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A heresy inquisition in the National Assembly and the Islamisation of Pakistan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 August 2023
Abstract
The goal of the second constitutional amendment passed in 1974 was to excommunicate the Ahmadis and establish Pakistan as a bona fide Islamic state. The Pakistani state accomplished this goal through an extraordinary process in which the National Assembly conducted a month-long examination of Ahmadi beliefs. Conducted by the attorney general of Pakistan, who was aided by the ulema members of parliament, these proceedings were a type of heresy inquisition in which the leaders of the Ahmadi community served as defendants. This article examines the key religious issues involved in these proceedings from a longer historical perspective that includes the Mughal and Safavid eras. In doing so, it highlights how pre-modern forms of religious persecution and accommodation came to be adapted to serve the ends of a modern constitutional nation-state.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society
References
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35 National Assembly of Pakistan, Proceedings, p. 36.
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38 In fact, the Ahmadis were commonly accused of being allied with Israel against Muslim countries, as it was openly suggested later on in the proceedings. Qasmi, Ahmadis, p. 200. This was an ominous line of questioning. In the following decades, it became routine for Ahmadis to be jailed for ‘posing as Muslims’. Moin, ‘Messianism and the Constitution of Pakistan’, p. 190.
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44 Ibid., p. 90.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid., p. 92.
47 Ibid., p. 141.
48 Ibid., p. 149.
49 Ibid., pp. 140–141.
50 Qasmi, Ahmadis, pp. 205–211.
51 Ibid., p. 204.
52 Ibid., p. 205.
53 Ibid., pp. 212–214.
54 ‘Bare life’ is the concept articulated by the philosopher Giorgio Agamben to describe the state of those individuals and groups who have been cast out of a polity with their legal privileges withdrawn. Agamben, Giorgio, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford, CA, 1998)Google Scholar. See also Moin, ‘Messianism and the Constitution of Pakistan’, p. 191.