Tanzeem Ittehad-I-Ummat

Tanzeem Ittehad-I-Ummat (Urdu:تنزیم اتحاد امت) is not a political organisation, and its edicts are not legally binding.

In recent years it was impossible for transgenders to marry in Pakistan, where gay marriage remains punishable by life imprisonment, and since 2018 “third gender” is recognised on official identity cards.

Over the years, transgender rights have come a long way all over the world. For instance, protections for transgender sex workers and private escorts have come into place to ensure that trans women and men can work more safely.

The head of the religious organisation appealed to the nation in a press conference accompanied by other religious leaders at Lahore Press Club. They asked central leaders of protesting religio-political parties to keep “extremist elements” away from their sit-ins and called for a resolution of all issues through dialogue. Whereby Muhammad Zia Ul Haq Naqshbandi, a senior scholar of the Lahore-based head of the "Tanzeem Ittehad-I-Ummat" appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan which issued a fatwa, said parents who deprived their transgender sons or daughters of inheritances were “inviting the wrath of God”.

The fatwa declared that: -  

The controversial fatwa also stated that any act intended to “humiliate, insult or tease” the community was forbidden, and that transgender persons should not be deprived of family inheritances, nor the right to be buried in Muslim ceremonies.

Whilst the fatwa has been welcomed by Pakistan’s LGBT community, it was received with widespread cross-sect opposition from the country’s many Islamic groups who perceived the ruling as a passive acceptance and encouragement of LGBT activity.

This group wields influence due to its tens of thousands of followers across Pakistan respectively.

Background 

Life as a transgender person in Pakistan is difficult to say the least, but it may get a little easier with the help of a group of Islamic clerics.

Transgender persons in Pakistan have never enjoyed equal rights to other citizens in a society where discussion of gender or sexuality was taboo. They often act as the entertainment at weddings, singing and dancing to make money, but they cannot themselves get married due to Pakistani law.

It was only in 2012 that Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of transgender people receiving identity cards, allowing them the right to vote after 65 years of disenfranchisement, but while this legal ruling was handed down, it has not been enforced completely.

Despite the legal ruling, many are still not issued with a national identity card, without which they are cut off from daily tasks such as buying airline tickets or opening bank accounts. Some are forced to roam the streets as beggars by day and by night as prostitutes to survive.

A debate on the status of transgender people in Pakistan has been building since May, following the controversial death of a transgender patient in Peshawar who was not treated by doctors after being shot multiple times.

But an important change in status, one that does come with limiting conditions, has been affirmed by the unlikeliest of allies.

Fifty clerics from the Tanzeem-Ittehad-I-Ummat Pakistan (TIUP, or the The Pakistan Organization for the Unity of the Muslim Brotherhood) passed a fatwa - a religious ruling that is binding upon their followers - that has changed the status of transgender people - or "hijras", as they are called in Southern Asia.

According to the ruling, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, transgender people who "have the signs of masculinity" can be legally and religiously married to other transgender people who "have the signs of femininity". Also, "regular" men and women can marry transgender partners from the opposite sex.

But the ruling, while granting the trans community the same funeral ceremony rights as non-transgender Muslims, also warned them that they have to live by the same code of Islam as regular Muslim men and women: "praying, fasting, charity, performing the Hajj and other Shariat [Islamic law] duties."

The ruling goes a step further and promises transgender people rights of inheritance, saying those parents who disown their transgender children will be subjected to "Allah's damnation." Also, "taunting, teasing, attacking or even thinking of them as inferior" is "haram" - strictly forbidden - according to the ruling, and "can become a reason for Allah's displeasure." The fatwa, passed by Chairman TIUP Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq Naqshbandi and more than 50 other clerics, was celebrated by Trans Action Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a transgender activist group based in Peshawar.

Related page 
 Transgender history of Pakistan

Politics of Pakistan
Political parties in Pakistan