pakistan0614_ForUplaod

and Shia. The new revolutionary government in Iran supported the Pakistani Shia in their
effort to counter Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization effort, which itself was directly backed by Arab
countries such as Saudi Arabia. The Shia community viewed Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization as a
bid to create a Sunni state. In response, Pakistani Shia in 1979 founded the Tehrik-e-Nifaze-Fiqh-e-Jafaria
(TNFJ) with the declared objective of defending the community, and by
1985 it had become a militant Shia organization. 8
To contain such perceived challenges to Sunni dominance in Pakistan, Deobandi Sunni
organizations such as the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) 9 supported the establishment of
the militant Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) 10 in 1985. The SSP was formed under the
leadership of Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, who belonged to a poor family from the central Punjab
town of Jhang, and at the time was the naib amir (vice-president) of JUI Punjab. 11 The SSP
was a sectarian group focused on limiting the influence of Shi’ism in Pakistan. 12 The SSP
was responsible for high-profile assassinations of Iranian diplomats, including that of
Iranian Consul-General Agha Sadiq Ganji in 1990. 13
In 1988, after Zia-ul-Haq’s death, civilian rule and democratic governance returned to
Pakistan. At the same time, Shia-Sunni militancy escalated markedly with assassinations
of government and military officials by both Shia and Sunni militants as well as the
targeted killings of ordinary citizens, mostly Shia, on the basis of sectarian identity. Those
killings prompted numerous professionals and business people, particularly members of
the Shia community living in the port city of Karachi, to go into self-imposed exile or to
relocate to “safer” cities. 14
8 Nasr, “International Politics, Domestic Imperatives, and Identity Mobilization: Sectarianism in Pakistan, 1979-1998,”
Comparative Politics; Zahab, 2002; Nasr, 2002; Grare, 2007; Zaman, 1998.
9 The JUI is a conservative religious party with core principles focusing on strict enforcement of Islamic doctrine. It is a
Deobandi organization and was formed in 1945 as an offshoot of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind.
10 The SSP is a Deobandi militant organization formed in 1980 in Jhang by Haq Nawaz Jhangvi with the declared objective of
containing Shiite influence in Pakistan after the 1979 Iranian revolution. The SSP has been implicated in numerous incidents
of violence. Then-Prime Minister Gen. Pervez Musharraf banned the SSP in 2002.
11 “Pakistan’s Militant Islamist Groups,” BBC, January 13, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1758534.stm
(accessed May 2, 2014).
12 For a discussion on the rise of Sunni militancy and the SSP in Jhang, see Tahir Kamran, “Contextualizing Sectarian
Militancy in Pakistan: A Case Study of Jhang,” Journal of Islamic Studies, 20:1 (2009) pp.55-85; Behuria, A. K, “Sunni-Shia
relations in Pakistan: The widening divide,” Strategic Analysis, 28:1 (2004), pp. 157-176; Nasr, “International Politics,
Domestic Imperatives, and Identity Mobilization: Sectarianism in Pakistan, 1979-1998,” Comparative Politics.
13 Haq Nawaz was killed in 1990. His successors at the SSP were Mawlana Esar al-Qasimi, who was killed in 1991, and
Mawlana Azam Tariq, killed in 2003.
14 S.P. Cohen, “The Jihadist threat to Pakistan,” The Washington Quarterly, 26:3 (2003), pp. 5-25.
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