AN OPENING NOTE in Chapter 1 directed the reader away from the common and increasingly popular view that Islam has been the primary steeringforce in determining the course of Pakistani constitutionalism.
In Chapter 2, the immediate history of post-Partition state consolidation included a description of the early contestation over the Islamic character of the Pakistani state. Alongside what was mostly a platitudinous official recognition of Islam in these early years, the rising influence of Islamic spokespersons in the polity was also briefly charted.
This influence was on the increase even as the state sought to implant the seeds of a rationalist reformation of Islamic thought and practice during Ayub’s modernist experiment (1958—1969). Some representative religious voices worked to reinforce and expand the recognition of Islam as state religion in the text of the 1973 Constitution and employed the state apparatus to make official determinations on principles of faith shortly thereafter. However, the contest between merely establishing an official religion and an abidance of Islamic principles of law as imperative commands was only settled in favour of the latter with Zia-ul-Haq’s assumption of power in 1977.Zia’s alterations were undertaken as executive Acts and thereby did not reflect prior popular authorisation. Constitutional changes included the incorporation of the Objectives Resolution into the main body of the Constitution and the establishment of a parallel Shariat court system. Additionally, bodies of Islamic law were promulgated to enjoin the Muslim populace in living according to Quran and Sunnah, as understood by a narrow ring of Zia’s advisors. In tandem with broader features impacting the social and political sphere, this structure has produced a syncretic legality, one that has had disproportionate and rights-constricting impact upon women and religious minorities.
A final section of this chapter describes the exertions of the Musharraf regime (1999—2008) in seeking to amend and reform Islamic law in Pakistan. This process highlighted the layered ways in which the formalisation of Islamic law and increasing piety of the social sphere have established a broad social and political constituency that is receptive to reformation only when undertaken within the bounds of Islamic law and normativity. The reform of Islamic legal provisions continues to be a divisive issue, one that often and regularly spills over into violence.
I.