Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

1 Frontline Pakistan
holy warriors from Islamic countries, thousands more joined madrasas
set up with funding from Saudi Arabia and some other Muslim
countries. More than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly
influenced by the Afghan jihad.
The military’s involvement in the politics of religion, however, had
started long before the Afghan jihad. General Zia not only ushered
Pakistan into its longest period of military rule, but also tried to turn
the country into an ideological state. He extended the army’s role in
domestic politics much further than defined by earlier military rulers.
Previously, the military was seen as the ultimate guarantor of the
country’s territorial integrity and internal security. But Zia expanded
its role as the defender of Pakistan’s ideological frontiers as well. 14
Addressing army officers, Zia argued that, as Pakistan was created
on the basis of the two-nation theory and Islamic ideology, it was
the duty of the ‘soldiers of Islam to safeguard its security, integrity
and sovereignty at all costs, both from internal turmoil and external
aggression’. He claimed the state was created exclusively to provide
its people with the opportunity to follow ‘the Islamic way of life.’
Preservation of the country’s Islamic character was seen to be as
important as the security of the country’s geographical frontiers. 15 Zia’s
military rule differed by its very serious attempt to create an ideological
basis for all areas of activities of the state and society.
General Zia cleverly used Islam to consolidate his power and
legitimize his military rule. The Islamization process became the most
important feature of his eleven- year rule and its raison d’être. For
General Zia, Pakistan was an Islamic ideological state and therefore
politics could not be separated from religion. He believed that he had
a divine obligation to establish an Islamic society ruled in accordance
with the Qur’an and sharia. Afraid to face a free electorate and having
no mandate to govern, the General turned to Allah.
He introduced a rigid interpretation of Islamic sharia, thus
empowering the clergy. The move to Islamize the state found ready
allies among the religious parties, many of which already had close
ties with the military. The Jamaat-i-Islami and other Islamic groups
were co-opted by the government. For the first time in Pakistan’s
history, the Islamists occupied important government positions. Being
in power helped Jamaat-i-Islami, the most influential and organized
mainstream religious party, penetrate state institutions. Thousands
of party activists and sympathizers were given jobs in the judiciary,
the civil service and educational institutions. These appointments