Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

by Farhan Mujahid Chak

contextual and individual. By doing so, they actualize justice. In other words,

  each generation will have its own utopia that in substance correlates to its

  ‘foundational’ mores, even while the form may differ. The stability of Muslim

  polities resides in the ability of their leadership to understand the twin aspects

  of ‘permanence’ and ‘change,’ and articulate a healthy balance of the principle

  while recognizing that it differs in application according to context. The

  Muslim polity that is able to project this equilibrium achieves stability, progress

  and widespread acceptance.

  Thus Pakistan was conceived as an ‘ideal’, a ‘Model Islamic State’, and its

  internal ideological fissures, as a result of the clash between traditionalists and

  secularists, along with military-civic/political dichotomies, only aggravated

  the issues of governance, as well as often hindering civil society. Therefore,

  these are the questions we are asking: What is political culture? How is it

  effectively described in Muslim polities? What is its existing stock of knowledge,

  Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  core, or its inherited meaning? What attitudes toward governance are

  encouraged in Islam? How are these exemplified in Pakistan? The task seems

  daunting, yet in Pakistan the broad-based ideals as stipulated by Islam provide

  a good starting point for analysis of a people’s outlook toward governance.

  Research design, strategy and method

  ‘For those who see only with their eyes, the distant is always indistinct and

  little, becoming less and less as it recedes, till utterly lost; but to the imagi-

  nation, which thus reverses the perspective of the senses, the far off is great

  6

  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  and imposing, the magnitude increasing with the distance’. 10 Creative ingenuity is often the act or process of forming a conscious idea of something never

  previously perceived for the impetus of artistic or intellectual design. Similarly,

  in scholarly environs, the potency of the intellectual rests in the ability to

  grasp, with the mind’s eye, a myriad of realities, from differing perspectives

  and clearly convey this to others. However, a positivist approach to research

  and observation is the antithesis of this rendering of the enlightened scholar.

  The ‘scientification’ of the social sciences by positivism proposes analyses of

  social phenomena with a mentality corresponding to the physicist. Cox suggests

  ‘by positivism I mean the effort to conceive social science on the model of

  physics … before it has assimilated the principles of relativity and uncer-

  tainty’. 11 It fails, then, due to its incapacity to reflect on its own complicity and ‘recognize its embeddedness in social and political life and its contribution

  to the prevailing order of things by accepting this order as its framework’. 12

  Therefore, the astute researcher discards this analytical approach for a theore-

  tical framework of analysis that considers intersubjective meanings, inwardness,

  and cultural subtleties. Broadly speaking, this is what is meant by cultural

  analysis: to determine the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of a particular

  society; to put aside our convictions of what is desirable and assess what the

  society under investigation considers significant. The task requires stepping

  out of one’s own mindset to view the ‘other’ not through one’s own lens but

  through his. Thus, in formulating a fitting research design, strategy and

  method for this book, the foregoing theoretical issues were taken into

  account. Accordingly, this book utilizes a qualitative research methodology,

  which includes discursive interpretation, abductive research strategy and critical

  discourse analysis.

  To begin with, the methodology of this study is qualitative, involving an

  interpretative, naturalistic approach to the concept of political culture and how

  it relates to ideological and political instability in Pakistan. This methodology

  draws the researcher into the phenomenological complexity of participants’

  worlds where situations unfold, and connections, causes and correlations can

  be observed as they occur over time.13 It implies a study of phenomenon in their natural settings and attempts to interpret events in terms of the meanings

  people bring to them. Therefore, this research methodology examines people’s

  words and actions in ‘narrative or descriptive ways more closely representing

  Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  the situation as experienced by participants’.14

  In addition, the research design in this study involves discursive interpretation.

  This form of interpretation is most pronounced in its opposition to positivism

  and absolute universal truisms.15 It emphasizes the importance of the context in which interaction, political or otherwise, takes place, stating that this is

  critical for accurate analysis. Rather than assume that data collected in one

  context can be generalised beyond it, discursive interpretation and analyses

  focus on ways in which people make sense of their interaction, of themselves

  or their own mental states in that context. 16 In other words, discursive interpretation explores how ‘the ways in which we come to talk about and account

  Introduction

  7

  for our own mental states actually provide the resources for managing and

  experiencing the world and our own mental states’.17

  Moving on from that, this study utilizes an abductive research strategy that

  focuses on Pakistan. An abductive research strategy has often been described

  as ‘inductive’; yet this largely misrepresents the complexity of the analytical task involved. Paralleling the inductive research strategy, it begins by observing the

  social world and the social actors under investigation. However, the abductive

  research strategy emphasizes the social actors’ construction of reality, their

  ways of conceptualizing and giving meaning to their social world, their tacit

  knowledge.18 This can only be accurately discovered from the accounts that the social actors provide. The reality of the social actors under investigation, the

  method and manner in which they have constructed and interpreted their own

  activities, is embedded in their discourse. Hence, the researcher has to enter

  their world in order to discover the motives and reasons that accompany

  social activities. ‘The task, then, is to re-describe these motives and actions, and the situations in which they occur … Individual motives and actions have to be

  abstracted into typical motives for typical actions in typical situations. These

  social scientific typifications provide an understanding of the activities and

  may, then, become ingredients in more systematic explanatory accounts’.19

  Clearly, the abductive research strategy is based on interpretation and

  understanding, utilizing interpretive ontological and epistemological elements

  such as critical theory. Such a strategy involves constructing a theory that is

  derived from social actors’ language, meanings and theories, or is grounded in

  everyday activities. Abduction is the process used to produce social scientific

  accounts of social life by drawing on the concepts and meanings used by

  social act
ors, and the activities in which they engage. According to Reichertz,

  its particular strength is it being both logical and innovative in its research

  strategy. On the one hand it is a logical inference and, thereby, reasonable and

  scientific; on the other hand, it extends into the realm of profound insight and

  therefore generates new knowledge.20

  Lastly, in this book, the research method utilized involves critical discourse

  analysis for secondary data and interviews for primary data. Critical discourse

  analysis employs interdisciplinary techniques of text analysis to look at how

  texts construct representations of the world, social identities and social rela-

  tionships.21 In addition, critical discourse analysis refers to the use of various Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  procedures for the study of textual practice and language use as social and

  cultural practices.22 Overall, critical discourse analysis builds from three broad theoretical orientations:

  First, it draws from post-structuralism the view that discourse operates

  laterally across local institutional sites, and that texts have a constructive

  function in forming up and shaping human identities and actions.

  Second, it draws from Bourdieu’s sociology the assumption that actual

  textual practices and interactions with texts become ‘embodied’ forms of

  ‘cultural capital’ with exchange value in particular social fields.23 Third, it

  8

  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  draws from neo-Marxist cultural theory the assumption that these dis-

  courses are produced and used within political economies, and that they

  thus produce and articulate broader ideological interests, social formations

  and movements within those fields. 24

  The presupposition of critical discourse analysis is that institutions or individuals teaching texts such as the Qur’an, Prophetic sayings and written or oral accounts

  of the Rashidun era act as gatekeepers for mastery of these expansive resources. In

  other words, they shape the ideological fabric of the listener or reader and incul-

  cate certain ‘ideals’. With that thought, it may be argued that the Qur’an itself is a sort of institution that sets forth a mechanism towards acquiring knowledge,

  imparting certain values, beliefs and ‘ideals’ and, consequently, which governs

  relations between individuals pertinent to political life. Nonetheless, the task of

  critical discourse analysis is both deconstructive and reconstructive. In its

  deconstructive moment it aims to elucidate those principles, ideology and

  insights pertinent to the political realm, outlining the parameters of power rela-

  tions in everyday life. On the other hand, its reconstructive moment involves the

  formulation of a coherent understanding of what those political principles imply.

  More clearly, the principal unit of analysis for critical discourse analysis is the

  text. Texts are taken to be social actions, meaningful and coherent instances of

  spoken and written language use.25 Yet their shape and form is not random or arbitrary. Specific text types or ‘genres’, as Luke refers to them, serve conventional social uses and functions. That is, particular kinds of texts attempt

  to ‘do things’ in social institutions, with predictable ideational and material

  effects.26 This, precisely, is what the Qur’an, Prophetic sayings and Rashidun era attempt to do. In that regard, these sources of legitimacy in Muslim

  society, even though immutable, are still dynamic and continually subject to

  reinvention by being affiliated with particular conventionalised discourses as a

  part of its civilizational directive.

  This study of subject positions of the text, such as the Qur’an, has focused on

  selective traditions of political principles or ‘ideals’ of governance. In addition to describing the cultural assumptions expressed in the text macrostructure, analysis

  can describe particular epistemological directives and attitudes towards the

  acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. In this study, this inclusion of

  epistemology was precisely because of it being expressed in the textual macro-

  Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  structure and has the ideological effect of instilling a certain preference in the

  manner in which one approaches knowledge. Thus, critical discourse analysis

  can document how the world is portrayed as in Qur’anic epistemology and

  how political actions are represented, sanctioned and critiqued in the Qur’an,

  Prophetic sayings and Rashidun era.

  Motivation for this book

  The manner in which contemporary society chooses to interact with the

  ‘Other’ will be shaped by the outcome of an edgy struggle between advocates

  Introduction

  9

  of a ‘Clash’ or ‘Dialogue’ of civilizations. The champions of ‘dialogue’ aim at

  ending notions of exclusivity, an ‘us and them’ mentality, and the singular,

  uncompromising possession of ‘Truth’. By acknowledging diversity in society as

  a blessing, not an aberration, a healthy mindset develops, which aims to work

  together under mutually agreed frameworks. Actually, the fate of our modern

  world rests in a ‘balance of culture’, a harmony among the different peoples,

  neither suffocating dissent nor encouraging absolute relativism.27 And this becomes increasingly important as the ‘world is moving toward a civilizational

  paradigm’ and our attitudes toward the ‘other’ will affect the very fabric of

  the coming era. 28

  Therefore, in recognition of that thinking, a new platform for a Dialogue of

  Civilizations offers an alternative to a fearful, violent and exclusivist world

  order.29 Reputable international personalities like the late Vaclav Havel, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the late Nelson Mandela,

  Prince Charles of Great Britain, and Hamza Yusuf, Tariq Ramadan, Sayyid

  Syeed and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have been pushing, in their own ways,

  for precisely this kind of dialogue. Clearly, for people of good will the idea of

  dialogue lies at the heart of the human condition with the need to reach out

  in our shared space. For Muslims, the concept of dialogue is ‘foundational’ in

  Muslim ‘sources of legitimacy’. In the Holy Qur’an, God mentions that He

  ‘created the different nations and tribes so that they may know one another’.30

  Also, it is mentioned in the Qur’an that ‘among His signs is the creation of

  the heavens and earth and the differences of your languages and colours’. 31

  Of course, ‘signs’ are meant to remind us of His Magnificence and Majesty,

  not turn us scornfully away. In this book, the analysis aims to recognize that

  attitude towards diversity as wholeheartedly supported by the authentic

  ‘sources of legitimacy’ in Islam.

  In its place, there are those who insist that a ‘clash’ between civilizations

  is inevitable and proffer a caricatured image of Islam as their justification. It is here that the ostensible conflict between ‘Islam’ and the ‘West’ is presented

  as a continuation of a historically threatening Islamic civilization. 32 Yet this menacing depiction that paints Muslims as the monolithic ‘Other’ and the

  exact opposite of ‘us’ is unsophisticated. Huntington, in his contentious literary

  work The Clash of Civilizations
, encourages a renewal of the derogatory

  ‘other’. His hypothesis is that ‘civilizational identity’ will provide the impetus

  Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  for conflicts in the contemporary world. Among several civilizations, ‘Islam and

  the West’ receives the lion’s share of his attention. Unfortunately, simplification

  of enormous entities such as ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ are brazenly utilized

  without much regard for thoughtful analysis. Certainly, he does not have

  ‘much time to spare for internal dynamics and the plurality of every civilization,

  or for the fact that the major contest in most modern cultures concerns the

  definition or interpretation of each culture, or for the unattractive possibility

  that a great deal of demagoguery and downright ignorance is involved in

  presuming to speak for a whole religion or civilization’.33 Similarly, he tries to make ‘civilizations’ and ‘identities’ into sealed-off, shutdown, and impermeable

  10

  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  entities that have been purged of the countless currents and counter-currents

  that animate human history. These historical currents contain imperial con-

  quests as well as exchange. Hence, it may be convenient to ignore factors that

  promote dialogue between civilizations, but it is not rigorous scholarship to

  do so. Labels like ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ are often misleading and this shabby

  form of compartmentalization ‘doesn’t make the supposed entities easier to

  see; rather, it speaks to how much simpler it is to make bellicose statements

  for the purpose of mobilizing collective passions than to reflect, examine, and

  sort out what it is we are dealing with in reality; the interconnectedness of

  innumerable lives, “ours” as well as “theirs”’. 34

  By craftily calling for the United States and European countries to ‘achieve

  greater political, economic, and military integration … encourage “Westernisa-

  tion” of Latin America … restrain development of the conventional and uncon-

  ventional military power of Islamic and Sinic countries … and maintain Western

  technological and military superiority over other civilizations,’ Huntington’s for-