page_title: Islam in Pakistan
section_title: Zia ul Haq's Islamization
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in Pakistan / Islam in independent Pakistan / Zia ul Haq's Islamization
caption_attribution_description: English: muslim self-identification
context_page_description: Islam is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan has been called a "global center for political Islam".
  Islam in Pakistan existed in communities along the Arab coastal trade routes in Sindh as soon as the religion originated and had gained early acceptance in the Arabian Peninsula. The connection between the Sind and Islam was established by the initial Muslim missions during the Rashidun Caliphate. Al-Hakim ibn Jabalah al-Abdi, who attacked Makran in the year 649 AD, was an early partisan of Ali ibn Abu Talib. During the caliphate of Ali, many Hindus of Sindh had came under influence of Islam and some even participated in the Battle of Camel and died fighting for Ali. Under the Umayyads, many Shias sought asylum in the region of Sindh, to live in relative peace in the remote area. Ziyad Hindi is one of those refugees. In 712 CE, a young Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim conquered most of the Indus region for the Umayyad empire, to be made the "As-Sindh" province with its capital at Al-Mansurah. By the end of the 10th century CE, the region was ruled by several Hindu Shahi kings who would be subdued by the Ghaznavids.
context_section_description: On 5 July 1977, General Zia-ul-Haq led a coup d'état. In the year or two before Zia-ul-Haq's coup, his predecessor, leftist Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had faced vigorous opposition which was united under the revivalist banner of Nizam-e-Mustafa ("Rule of the prophet"). According to supporters of the movement, establishing an Islamic state based on sharia law would mean a return to the justice and success of the early days of Islam when the Islamic prophet Muhammad ruled the Muslims. In an effort to stem the tide of street Islamisation, Bhutto had also called for it and banned the drinking and selling of wine by Muslims, nightclubs and horse racing.
  "Islamisation" was the "primary" policy,
  or "centerpiece" of his government. Zia-ul-Haq committed himself to establishing an Islamic state and enforcing sharia law. Zia established separate Shariat judicial courts and court benches to judge legal cases using Islamic doctrine. New criminal offences (of adultery, fornication, and types of blasphemy), and new punishments (of whipping, amputation, and stoning to death), were added to Pakistani law. Interest payments for bank accounts were replaced by "profit and loss" payments. Zakat charitable donations became a 2.5% annual tax. School textbooks and libraries were overhauled to remove un-Islamic material.  Offices, schools, and factories were required to offer praying space. Zia bolstered the influence of the ulama (Islamic clergy) and the Islamic parties, whilst conservative scholars became fixtures on television. 10,000s of activists from the Jamaat-e-Islami party were appointed to government posts to ensure the continuation of his agenda after his passing. Conservative ulama (Islamic scholars) were added to the Council of Islamic Ideology. Separate electorates for Hindus and Christians were established in 1985 even though Christian and Hindu leaders complained that they felt excluded from the county's political process.
  Zia's state sponsored Islamization increased sectarian divisions in Pakistan between Sunnis and Shias and between Deobandis and Barelvis. A solid majority of Barelvis had supported the creation of Pakistan, and Barelvi ulama had also issued fatwas in support of the Pakistan Movement during the 1946 elections, but ironically Islamic state politics in Pakistan was mostly in favour of Deobandi (and later Ahl-e-Hadith/Salafi) institutions. This was despite the fact that only a few (although influential) Deobandi clerics had supported the Pakistan Movement. Zia-ul-Haq forged a strong alliance between the military and Deobandi institutions.
  Possible motivations for the Islamization programme included Zia's personal piety (most accounts agree that he came from a religious family), desire to gain political allies, to "fulfill Pakistan's raison d'être" as a Muslim state, and/or the political need to legitimise what was seen by some Pakistanis as his "repressive, un-representative martial law regime".
  Until the government of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, "Islamic activists" were frustrated by the lack of "teeth" to enforce Islamic law in Pakistan's constitution. For example, in the 1956 constitution, the state did not enforce "Islamic moral standards" but "endeavor[ed]" to make them compulsory and to "prevent" prostitution, gambling, consumption of alcoholic liquor, etc. Interest was to be eliminated "as soon as possible".
  According to Shajeel Zaidi a million people attended Zia ul Haq's funeral because he had given them what they wanted: more religion. A PEW opinion poll found that 84% of Pakistanis favoured making Sharia the official law of the land. According to the 2013 Pew Research Center report, the majority of Pakistani Muslims also support the death penalty for those who leave Islam (62%). In contrast, support for the death penalty for those who leave Islam was only 36% in fellow South Asian Muslim country Bangladesh (which shared heritage with Pakistan). A 2010 opinion poll by PEW Research Centre also found that 87% of Pakistanis considered themselves 'Muslims first' rather than a member of their nationa
caption: Many diverse Islamic denominations are practised within Pakistan.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1125", "Image ImageLength": "675", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2016:08:24 13:21:35", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "150", "Thumbnail YResolution": "150", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "386", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5591", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "900"}