Pakistan was formed on the basis of religious nationalism but in its initial years, Islamic modernism was the dominant paradigm as Nadeem Farooq Paracha explains in his article. The ruling elite, from 1947 to the mid-1970s, wanted to implement Islamic principles, not Islamic punishments. The mullah and the cleric did not have much to do with the affairs of the state.
In Questioning the Authority of the Past historian Dr Ali Usman Qasimi explains how from 1947 till about the mid-1970s, the state and subsequent governments consciously kept the ulema away from directly influencing government legislation.
Usmani adds that this was not due to the fact that those who ran the state and governments between the mentioned years were secular. Instead, their idea of faith and its role in the formation of Pakistani nationalism was different from those held by the ulema and the clerics.
The civil-military establishment which was at the helm of state and government affairs from 1947 till the early 1970s was an extension of the idea of faith and Muslim nationalism developed and evolved by the likes of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Syed Amir Ali, Chiragh Ali, Ahmaduddin Amritsari, Muhammad Iqbal, Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, Dr Khalifa Abdul Hakim, and to a certain extent, Dr Fazalur Rehman Malik.
These scholars were the main shapers of ‘Islamic Modernism’ in South Asia. As an idea it encouraged the acquirement of universal sciences and philosophies to facilitate a rational, practical and informed reading of Islam’s holy scriptures beyond the ‘dated’ interpretations penned by ancient ulema or contemporary clerics.
From the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries, these scholars, through hefty scholarly treatises and philosophical discourses, urged the snatching away of matters of faith from the clutches of clerics and ‘dogmatic ulema.’
They advocated addressing the faith’s ‘stagnant’ and ‘retrogressive’ state through modern scholarly, scientific and cultural means so that its ‘true form’ (which was vibrant and supple) could be brought back to life. To them this recouped form was to become the engine empowering the rejuvenation of South Asia’s Muslims into becoming an enlightened and dynamic polity.
The founders of Pakistan led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah were very much a part and parcel of this narrative and of the evolving tradition of Islamic Modernism in South Asia.
For example, just a few months after the country’s creation in August 1947, Jinnah green-lighted the creation of the Institute for the Reconstruction of Islam (IRI) headed by the celebrated Jewish-journalist-turned-Muslim-scholar, Muhammad Asad.
Ishtiaq Ahmad in 1987’s The Concept of Islamic State quotes IRI’s first scholarly initiative as a detailed treatise which suggested that “no specific form of government had been prescribed by Muslim scriptures and it was up to the Muslims of every age to agree on one that suits their conditions.” The report emphasised that no matter what form of government Muslims decide to enact, it needed to be run on one of the central Islamic principles of “socio-economic justice.”
Even though the 1949 Objectives Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly declared that Pakistan was to become an ‘Islamic Republic’, Usmani reminds his readers that the Resolution did not envision any special authority for the ulema. (see Smokers' corner: Curbing the mullah for full article)
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