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CHAPTER 5 ISLAMIST PARTIES Origins and Characteristics A s a definitional matter, all Islamist parties support state enforcement of religious law and practice.1 Beyond that fundamental point of agreement, however, there is significant ideological diversity among Pakistan’s Islamist parties, which vary in their interpretations of Islamic texts and views of how sharia should functionally operate in Pakistan. Yet differences over more practical matters, such as organizational structure, are actually more predictive of political behavior and electoral success. The organizational model an Islamist political party adopts has much less to do with religious ideology than with the socioeconomic background and class affiliation of party leaders. In this chapter I describe the historical rise of Islamist political parties in Pakistan, examine the two main organizational models of Islamist parties (hierarchical and network), and look closely at the political experiences of the two oldest and most influential Islamist parties of each type—Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam—demonstrating that their degree of extremism (as evidenced by political behavior) is more linked to political expediency than it is to ideology. As explained in chapter 4, the Muslim democratic movement—the Muslim League in particular—was launched by primarily urban-based Muslim elites. Jinnah and the other leaders of the Pakistan movement eventually came to a political compromise with the feudal elites who for centuries had controlled the territory of modern-day Pakistan. These landowners wanted to protect their financial interests in any future state, no matter its ideological bent. The original Muslim League was thus founded on a nationalistic and economic ideology, not a religious one; indeed, some leaders of the movement could fairly be regarded as antireligious. The origins of Islamist parties in Pakistan could not be more different. They were born out of fervently religious movements, adopted explicitly religious programmatic commitments, and drew their leadership from the ranks of the country ’s most revered religious authorities. Notwithstanding the explicitly religious historical base of Islamist parties, their entry into the political arena is marked by policy decisions and practices that frequently contradict their ideological groundings but that are consistent with the organizational and individual self-interest 75 76 CHAPTER 5 that economic theorists view as driving parliamentary politics.2 Thus although the ideological premises of Islamist parties remain relatively stable across time, their policies and statements shift with the variation of political and social conditions. Prior to the official establishment of the British Raj in 1857, the various Islamic leaders of the subcontinent had very different connections to politics and political power, varying across region, sect, and class. These variations ultimately shaped the kinds of religious political parties that developed in Pakistan. In general, however , there is evidence that Islamic religious leaders had frequently combative relationships with the British. Muslim clerics have long defined themselves as protectors of the Islamic faith in India, and the British Raj was a clear adversary during the period of colonization. Clerics constituted an estimated quarter of the approximately 200,000 of Muslims killed during the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857.3 The perception that the British targeted Muslim leaders reinforced notions of Islam’s being under siege from Western powers. In 1866, a group of Muslim clerics built a madrasah at Deoband (now in Uttar Pradesh, India) called the Dar ul-Ulum (House of Knowledge). Dar ul-Ulum became the center of a religious revival movement devoted to the purification of Islam and continues to be one of the most influential Islamic learning centers in the world. The Deobandi movement, as it became known, swept across South Asia as graduates of the seminary founded new madrasahs throughout India and Afghanistan. The movement was popular because it suggested a more authentic response to Western rule and provided an outlet for Muslim grievances. Deoband was a reformist and revivalist movement, but it also rejected the modern rationalistic Islam championed by reformers such as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. Instead, its leaders believed that ‘‘a strong disavowal of modernity could hasten their way back to the re-creation of a lost Islamic glory.’’4 The new madrasahs trained scholars, priests, and lawyers who prioritized the preservation of Islamic religion, culture, and heritage. Deobandi scholars argued that the decline of Islam was rooted in a lack of religious education and Muslims’ consequent susceptibility to straying from the true course of Islam; thus the movement ’s clerics, first in India and then globally, issued hundreds of thousands of new legal rulings to provide guidance to the faithful on daily...

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