Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

by Farhan Mujahid Chak

  sequently, those descriptive terms are used to explain the essence of political

  culture, alluding to its political values. However, that allusion is misleading,

  since what the ‘core’ precisely consists of, amounts to or how it may alter is

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  left largely undefined. Therefore, this study proceeded to define that ‘core’, in

  regards to Muslim polities, and labelled it as the ‘foundational’ aspect of Islamic

  political culture. More clearly, the ‘foundational’ represents those aspects of

  permanence in Islamic political culture and consists of deeply cherished political

  ideals. Yet this articulation is only the first sphere of inquiry essential to

  understand the complexity of Islamic political culture in Muslim polities.

  Specifically, understanding it involves three spheres of inquiry: ‘foundational’

  (what endures or should be), ‘contextual ’ (what is) and ‘individual ’ (the agent

  for movement).

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  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  These three spheres of inquiry are engaged in an ongoing triangular relation-

  ship. In other words, this interplay involves the ‘foundational ’ political values – or,

  ‘the ideals’; the ‘contextual ’ in which those political values find depth, meaning

  and expression, as in Pakistan – ‘the real’; and the ‘individual ’ by the method and manner that political leadership chooses to interact with both the ‘foundational’

  and ‘contextual’.

  The differing method and manner in which ‘individual’ political leaders, choose

  to interact with the ‘foundational’ produces three variant political cultures:

  ‘traditionalist’, ‘secularist’ and ‘revivalist’. Amongst these variant political

  culture types, both the ‘traditionalist’ and ‘secularist’ methods of interaction

  are unable to achieve equilibrium. As a result, they both contribute towards

  ideological and political instability. On the other hand, the ‘revivalist’ method

  of interaction between the three spheres of inquiry produces a balance, with

  the belief that the principle endures but the manner of its application is

  dependent on space-time. Of course, the complexity of managing that requires

  an enlightened ‘asabiyya’ or, as Toynbee would have it, ‘creative minority’,

  capable of steering society in that direction.

  Theoretical assertions

  This book defined a profound internal ideological and, consequently, political

  challenge confronting Muslim polities. That is the management of permanence

  and change, expressed by the interplay between the ‘foundational’, the ‘con-

  textual’ and the ‘individual’, thereby producing three variant political culture

  types: traditionalist, secularist and revivalist. Actually, the manner in which this occurs goes to the heart of political instability in Muslim polities as each

  variant typology confronts the others. Moreover, this characterization is not

  specific to Pakistan, but rather applies to the entire Muslim heartland, and is

  particularly relevant for the Middle East. As a matter of fact, in Muslim-majority

  countries, through the process of several centuries of socialization, the ‘founda-

  tional’ values permeate society. Volatility appears when new forms of learning,

  or counter-epistemologies, are introduced into ‘contextual’ realities that starkly

  contrast with the conventional enduring cultural component. This volatility is

  further intensified when elites, or ‘individuals’, controlling the state enforce their

  ‘secularist’ or ‘traditionalist’ vision upon the rest of society. With that egregious Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  imposition, the attitudinal condition of rebellion is brought forth and, if the

  state’s repressive response is indiscriminate, brings about massive violence. In

  other words, the findings of this book support Hafez’s analysis outlining the

  causes of ‘why Muslims rebel?’ when unpopular governments brutally and

  indiscriminately stifle opposition. 1 He eloquently argues that ‘Muslims rebel because they encounter an ill-fated combination of political and institutional

  exclusion, on the one hand, and reactive and indiscriminate repression on the

  other’.2 While that assertion is valid, the lurking ideological incoherence and consequent polarization is what this book suggests causes institutional exclusion,

  secular state repression and reactive traditionalist counter-violence.

  Conclusion

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  To clarify, this book commenced by analysing the concept of political culture

  to seek therein the roots of political instability. Yet what was revealing was

  that the term ‘political culture’ is defined in numerous ways dependant on its

  usage. Furthermore, the concept itself was originally intended to promote the

  modernization theory of development and notions of ‘cultural lag’.3 In other words, there was a strong Euro-centricity inherent in its norm, which impeded

  its effectiveness in becoming an explanatory variable. This insight, however,

  did not assist us in decoding a methodology through which to study, even

  grasp, political culture in Muslim polities. It only revealed to us the dearth of

  relevant literature and the necessity of exploring different processes to do

  political culture research. During that exploration, our most salient finding

  was in locating the ‘gap’ therein, which Inglehart discusses as the ‘enduring

  cultural component that makes political life distinct for polities’.4

  To further explain, a human being comes into a world of existing meanings,

  types, roles, ‘formulae’, ‘stock of knowledge’ and ‘significant symbols’.5 That, then, shapes political life and makes it distinct. Yet those terms failed to tackle

  ‘how’ is it that one would go about and understand what they consist of in a given

  polity? Therefore, this book ventured to define that ‘enduring cultural component’

  that saturates Muslim polities. It did so by labelling it as the ‘foundational’ values, which provide the basis for understanding the entirety of Islamic political culture.

  In other words, the ‘gap’ in political culture research was, precisely, the missing

  explanation of what the ‘enduring cultural component’ would consist of.

  Our analysis then proceeded to define that enduring cultural component,

  or, as we stated, ‘foundational’ values, which deal with those patterns of behaviour, norms and cultural assumptions that together represent an aspect of permanence

  and the core ideological and political platform of Islam. Clearly, these ‘foun-

  dational’ values present a vision of where its society is meant to progress

  towards. In other words, without knowing ‘who I am’ one is incapable of

  understanding the entirety of political culture and concretizing it into political

  institutions – ‘where I should go’. And, here, finding out ‘who I am’ involves

  a phenomenological approach to political culture research. That, then, led us to

  rationalize that the underlying enduring political values are to be found inter-

  spersed between the Qur’an, the Prophetic sayings, the Khulafa-Rashidun era and

  Qur’anic epistemology. Collectively, these four constituents represent the cor-

  nerstone of Islamic theology – the Qur’an and Propheti
c sayings; the practical

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  application of that theology in political society for Sunni orthodoxy – the

  Khulafa-Rashidun; and the epistemological thread that weaves it all together.

  Taking that together, from those constituents, this study extracted political

  values that include placing sovereignty in God, but also in people as His

  representatives on earth; Humanity is one and individuals are born of good

  and sound nature; all individuals are born equal, irrespective of race or

  gender with the right to own land; mutual consultation, consensus, and

  inclusion are necessary for stability, in both private and public spheres; people

  must choose their representatives; giving an oath of allegiance to political

  leaders; leaders are accountable to the people and no one is above the law;

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  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  Figure 9.1 This graph outlines the entire research and analytical scope of this study. It

  begins with describing political culture research trends, leading to Islamic

  political culture and its three spheres of inquiry. Then, it deconstructs each

  of those spheres; foundational, contextual and individual.

  leaders are the servants of the people they represent; and those who want lea-

  dership should not have it. Certainly, that is not all. Still, what we have col-

  lected from the ‘foundational’ values represent the political high classicalism

  to which Islamic scholars such as Al-Farabi, Ibn Khaldun, Malik Bennabi

  and Muhammad Iqbal, and a host of others, allude. It is, precisely, to this

  high classicism that Muslim polities compare their current political structures

  so as to measure discrepancies with regard to it. And in this discrepancy

  resides the inherent tension that endures in Muslim polities. In support of

  that, Wael Hallaq eloquently emphasizes, ‘as a world civilization, Islam

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  developed a historically grounded paradigmatic moral-legal ethic that defined

  its identity. Obviously, there can be no Islam, nor any specifically Islamic

  moral-legal culture outside of history, for it is history and its forces and

  circumstances that gave rise to this legal-moral identity. To be a Muslim

  individual today is to be, in fundamental ways, connected with that Shari’a-

  defined ethic, for it is this ethic that shaped what Islam is and has been …

  There is no Muslim identity without this ethic’. 6 Thus, in other words, to suggest that contemporary Muslim identity can rid itself of this ethic, which permeated

  it to the core, amounts to ‘claiming that citizens of Euro-America could still be

  Conclusion

  159

  who they are but without their historical roots, without their socioeconomic

  history, without their legal history, without their political history, and without the Enlightenment and its values’.7 Thus, in as much as the modern Western state and its citizen are the product of a historically determined phenomenon, the Muslim

  identity of today is inextricably connected with a particular moral-legal ethic

  that was historically determined by the supremely central values of the

  Shari’a.8 Likewise, this book contends that in Muslim political life there exists a lurking and compelling cultural force that cannot be neglected, and that needs to

  be thoroughly understood. Both traditionalists and secularists misunderstand,

  albeit in different ways, that pervasive cultural force. Either, by romanticizing

  imitation or ignoring it altogether, fails to grasp the dynamics of stability.

  Concerning factors that inhibit accurately understanding Islam’s relationship

  with politics, Eqbal Ahmed offers a wonderful insight by stating that the ‘field

  of Islamic studies, strewn with ancient potholes and modern mines, is domi-

  nated by apparently different but actually complementary adversaries – the

  ‘traditionalist’ ulama and the modern ‘orientalists’. Their methods are different;

  so are their intentions. Yet, with few exceptions, both tend to view Islam’s

  relationship to politics in fundamentalist and textual terms’.9 How so? Well, both misunderstand the separation between religion and politics in Islam,

  hold an effectively stagnant view of Islam and interpret change as interfering

  with religious orthodoxy. The interplay between the Westerners’ academic

  orthodoxy and the ulama’s theological orthodoxy has set the terms for the

  prevalent discourse on Islam. 10 Learning from that, this study argued that both the ‘traditionalist’ and ‘secularist’ political culture types exhibit similar

  non-consensual and authoritarian power tendencies augmenting political

  instability. One wishes to live in the past, the other wishes to bury it.

  Therefore, in efforts to unravel the precise obstacles to political stability,

  this book put forward its theory that the dynamic interplay between the

  ‘individual’, the ‘foundational’ and the ‘contextual’ explains the growth of

  competing political culture typologies. This contest of supremacy is ongoing –

  and, resultantly, produces an ‘activist and insurrectionary’ political climate.

  Often, the Muslim heartland from Pakistan to Mauritania has been described

  as lands of insolence, rebellion and dissidence. Eqbal Ahmed explains this

  recurrence of insurrection and insolence, at least partly, by ‘the fact that

  wherever Islam took hold, it had its origins in a counter-tradition, a dissident

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  point of view’.11 ‘In many regions such as North Africa and Central Asia the spread of Islam was dialectically linked with social revolt. In other places,

  such as South Asia, Islam’s egalitarian precepts and emphasis on social justice

  (both widely violated in practice) offered an escape to the disinherited from

  the harsh realities of oppression. In its exemplary form, Islam is a religion of

  the oppressed’. 12 Advancing from that, this book offers a slightly different explanation, arguing that insurrectionary tendency is a manifestation of the

  individuals reacting to the ideals and their absence in reality. The metaphy-

  sical demands of those ideals – or, as we have labelled it, the permanent

  ‘foundational’ values, and their application or lack thereof in reality – the

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  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  contextual, is what motivates rebellion. This was alluded to by Eqbal Ahmed

  when he states that:

  For centuries a complementary tension, creative in its impact on society and

  individuals had existed between particularist and universalist loyalties and

  loci of Muslim political life. Typically, a Muslim held two sets of identity:

  one – immediate, social and spatially particular; the other – historical,

  ideological, cultural and global. Almost all Muslims lived in intensely

  community-orientated societies, which, paradoxically, eschewed isolation.

  The paradox had a political dimension. The interests and demands of

  local authority – that is, the extended family, tribe, city, guild and ethnic and

  linguistic group – in principle, competed with the universal expectations

  of the ‘Ummah’, the vast Islamicate, that is, the worldwide community of

  people who embrace the te
achings of the Holy Qur’an and practise Islam. 13

  In other words, the stability of Muslim political life has largely depended on

  the extent to which these complementary tensions are reconciled and the

  achievement of such reconciliation has been a preoccupation of politics in

  Islamic civilization.

  Applying the ‘foundational’ values

  Here, it is, in efforts to examine the practical applicability of those previously

  stated theoretical assertions, this book went on to investigate the expression of

  those foundational values, and the role of rival political culture typologies, in

  Pakistan. And it did so, initially, by exploring the interplay of religion and

  society, the Pakistan movement for self-determination and the eventual creation

  of a new nation-state. In essence, Islam’s relationship with politics began on a

  unique syntheses between the sacred and secular, which are often misconstrued

  in absolutist terms. The Prophet Muhammad who was persecuted in Mecca

  became, in Medina, both the spiritual and temporal head of state. 14 The factor of territoriality was of secondary importance. Of primary importance

  was the idea of the formation of a ‘faith-centric community’, or ‘ummah’,

  based on the interconnectedness, togetherness, or unity of the world, truth

  and, ultimately, on the unity of God.15 Notwithstanding that, the establishment Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  of the first political order of Muslims in Medina coincided with their political

  domination and empowerment.16 Therefore, leadership in Islam attempts to be both spiritual and temporal. The ruler, according to Qur’anic exegesis, was

  a spiritual leader in that he was bound by his commitments to God and,

  thereby, to people. Also, the ruler was secular in that he was concerned with

  the sociopolitical and economic well-being of the masses.17

  Furthermore, by analysing the formative phase of the Pakistan movement,

  three leadership types, along with their corresponding political culture variants,

  were clearly demarcated based on their interaction with ‘foundational’ values

  in their ‘contextual’ realities. Simply put, and to reiterate, the typologies are,