No, the Prime Minister is not a fundamentalist, and his Shariat bill bears testimony to this. The judicial orthodoxy that formed the core f previous bills has, thankfully, taken second place to the requirements of consensus as Nawaz Sharif attempts to bring a democratic state under the law of Shariat.
Unlike previous bills which have sought to usurp the sovereignty of Parliament by inducting religious scholars onto the courts of law to sit in judgement on those who beat them at the hustings, the present bill seems to recognise the unique role played by the National Assembly in forging the consensus needed for government today. A point long argued for by Allama Iqbal.
It also appears to recognise that expertise from all field, not just that of Islamic jurisprudence, will be needed if any progress is to be made in solving the nation’s many problems. The bill’s conception of the relationship between Islam and the state rejects the narrow and radically inflexible ideal of the Islamic jurists in favour of a broader vision of Islamic government.
In its attempt to bring forward a plurality of voices to answer the questions of Islamisation and to deny the mullah his claim to sole responsibility, this bill is to be welcomed. However, in proclaiming the Quran and Sunnah the supreme law in Pakistan, as opposed to requiring all law to be consonant with them as stated by the ’73 Constitution, the bill runs the danger of vitiating this broadening of the debate. For in Pakistan, interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah remains strictly with the mullah. And as supreme law, their interpretation will have implacable force, leaving no opportunity for debate.
Although conceding the principle, the bills seeks to avoid such an eventuality by making no provision for legislation outside of the National Assembly. This seems a contorted logic, especially as this issue was elegantly dealt with in the ’73 Constitution.
Further, while this bill attempts to keep the National Assembly’s power to legislate unfettered by the clergy, much of its rhetoric, obscure and imprecise as it is, raises the fear that the rest of society may be surrendered to them and the confusion that they bring.
The bill promises reforms in the education sector, in the lower judiciary and introduction of controls on the media among other sectors. The committee on the Islamisation of education to be set up under the bill will make its recommendations to the National Assembly just as the reforms announced recently by the Federal Education Minister, Fakhr Imam, are being implemented. Given the committee’s emphasis on Islamisation rather than on education, the freeing of schools from the obscure ideological obsessions of the textbook boards hinted at by the minister may no longer be forthcoming. This would be to confirm Pakistan in its backwardness for decades to come.
The reform of the lower judiciary being considered as part of the Shariat package involves two new tiers of courts, the munsif court and the naib munsif courts. No indication is offered as to which tradition of law, Anglo-saxon or Islamic, the new courts will follow, nor is their relationship with the existing legal system explained. As an answer to the present unacceptable delays in justice, this very uncertainty does not bode well. Nor will the complexities of setting up two new tiers of courts be conducive to speedy justice.
The phrasing of the paragraph of the bill which deals with the media is unnervingly familiar. False imputation and character assassination, long the blanket terms used by governments and their servants when seeking to protect themselves from criticism, are again to be stamped out by legislative and administrative measures. The bill offers nothing constructive on the media.
These committees and reforms promise nothing but confusion. The reason is simple. They are predicated on the naive belief, taught by the mullahs, that Islamisation can happen immediately and completely. As they think that they hold all the answers, this belief is understandable. But they don’t, and the belief is false. It is just another variant of the utopian vision that has cursed makind through communism, fascism and now the mullah.
The Prime Minister’s Shariat bill, in its insistence on the need for a wide debate and its recognition of the essential role of the National Assembly in a process of Islamisation, is opposed to such visions. However, while the Prime Minister is no fundamentalist, he is still a politician. And there is much in his Shariat bill that reeks of political expediency.
The Prime Minister hopes that his bill will bring to an end the tension between Islam and democracy that has haunted Pakistan since its inception. It would be a shame if such a lofty aim were brought low by this expediency.