, or to put it

  plainly ‘going back in time to an idealized past’. Nor does it require viewing

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  the world as the source of ills and conflicts, and not humans, and by doing so

  making human life expendable. 6 Yet the ‘ideal’ does exist in any society with regard to its ethical, socio-ec
onomic and political direction. Thus, ‘foundational’

  mores cannot be ignored, nor can present conditions. In essence, it is this

  creative articulation of enduring principles and its present-day application

  that the ‘revivalist’ in Muslim polities wishes to realize, the ‘traditionalists’

  wish to resist and the ‘secularists’ wish to deny.

  Subsequent efforts, throughout Muslim history, to create such ‘utopias’

  were the responsibility of ‘revivalists’ in which they, per se, aim to actualize its substance, or maqasid, rather than merely its form. 7 In our analysis, the

  Introduction

  5

  ‘revivalists’ in Muslim polities do so by responding to challenges with a solution

  that steers away from both the ‘traditionalist’ and ‘secularist.’ Both largely

  understand Islam as a monolithic and unchanging dispensation, albeit for

  their own reasons. 8 It is undeniable that early schisms existed in Islam, as they persist today. Nevertheless, the ‘revivalist’ aims at recognizing the strength

  and wisdom of diversity – a diversity that includes different ideas and colours,

  unusual beliefs and devotion, dissimilar languages and race. Truly, appreciating

  diversity is recognizing all those differences, still maintaining convergence of

  purpose, even while insisting on differing methods and then, lastly, trusting

  that ‘God knows best’.

  It may be noted that this high classicalism is similar to other religio-political

  ideals, as well, if one looks at Jewish history or the classical Hindu age in

  India, now being idealised amongst the Hindutva proponents. Often such

  ‘utopianism’ may be, as John Gray says, based on millenarianism, which is

  not unique to Abrahamic traditions but equally shared by communists and

  other such trajectories. 9 The ‘nostalgia’ exhibited by some contemporary American scholars, bemoaning their crisis, follows a similar design. Though

  the idea of ‘utopianism’ in Muslim society is distinct – at least from Gray’s

  description, which labels society, not humans, as responsible for societal ills.

  Humans, in Islamic tenets, are described as God’s vicegerents on earth, with a

  responsibility to work together to achieve a synthesis between the foundational,