THE STATE OF SECTARIANISM IN PAKISTAN

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THE STATE OF SECTARIANISM IN PAKISTAN

Sectarian conflict in Pakistan is the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation and marginalisation of secular democratic forces. Co-option and patronage of religious parties by successive military governments have brought Pakistan to a point where religious extremism threatens to erode the foundations of the state and society. As President Pervez Musharraf is praised by the international community for his role in the war against terrorism, the frequency and viciousness of sectarian terrorism continues to increase in his country.
Instead of empowering liberal, democratic voices, the government has co-opted the religious right and continues to rely on it to counter civilian opposition. By depriving democratic forces of an even playing field and continuing to ignore the need for state policies that would encourage and indeed reflect the country's religious diversity, the government has allowed religious extremist organisations and jihadi groups, and the madrasas that provide them an endless stream of recruits, to flourish. It has failed to protect a vulnerable judiciary and equip its law-enforcement agencies with the tools they need to eliminate sectarian terrorism.
Constitutional provisions to "Islamise" laws, education and culture, and official dissemination of a particular brand of Islamic ideology, not only militate against Pakistan's religious diversity but also breed discrimination against non-Muslim minorities. The political use of Islam by the state promotes an aggressive competition for official patronage between and within the many variations of Sunni and Shia Islam, with the clerical elite of major sects and subsects striving to build up their political parties, raise jihadi militias, expand madrasa networks and, as has happened on Musharraf's watch, become part of government. Like all other Pakistani military governments, the Musharraf administration has also weakened secular and democratic political forces.
Administrative and legal action against militant organisations has failed to dismantle a well-entrenched and widely spread terror infrastructure. All banned extremist groups persist with new labels, although old names are also still in use. The jihadi media is flourishing, and the leading figures of extremist Sunni organisations are free to preach their jihadi ideologies. Leaders of banned groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Sipahe Sahaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed appear to enjoy virtual immunity from the law. They have gained new avenues to propagate their militant ideas since the chief patrons of jihad, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), have acquired prominent and powerful roles in Musharraf's political structure.
The Islamisation of laws and education, in particular, graphically illustrates the Sunni sectarian bias of the Pakistani state. General Zia-ul-Haq's Islamic penal code, retained by General Musharraf, is derived entirely from classical Sunni-Hanafi orthodox sources. The same is true of "Islamic" textbooks in public schools and colleges. The Shia minority -- and, in some cases, even the majority Sunni Barelvi sect -- is deeply resentful of this orthodox Hanafi Sunni bias in state policies. Within Sunnism itself, the competition for state patronage and a share in power has turned minor theological debates and cultural differences into unbridgeable, volatile sectarian divisions. After decades of co-option by the civil-military establishment, Pakistan's puritanical clergy is attempting to turn the country into a confessional state where the religious creed of a person is the sole marker of identity.
Except for a few showcase "reformed" madrasas, no sign of change is visible. Because of the mullahs' political utility, the military-led government's proposed measures, from curriculum changes to a new registration law, have been dropped in the face of opposition by the MMA (Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal) and its madrasa subsidiaries. Instead, financial and political incentives to the mullahs have raised their public profile and influence. The government's approach towards religious extremism is epitomised by its deals with extremists in the tribal areas, concluded through JUI mediation after payment of bribes to militant leaders.
The anomalous constitutional status and political disenfranchisement of regions like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Northern Areas have turned them into sanctuaries for sectarian and international terrorists and centres of the arms and drugs trade.
Parallel legal and judicial systems, which exist in many parts of the country with the blessing of the state, undermine the rule of law. The reform of discriminatory laws and procedures has, at best, been cosmetic -- they remain open to abuse by religious fanatics. Bereft of independence, the judiciary is unable to check the rising sectarian violence. Subjected to political interference, an inefficient police has become even more incapable of dealing with sectarian terrorism.
President Musharraf's lack of domestic legitimacy has forced the military to rely on alliances of convenience with the religious right, based on the politics of patronage. In the absence of international support, moderate, secular and democratic parties will remain in the political cold. The choice that Pakistan faces is not between the military and the mullahs, as is generally believed in the West; it is between genuine democracy and a military-mullah alliance that is responsible for producing and sustaining religious extremism of many hues.
Given the intrinsic links between Pakistan-based homegrown and transnational terrorists, the one cannot be effectively contained and ultimately eliminated without acting against the other. The government's unwillingness to demonstrate political will to deal with the internal jihad could cost it international support, much of which is contingent upon Pakistan's performance in the war against terrorism. The U.S. and other influential actors have realised with regard to their own societies that terrorism can only be eliminated through pluralistic democratic structures. Pakistan should not be treated as an exception.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Government of Pakistan:
1.   Recognise the diversity of Islam in Pakistan, reaffirm the constitutional principle of equality for all citizens regardless of religion or sect, and give meaning to this by taking the following steps:
(a)   repeal all laws, penal codes and official procedures that reinforce sectarian identities and cause discrimination on the basis of faith, such as the mandatory affirmation of religious creed in applications for jobs, passports and national identity cards;
(b)   repeal the Hudood laws and the blasphemy laws;
(c)   disband privately-run Sharia courts in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and take action against religious organisations operating them;
(d)   do not use zakat or other sources of government funding to finance the activities, educational or otherwise, of any sect; and
(e)   purge Islamic Studies textbooks of sectarian material that promotes or undermines specific sects.
2.   Disband, in furtherance of Article 256 of the constitution, all private militias, including those organised for sectarian and jihadi causes.
3.   Make curbs on sectarian leaders and extremist groups more effective by:
(a)   publicising the evidence for banning jihadi groups;
(b)   implementing the laws against hate-speech and incitement of communal violence;
(c)   taking legal action against the administration of any mosque or madrasa or religious leader responsible for verbal or written edicts of apostasy;
(d)   taking legal action against the administration of any mosque or madrasa whose leader calls for internal or external jihad;
(e)   cancelling the print declarations (licences) of jihadi publications and prosecuting the publishers;
(f)   closing down madrasas run by sectarian and jihadi organisations; and
(g)   ending registration of new madrasas until a new madrasa law is in place, and registering all madrasas under this new law, including those currently registered under the Societies Act.
4.   Appoint prayer leaders and orators at mosques and madrasas run by the Auqaf Department (the government department of religious endowments) only after verifying that the applicant has no record of sectarian extremism, and dismiss those sectarian leaders who are employees of the Auqaf Department.
5.   Review periodically the activities of all government appointed clergy and strictly enforce the ban on loudspeakers used in mosques other than for permitted religious activities.
6.   Implement police and judiciary reforms, including the following:
(a)   ensure institutional independence and guarantees against political interference;
(b)   guarantee the physical security of judges presiding over cases of sectarian terrorism; and
(c)   end the political and policing role of intelligence agencies and establish parliamentary oversight of their activities.
7.   Use federal prerogative to veto the MMA's Islamisation agenda, including the Hasba Bill.
8.   Provide constitutional and political rights to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Northern Areas by:
(a)   doing away with their special status and deciding on a final constitutional and legal status after negotiations with their directly elected representatives;
(b)   granting decision-making powers and local administrative and legislative authority to the Northern Areas Council;
(c)   setting up and linking courts in these areas to Pakistan's mainstream judicial institutions; and
(d)   ending the practices of raising tribal lashkars and paying bribes to militants.
9.   Regulate the arms industry in FATA to prevent the proliferation of weapons countrywide.
To the United States and the European Union:
10.   Press the Musharraf government to carry out its commitment of introducing a madrasa registration regime and instituting a regulatory authority in conformity with international conventions on terrorism and extremism.
11.   Urge the Pakistan government to repeal discriminatory legislation that targets women and minorities.
Islamabad/Brussels, 18 April 2005
 
Asia Report N°95   18 April 2005
THE STATE OF SECTARIANISM IN PAKISTAN
I.   Introduction
Religious militias calling themselves Sipahs, Jaishes and Lashkars cannot exist parallel to the army…our army is the only Sipah and Lashkar in Pakistan.
-- General Pervez Musharraf, at an interfaith conference in Islamabad
Lauding the Pakistan military's recent operations in South Waziristan, the Bush administration has called the military-led government an exemplary partner in the fight against terrorism. However significant the Musharraf government's successes against al Qaeda -- including some 600 arrests -- its record against Pakistani terrorist organisations is far from impressive. Belying the president's claims that "our cities have been almost cleared of terrorists" and his government has "broken the back of terrorism", Pakistan's sectarian organisations, many with close links to al Qaeda, have continued to flourish. These sectarian extremists are simultaneously fighting internal sectarian jihads, regional jihads in Afghanistan and Indian-administered Kashmir, and an external jihad, against the West in general and more specifically against the U.S..The focus of this report is on sectarian terrorism in Pakistan and its regional and international implications.
After every bloody sectarian attack, the police and intelligence agencies round up hundreds of suspects. Many leading sectarian terrorists have also been killed, more often than not in staged police "encounters". Yet, such attacks continue to take place countrywide, casting a pall of fear on public life and undermining the security of the Pakistani citizen and state.
This failure to take effective action against sectarian extremists has another, international dimension, since homegrown sectarianism has close links to transnational terrorism. Pakistan may have arrested or killed more al Qaeda suspects than any other country, but many of those al Qaeda suspects have had direct or indirect links with domestic jihadi outfits and religious parties. Pakistan-based terrorists, foreign or domestic, are two faces of the same coin.
Religious sectarianism is, in fact, the principal source of terrorist activity in Pakistan. Shia and Sunni zealots have killed more than 2,000 and maimed thousands in the last twenty years. The Musharraf government's failure to deal with this threat is more than evident. With more than 200 dead, 2004 was one of the bloodiest years on record.
The description generally used for religious violence in Pakistan -- conflict between its majority Sunni and minority Shia communities -- is misleading. Pakistan's sectarian landscape is far too complex to be reduced to a simple binary division since there are a multitude of Sunni and Shia sub-sects, local cultural variants and cults, and rival religious traditions. Although the conflict between Deobandi and Shia extremists has been principally responsible for fuelling sectarian terrorism in recent decades, the phenomenon of sectarianism is present in other forms and has the potential to surface in other variations in the future.
This report reviews the permutations of sectarian politics, highlights the state's role in determining the directions of sectarian conflict and analyses the local socio-political milieu of sectarianism by focusing on some of the more volatile regions. Finally, it assesses the Musharraf government's performance in curbing religious extremism in the context of its domestic and external policies and implementation of its international commitments.
II.   The SECTARIAN LANDSCAPE
By official estimates, 96 per cent of Pakistan's population is Muslim. Fhp://www.pak.gov.pk/public/govt/basic_ facts..html. The 1998 census statistics are internally contested. There is no official data on sectarian identity since the state prefers to paint a picture of religious homogeneity to justify having adopted Islam as the official religion. By an unofficial estimate, 75 to 80 per cent of the Muslim population is Sunni and 15 to 20 per cent Shia.
Sunnis can be divided into four broad categories: Barelvis, Deobandis, Ahle Hadith and revivalist, modernist movements like the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI). The first three Sunni sub-sects emerged as religious educational movements in the nineteenth century during British rule in India. The JI came into being in the 1940s. The Ahle Hadith is a small, ultra-orthodox, puritanical sect inspired by Saudi Wahhabism, which does not follow any of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence.
What is commonly called Sunni-Shia violence is more precisely a Deobandi-Shia conflict in which the Deobandis have appropriated the term Sunni for themselves and are supported in their anti-Shia jihad by the Ahle Hadith.
Although the Barelvis and the Deobandis follow the Hanafi school of Sunni jurisprudence, their interpretations of it radically differ. "Barelvis represent oral orthodoxy cushioned by devotional practices; Deobandis represent literate orthodoxy with a strict adherence to the classical texts of Islam". These opposing Sunni sub-sects dominate Pakistan's religious sector.
The Barelvi-Deobandi divide can be best understood by their differing attitudes toward the Islam of the Sufi orders that was prevalent in South Asia much before Pakistan or sects such as the Deobandis and Barelvis came into existence. The Barelvi school strives to preserve and promote this Islam of hereditary saints and its shrine culture. In this syncretic Sunni system, belief in intercession by the Prophet Mohammad and hereditary saints and initiation in a mystic order is the path to salvation. Shrines of saints are the centres of cultural and religious activity.
The Deobandi and Ahle Hadith schools reject these beliefs and practices, dismissing Pakistan's shrine culture as a form of idolatry. They also condemn and prohibit traditional marriage and death rites borrowed from local South Asian cultures, calling these Barelvi practices deviations from the true path. Modernist Islamist movements, led by the JI, also seek to purify Islam and restore it to its pristine form. These movements, too, see the traditional multicultural Sunni beliefs and practices as un-Islamic.
The pan-Islamist JI, which claims a supra-sectarian stance, has evolved into a separate Sunni group, based on the teachings of its founder, Abul A'la Maududi (1903-1979). All other Sunni subsects criticise Maududi's school for its modernism and lack of adherence to any of the established orthodox schools, though in its theological orientation, the JI has much in common with the Hanafi school.
These divergent Sunni religious movements have evolved over time into pressure groups, political parties and extremist organisations. The Sunni parties that represent Deobandi and Barelvi Islam in Pakistan were initially set up as associations of scholars educated at or affiliated with madrasas. The Deobandi ulema's Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) is now divided into at least three factions. The Barelvi party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) also is faction ridden. The Jamiat Ahle Hadith (JAH) is the sect's main representative but dozens of other Ahle Hadith groups work independently. The Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the country's first anti-Shia militant group, and its offshoots such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), currently responsible for most anti-Shia acts of terror, are exclusively Deobandi.
Every religious sect is bent on gaining the largest numbers of adherents. The Deobandi and Ahle Hadith have made some inroads at the expense of the majority Barelvi sect, with the agents of "internal conversions" including the Tableeghi Jamaat and Deobandi madrasa networks. Some Deobandi leaders now claim a majority; others, such as Ajmal Qadri, believe that the "Barelvi and Deobandi populations are now roughly equal". Barelvis, whose shrine culture still dominates rural Punjab and Sindh, reject these claims.
Pre-eminence in the madrasa sector, a long tradition of publishing religious literature and more sophisticated organisational structures have helped the Deobandi sect emerge as the most articulate and politically dominant representative of orthodox Sunnism. However, the divide within Sunni subsects remains as wide as that between puritanical Sunnis and Shias. In fact, Sunni scholars in each subsect have a history of issuing edicts of apostasy against one another.
The Athna Ashari sect (the Twelvers) dominate Pakistan's Shia minority. Smaller variations of the Shia school include the Ismailis (followers of the Aga Khan), Daudi Bohras (followers of Syedna Burhanuddin) and their rivals Sulemani Bohras (followers of Masood Salehbahi). The Shias share a devotion to shrines and saints with the Barelvis and other adherents of Sufi Islam.
The Shia community, too, has evolved into pressure groups, political parties and religious organisations. The main Shia party is the Tehrik-i-Islami (earlier called Tehrik-e-Jafaria Pakistan, until it was banned in 2002). The Sipahe Muhammad Pakistan (SMP) -- the army of Muhammad -- is the Shia militant counterpart of the Deobandi SSP. More than 70 per cent of those killed in sectarian violence since 1985 have been Twelver Shias, whose religious rituals and gatherings are prime targets of terrorist attacks.
There was a brief period, following the Iranian revolution, when Shias, responding to the sponsorship of Sunni extremism by Pakistan's leader, General Zia-ul-Haq, quite aggressively promoted and defended their belief system. The zeal for an Iran-like Shia revolution has since died down. Shia militancy and political activism is now primarily a defensive response to Deobandi militancy.
Though Shia Islam in Pakistan is sectarian, and can be both aggressive and rebellious in response to perceived threats to the faith, Shia political parties have generally supported mainstream secular parties. Shias backed the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in the 1970s and entered into a more formal alliance with it in the early 1990s. Later, the main Shia party, the Tehrik-e-Jafaria Pakistan, joined hands with the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N). Today its newest incarnation, the Tehrik-e-Islami is a member of the MMA, an alliance with five Sunni politico-religious parties that is likely to be temporary, forged as it is on the grounds of political expediency. A distinct Shia communalism remains the basis of Tehrik-e-Islami's organisation and activism.
In fact, all Sunni and Shia religio-political parties, movements and extremist organisations operate on the principle of exclusion. They compete for the souls of ordinary Muslims and aggressively proselytise through their dawa (preaching) organs. Each group has its own networks of madrasas, whose curricula are diametrically opposed to one another, thus serving to reinforce Pakistan's sectarian divide. Their mosques are mutually exclusive and the religious rituals of each sect/sub-sect are markedly different. They do not even pray together, except on the occasion of Hajj. Turf wars among rival clerics are the defining characteristic of Pakistani religious activism. More significantly, each sect and movement attracts followers from different social strata and regions. In a nutshell, all Pakistani "Islamic" movements are sectarian even if they claim otherwise.
Sunni, particularly Deobandi, hostility toward Shias is fuelled by the latter's religious beliefs and practices. For Shias, Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet and the fourth caliph, is the central religious figure. They do not recognise the first three caliphs as legitimate successors of the Prophet. Public display of mourning is an essential part of the Shia faith, particularly during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, when they commemorate the battle of Karbala (680, in Iraq) in which the Omayyads killed the Prophet's grandson, Hussain, and his family.
For Sunnis, especially Deobandis and Ahle Hadith, these Shia beliefs and ceremonies are an affront to their religious sensibilities. Barelvi Sunnis are generally more tolerant of Shia rituals and even participate in their ceremonies. However, with the rise of sectarian militancy and violence, such occasions have become rare.
Deobandis have demanded a ban on all public Shia rituals. The more extremist among them, such as the SSP, have called for a constitutional amendment to declare Shias a non-Muslim minority, thus bracketing them with the Ahmadis, who follow a late nineteenth century Punjabi "prophet", Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom they believe was Jesus' reincarnation and Islam's promised messiah. Religious and social orthodoxy in the Ahmadi community is as intolerant of the shrine culture as are the orthodox Sunni sects.
Shias as well as Sunnis have excommunicated the Ahmadis from the realm of Islam. After a sustained campaign by Sunni religious parties, the government designated the Ahmadis as non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment in 1974. This was insufficient to satisfy militant Sunni extremists. Since the 1980s, the Ahmadis have been the victims of violent sectarian strife. In terms of social boycott and official discrimination, the Ahmadis are Pakistan's most repressed religious community. Other religious groups who claim to have roots in Islam but are rejected by mainstream sects include the Zikris (in Balochistan) and Bahais.
Given the complex nature of this sectarian landscape, where rival religious traditions representing Islam abound, sectarian violence in Pakistan extends far beyond the Deobandi-Shia divide.
III.   SECTARIAN RADICALISM
A.   Domestic Extremism and International Terror
Pakistan confronts al Qaeda as well as homegrown sectarian terrorists but the divide between the two is artificial at best. Both are motivated by a distorted religious ideology, rely on terror tactics and make no distinction between civilians and combatants. Most al Qaeda adherents, foreign or local, have close connections with domestic jihadi organisations and some members of religious parties.
The trail of international terror has often led official investigators to the madrasas, mosques and offices of mainstream religio-political parties. Some of these parties are members of a broader political alliance, the MMA, which runs the government of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and shares power with the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam) in Balochistan. Musharraf's former Interior Minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat, has accused workers and leaders of the JI and JUI-F (Fazlur Rehman group), the two main MMA parties, of direct involvement with terror networks. Some key al Qaeda figures, notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, were apprehended at the homes of JI religious leaders and activists.
The objectives and goals of Pakistani sectarian terrorists in the post-11 September world might be closer to those of transnational jihadis but the internal enemy still takes priority over the enemy without. "It is a two-track jihad", says a member of a banned Pakistani group. "The external enemy is known, his intentions against Islam and Muslims are no secret. But the internal enemy posing as Muslim, as Shias and others do, is more dangerous. Stopping internal enemies is our priority".
There is an additional, regional, dimension to this landscape of sectarian terror. Wahhabi-influenced Pakistani Sunni sects are as anti-Iran as their Shia counterparts are hostile to Saudi Arabia and its official creed. The Barelvis, too, are at odds with Wahhabism and resent the Saudi government's religious practices. And through their backing for their chosen Pakistani sectarian allies, external forces, mainly Saudi Arabia and Iran, have also been instrumental in deepening Pakistan's sectarian divide.
B.   Spreading the Word: Madrasa and Mosque
The madrasa and the pulpit have been and remain the sectarian actor's instruments of choice. Indeed, the spread of sectarian movements and militancy is directly proportional to the size of the clergy-run sector of madrasas and mosques. Pakistan had 137 madrasas in 1947, increasing to 401 in 1960. The four madrasa unions ran 893 by 1971 (the JI had no madrasas till then), with the numbers increasing by 1979, according to official estimates, to 1,745 and then again to almost 3,000 by 1988. According to the latest official estimates (2003), there are now 10,430 madrasas in the country.
Madrasa administrators, however, say that the largest clergy union, the Deobandi Wafaq al-Madaris, has 5,778 affiliated madrasas, with 2,573 smaller branches. Adding the numbers claimed by the other four unions and independent madrasas, the total is approximately 13,000.
Growing poverty and lack of access to public schools has helped the four unions to expand their madrasas. Two surveys, one in 2002 and another for 2002-2003, found that the vast majority of students came from economically deprived backgrounds.
The number of madrasa graduates (maulanas) specialising in religious polemics to defend and promote their respective sectarian ideologies has grown exponentially. By 1995, Pakistan had 20,000 maulanas with the highest madrasa certificate, in addition to 40,000 local religious scholars. Since 1989, 30,000 more students have appeared for the final exams conducted by the Deobandi Wafaq alone. A quarter of a million have passed the Hifz (memorisation of the Quran) test since 1989. This swelling corps of maulanas has raised public consciousness of sectarian differences.
There are 58 registered religious political parties and 24 known militant groups. Every major sub-sect has multiple political parties and subsidiary unions. According to an expert, Pakistan has as many as 245 religious groups, with over 100 focusing on external jihad and 82 on sectarian issues. Each sect, large or small, fundamentalist or modernist, has had one or more militant outfits at different times to wage the internal (sectarian) and/or external jihad.
Being a Muslim in Pakistan is no longer the sole religious identity; orthodox Sunni circles require a denominational prefix. Even Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had to identify his religious sect at his inaugural press conference in Islamabad. "I am a Sunni Muslim", he said, confronting rumours that he was a Qadiani (a member of the Ahmadi sect) and thus constitutionally ineligible for the post. Aziz had to further identify his Sunni subsect by citing his family's religious rituals.
Mosque pulpits are used to incite people against religious minorities as well as other Muslim sects. Media of all sorts -- newspapers, audiotapes, pamphlets, handbills, party literature -- disseminate sectarian views widely. Controversies over religious syllabuses in schools often take a violent turn. In particular, professing and practising minority faiths is hazardous in the face of crusading clerics and a biased state system. Minorities -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- live in fear of persecution and violence.
Terrorism is merely one facet of religious intolerance. Terrorists are a tiny minority of Pakistani fanatics. Social discrimination, legal bias and cultural repression, based on an individual's or a family's sectarian identity, is commonplace. In some cases, it is institutionalised. Pakistani governments, elected or authoritarian, are subjected to pressure by religious lobbies to extend concessions to or take action against their sectarian rivals. Demands range from enforcement of their version of the Sharia (religious law), through rival claims over mosques, excommunication of heretics and the removal of officials because of their faith. The clergy has played this game most effectively with authoritarian leaders, whose lack of legitimacy makes them susceptible to their demands.
While extremist sections of the Shia and Sunni clergy, represented by groups such as the SSP and SMP, are frequently embroiled in violence, it bodes well for Pakistan that their communities still live in relative peace. The hatred, hostility and violence that characterise militant sectarianism have yet to gain popular, grassroots support. Yet, this too could change if Pakistan's power brokers continue to exploit religion for political and geopolitical ends, opening up new vistas for sectarian extremism even as the political space of moderate forces continues to shrink.
IV.   STATE-SANCTIONED EXTREMISM
A.   Sectarian Extremism and the State
Pakistan is not a nation-state: it is an Islamic state.
Niamatullah Khan, City Nazim (Mayor) and former chief of JI, Karachi
"When a state claims a theocratic mission, it is bound to provoke conflicts over whose model shall prevail .…when religion is pushed explicitly into politics it becomes a currency of power". The manner in which sectarian terrorism in Pakistan has been shaped and the forms it has taken are intrinsically linked to the state's role in politicising religion. It is, therefore, important to trace the origin and development of Pakistan's faith-based exclusionary politics and to assess the ways in which sectarian issues have figured in its constitutional and political history. It is also important to examine the political and sociological developments that have raised the clergy's political profile and intensified sectarian competition.
B.   Roots of Religious Extremism
Who is a Muslim? What statement of creed does a Muslim make? Such sectarian questions were not central to Muslim politics in British India. Sir Aga Khan III, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Shias, was the first president of the All India Muslim League, which later led the movement for Pakistan. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, was a Shia and yet became the undisputed leader of Indian Muslims. Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh, was the only town in British India where Sunni-Shia tensions were known to turn violent. That, too, was a rare occurrence.
The elite that had represented Muslims in the military, civil and political institutions of British India sought a new state to consolidate and expand their power on the grounds of religion. Lacking a popular support base in the new state they had created, the ruling Muslim League's leadership continued to use Islam to legitimise their power. This attempt to appropriate Islamic terminology and its ideological metaphors presented the ulema, mystics, mosques and madrasas, the traditional representatives of Islam, who had no representation in the new power structures, with an opportunity to make their political presence felt.
Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, a Deobandi and the only religious scholar in the constituent assembly tasked to frame Pakistan's first constitution, had joined the Muslim League. He moved the Objectives Resolution, which was adopted by the assembly in March 1949 as the basis for a future constitution (and was incorporated in Pakistan's present constitution). It proclaimed that sovereignty over the universe belongs to Allah and that the authority delegated by Allah to Pakistan should be exercised in a manner that enables Muslims "to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam".
Ulema like Usmani and the JI's founder Maududi, themselves migrants to Pakistan, had very little popular support in either the West or the East wing. In West Pakistan (the territory of present day Pakistan) Pirs, mystic divines -- the hereditary custodians of shrines -- dominated the spiritual scene, especially in Punjab and Sindh, and political discourse was shaped far more by ethnicity and regionalism than by religion.
The mullahs and their religious parties were aware that an Islamic constitution would give them access to public policymaking. In their struggle for such a constitution, they drew their political methodology from the four major currents of Muslim thinking and activity in British India:
mass agitation, such as the Khilafat movement and Hijrat movement (1920--1924) in the wake of the First World War;
institutions of Islamic learning, such as the madrasas at Deoband, Bareily and Lucknow;
revivalist movements, aiming to restore the past glory of Islam by going back to its fundamentals, such as the JI; and
mullah activism in the Pashtun tribal area adjoining Afghanistan, which had assumed the shape of local rebellion against colonial rule.
Pakistani radical Islam has since encompassed all four strands, taking the shape of "street agitation, anti-Western intellectual discourse, religious scholarship of madrasas and the potential for a xenophobic tribal rebellion in NWFP". The anti-Ahmadi movement during Pakistan's formative years demonstrates how these currents coalesced and took the shape of sectarian violence.
1.   The Munir Report
The present Shia-Deobandi conflict is in many ways an extension and continuation of the anti-Ahmadi agitation, launched by the ulema soon after Pakistan's independence. Pressuring the government to classify the Ahmadi, a relatively new, small but politically influential community, as non-Muslim, ulema parties in 1952 demanded but failed to achieve the removal of Pakistan's first foreign minister, Sir Zafarullah Khan, a high-ranking member.
Ulema of all Sunni sects as well as prominent Shia leaders joined in the anti-Ahmadi agitation, and public sentiment was incited to such a high pitch that Punjab, and especially its capital Lahore, "became the scene of a vast hunt where thousands of citizens rioted murderously … in almost pogrom-like fashion". As the movement spread, the military intervened in the city in 1953, the first imposition of martial law in Pakistan.
The government appointed a public judicial court of inquiry to investigate the cause of the riots, which resulted in the Munir Commission Report. Among other things, the report invited the protesting ulema to define who, in their opinion, could be considered a Muslim and concluded:
Keeping in view the several definitions given by the ul[e]ma, need we make any comment except that no two learned divines are agreed on this fundamental. If we attempt our own definition as each learned divine has done and that definition differs from that given by all others, we unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the definition given by any one of the ul[e]ma, we remain Muslims according to the view of that alim but kafirs (apostates) according to the definition of everyone else.
The status of Shias was also debated, since leading Deobandi ulema had issued similar edicts of apostasy against them. "What is happening now", said the judges, "seems almost a writing on the wall, and God help us if we do not stop these…people from cutting each other's throat".
But the inquiry's adverse findings did not deter the religious parties. The "movement to defend the finality of prophethood" continued to gain strength, with the mullahs raising the issue at religious gatherings, and anti-Ahmadi sentiment continued to gain popular support. Since then, Ahmadis have been considered social and religious pariahs by most Pakistani Muslims.
Following riots that began in Rabwa (also known as Chenab Nagar), the Ahmadi religious centre in Punjab, the anti-Ahmadi movement ultimately led to a constitutional amendment in 1974 that officially excluded the sect from Islam. That concession only further emboldened the ulema. Sustained pressure from the clergy resulted in further Ahmadi-specific laws in 1984, barring the community from using Islamic symbols and nomenclature.
The Sunni ulema unions that were formed to agitate against the Ahmadis were the first of their kind, as they focused on a one-point sectarian agenda. They have since played a central role in influencing the origins and directions of anti-Shia militancy. Many leading activists of the Sunni terrorist organisation, the Sipahe Sahaba, began their political careers in anti-Ahmadi organisations.
2.   Inching ahead
Pakistan's first constitution in 1956 was a partial success for the religious right since it declared the country an Islamic Republic and required the president to be a Muslim but did not define a Muslim. However, the constitution, framed by an unelected parliament, was abrogated by General Mohammad Ayub Khan, Pakistan's first military ruler, in 1958.
Confronting a restive population, the government decided to nationalise Auqaf (Islamic endowments), and establish an Auqaf Department, to undercut the power of the pirs and shrines. This enabled Sunni puritanical forces to make inroads into the domain of their religious competitors. It was during this period that madrasas formed unions to forward their agenda of Islamising the Pakistani state and society.
Seeking legitimacy for his rule, General Ayub Khan created his own constitution in 1962, based on a strongly centralised presidential system with few checks and balances on the executive's authority. Under direct military rule, internal factionalism, including sectarianism, inevitably grew. Despite its reformist rhetoric, the military government also sought to co-opt the mullahs. While Ayub disallowed political freedoms, he sought the views of the religious parties on his proposed constitution and the Deobandi JUI demanded restrictions on Shia mourning processions and other rituals. The Deobandi ulema also sought to use the constitution to restrict Shia activities to the precincts of Imambaras (Shia mosques).
Although these proposals were rejected, the Deobandi clergy had been given an opportunity to exploit religion for political ends. It was during Ayub's reign that the first anti-Shia killings took place. In June 1963, over 100 Shias were killed in Tehri village, in Khairpur district, Sindh:
To call the 1963 killings a riot is not an apt description. It was an act of mass killings. The dead bodies were thrown into a well to cover the massacre. Had it not been for timely media exposure and strong intervention from police, the event might never have come to public knowledge.
The next time an anti-Shia attack on this scale took place was during another period of military rule, under General Zia-ul-Haq.
The military developed its first institutional links with the mullahs under Ayub's successor, President and Army Chief General Yahya Khan (1969-1972). Facing opposition from the PPP in West Pakistan and the Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan, the Yahya regime decided to use Islamist extremists to counter its political foes. JI vigilante groups were, for instance, given free rein to conduct a campaign of terror against the Bengalis of the East wing in the bloody civil war that eventually resulted in Pakistan's dismemberment and the formation of Bangladesh.
With the military's support, the religio-political parties also entered mainstream politics, obtaining eighteen of 300 National Assembly (lower house of parliament) seats, all in the West wing, during the 1970 elections. The Deobandi JUI obtained seven seats in NWFP and Balochistan and later formed coalition governments in the two provinces, even obtaining the NWFP's chief ministership. The Barelvi JUP won seven and the Jamaat-i-Islami four seats.

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During the Bhutto era, perceiving his populist politics as a direct challenge to its power, an ambitious, interventionist military high command once again forged an alliance of convenience with the mullahs, which was ultimately used to oust the elected government in 1977.
Bhutto's attempts to appease the mullahs, his main opposition, only whetted their appetite for political power. His concessions included the constitutional amendment that officially excommunicated the Ahmadis. To reward his Shia supporters, Bhutto also accepted a longstanding Shia demand for a separate Islamic studies syllabus in schools. Yet, Bhutto's 1973 constitution made only token gestures to the religious right. Although it pledged, for instance, to Islamise all laws within ten years, its federal, parliamentary character provided far more space for democratic, secular politics. However, the Sunni mullahs came into their own under General Zia-ul-Haq.
3.   Zia's Sunnism
The only kind of politicians Zia liked were religious politicians as they were amenable to the military's plans and did not raise the issues of people's rights and development….Religion was used as a means of political distraction.
Senator Sanaullah Baloch
Over the last 25 years, the more orthodox and militant versions of Sunni Islam have grown in strength and public influence. This trend can be directly attributed to Zia's martial law (1977-1988). His Islamisation policies encouraged and promoted all types of movements but the conservative Deobandis, Ahle Hadith and the JI were the main beneficiaries.
Zia's divisive Islamisation drive was comprehensive. It included:
reconstitution of the Council of Islamic Ideology to include conservative Sunni ulema, resulting in the resignation of the Shia and Barelvi members;
introduction of constitutional amendments to set up a federal Sharia Court, whose members generally belonged to the conservative ulema;
promulgation of the Hudood ordinances, legalising the ulema's bias against women and non-Muslims;
systematic segregation of minorities through the Blasphemy laws;
steps to Islamise the banking system;
promulgation of the Zakat and Ushr (Islamic tithes) Ordinance of 1980, with 10 per cent of zakat funds earmarked for madrasas, the first time they received official funding;
reform of the public education curricula, with a greater emphasis on Islamic principles (the final madrasa degree was granted parity with a Master's degree in formal education, and gender segregation at educational institutions became a norm);
establishment of an Islamic University and Sharia faculty with Saudi money;
propagation of orthodox Islamic values in the print and broadcast media;
obligatory prayer breaks in government offices and schools, making sectarian identification possible; and
discriminatory rules and regulations requiring job applicants and those seeking passport and national identity cards to declare their religion.
Sectarian militancy as it is now known first appeared at educational institutions when the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), JI's student wing, used violence against its opponents at campuses across Pakistan, taking control of major educational institutions and forcing secular and progressive student movements to retreat, with state support. Though it claims to be non-sectarian, the JI's student wing was equally intolerant of the student wings of other religious parties, such as the Barelvi Anjmun-e-Talaba Islam and JUI's Jamiat-e-Talaba Islam.
Zia's promotion of Deobandi orthodoxy alienated Shias and Barelvis, while the spread of jihadi literature from Afghan training camps to Pakistani madrasas helped implant radical ideas in impressionable poverty-stricken children. Similar texts became part of the formal system of education. Islamisation of education and student politics created mass sectarian consciousness far beyond the confines of the madrasa. Since then, "instead of teaching religion, governments seek to teach 'correct' religion".
Tensions between Barelvis and Deobandis also grew over a number of issues, including control over Sunni mosques. The appointment of khateebs (mosque orators, chaplains) and imams at the Auqaf Department mosques became a bone of contention. "There is a district khateeb and at least one Auqaf mosque in every town and city. The Auqaf Department under Zia preferred graduates of Wafaq al-Madaris. Hundreds of mosques that were being run by Barelvis thus fell into Deobandi hands", says Mufti Fayyaz, who runs a Tanzeem al-Madaris seminary. Distribution of zakat funds was equally lopsided in favour of Deobandi and Ahle Hadith madrasas.
But when the dominant Deobandi madrasas supported the anti-military alliance, the Movement for Restoration of Democracy, in PPP's Sindh stronghold and refused to accept zakat, the government opted to support Barelvi madrasas in the province.
This cynical use of Islam for political, military, and geostrategic purposes fuelled an intense sectarian competition. During the Afghan civil war, Pakistani Islamic parties, especially JI and JUI, accumulated immense financial resources, weapons and trained cadres of fighters. They also gained access to the international market and developed transnational links. Such incentives resulted in the multiplication of parties in the name of religion.
The Zia era witnessed a dramatic shift towards extremist Sunni political discourse, orthodoxy and a heightening of anti-Shia militancy, early signs of the bloody sectarian conflict to follow. According to a 1978 editorial in Al-Haq, a publication of madrasa Haqqaniya of Maulana Samiul Haq, the alma mater of many of Afghanistan's Taliban leaders:
We must also remember that Shias consider it their religious duty to harm and eliminate the Ahle-Sunnah.…the Shias have always conspired to convert Pakistan into a Shia state….They have been conspiring with our foreign enemies and with the Jews. It was through such conspiracies that the Shias masterminded the separation of East Pakistan and thus satiated their thirst for the blood of the Sunnis.
The SSP, formed in 1985 with a one-point anti-Shia agenda, was a logical extension of the JUI's sectarian politics and also represented a state-sponsored and Saudi-backed movement against Pakistan's Iran-backed Shia minority.
4.   External actors and Pakistani sectarianism
The Shia-Deobandi/Ahle Hadith conflict is in some ways a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the regional champions of their respective brands of Islam. Antipathy to Saudi-Wahhabi politics and religion is not exclusively a Shia trait. Sunni, Sufi-based constituencies and the Barelvi ulema also oppose the expanding Wahhabi influence in Pakistan and look for ways to contain it.
Until the 1979 Iranian revolution, Pakistani Shias were a politically moderate community, and their associations had limited aims, such as a separate Islamic textbook. Most Shias supported Bhutto's PPP in the 1970 elections. Zia's Islamisation and the Iranian revolution spurred them into political activism. Their first political party, Tehrik Nifaz-e-Fiqhe Jafaria (TNFJ), was founded in 1979. In a Sunni majority country the party's very title, the "movement for implementing the Jafari Fiqh (Shia jurisprudence)", reflected a revolutionary idealism. For the Zia government and its Sunni allies, this was perceived as an Iranian conspiracy to export its revolution to Pakistan.
As the only Shia Islamic state, Iran occupies a unique position in the Shia world. Many Shias look to it for a degree of political support and direction. After the Iranian revolution, the Shia centre of learning and spiritual guidance moved from Najaf in Iraq to Qom in Iran. Iran's special role in the life of Pakistani Shias can be judged also from the institution of khums (one-fifth income deduction). The money is collected in Pakistan by wakils (attorneys), on behalf of Maraje Uzzam, Iranian clerics who specialize in fiqh (jurisprudence) and whose religious edicts are binding on all Shias. The wakils also collect other donations from affluent Shias, transferring them to designated ayatollahs responsible for redistributing the funds to promote Shia education, ceremonies and welfare projects. The Iranian government has no direct role in managing or distributing them.
The Iranian government does extend political support to Shia minorities in Pakistan. During the Zia period, this was inevitable given his aggressive Sunni Deobandi Islamisation policies, and alliance with the U.S. Iran and Saudi Arabia's proxy war in Pakistan was further fuelled by the U.S.-supported anti-Soviet Afghan jihad, in which Pakistan's military government was an active player. Aside from competing for control over Afghan groups, Iran and Saudi Arabia supported their respective Pakistani religious allies.
It is believed that Saudi Arabia alone gave $3.5 billion to the Pakistan military for the Afghan jihad, most of which was spent in strengthening and arming Sunni groups on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Madrasas mushroomed not only in the NWFP and Balochistan but also in Karachi and central Punjab. A parallel non-governmental sector of Islamic charities complemented the jihad, with the volume of direct donations from Saudi individuals and charities hard to determine. Kuwait and Libya also contributed. Iraq, under Saddam, actively sponsored anti-Iranian Pakistani madrasas and parties.
A less known aspect of Shia mobilisation in the 1980s was their proselytising activities. Shia preachers, once discreet, became overt and aggressive, increasing sectarian tensions. When Zia gave in to Shia agitation and exempted them from the zakat deduction, Shias were required to file sworn affidavits to affirm their faith, making the sectarian distinction formal. Proactive Shia clerics, with Iran's support, saw in the situation an opportunity to proselytise aggressively, resulting in an equally aggressive Sunni response. "If you look at where the most [Sunni] madrasas were constructed [in Balochistan], you will realise that they form a wall blocking off Iran from Pakistan", says a Baloch politician. In the process, the Sunni clergy was given an opportunity to reach out to regions hitherto untouched by sectarian extremism.
The militant Sunni backlash, given vent through the SSP, set into motion a seemingly unending cycle of violence. In March 1987, a Saudi-backed Ahle Hadith leader, Allama Ehsan Illahi Zaheer, and four other clerics were killed in a bomb blast in Lahore. The Shias were the prime suspects. The following year, TNFJ leader Ariful Hussaini was murdered in Peshawar. When the Shia town of Gilgit in the Northern Areas was attacked that same year by a Sunni lashkar, the Zia government appeared complicit since the civil and military law enforcement agencies made no attempt to intervene.
Zia's death in a midair explosion in 1988 brought back civilian rule after eleven years. By that time, sectarianism had become "relevant to the military's domestic political agenda", and it has continued to figure prominently in its Afghan and Kashmir policy.
5.   Sectarianism and the challenges of civilian rule
The religious terrorists we face are fighting us on every level -- militarily, economically, psychologically, and spiritually. Their military weapons are powerful, but spiritual dread is the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal.
Jessica Stern
Transfer of power to civilians during the 1990s did not deprive the military of its control over foreign policy or end its interference in domestic politics. Those domestic and external policies the military pursued included promotion of both the internal and external jihads, the former inadvertently, the latter consciously. Domestically, the first PPP government, headed by Benazir Bhutto, faced an aggressive opposition alliance, the Islamic Democratic Front, "cobbled together by the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate], which turned a blind eye to Sunni sectarian activities in Punjab, and sought to balance the PPP's Shia base with a Sunni one of its own".
Externally, the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir gained momentum, giving the military an opportunity to conduct a proxy war against India, a jihad that would soon have repercussions for Pakistan itself. The pioneers of the insurgency were the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), JI's jihadi wing and the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a secular Kashmir nationalist party. With the military's patronage, Pakistani and Afghan jihadis joined them, as the military used the JI to intensify the insurgency. Every mainstream Pakistani religio-political party and sect joined the Kashmir jihad through groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Harkatul Mujahideen and Jamiat al-Mujahideen.
Within Pakistan, a generation of sectarian zealots from the Zia era had come of age. Until 1990, the SSP and TNFJ were the two main protagonists. SSP founder Haq Nawaz Jhangvi's murder in February 1990 led to the creation of its twin organisation, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The Sipahe Mohammed Pakistan, the Shia response to the SSP, emerged in the early 1990s as a surrogate of the TNFJ. Arab-influenced veterans of the Afghan jihad formed the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LT) in 1988 and, with the military's patronage, launched their jihad against India, creating an entirely new movement of Ahle Hadith militancy. By 1992 the traditionally non-violent Barelvis, too, had a militant group. In Karachi, Saleem Qadri set up the Sunni Tehrik, designating the Deobandis as his main adversaries. The murders of Deobandi scholars in Karachi in the late 1990s, including Binori Town chief Yusuf Ludhianvi, are attributed to the Sunni Tehrik. The numbers of less prominent jihadi and sectarian groups now run into the hundreds.
In 1994 during Benazir Bhutto's second term, with the Pakistan military's patronage and her parliamentary ally, the JUI-F, playing a pivotal role, the Afghan Taliban were launched, resulting in major implications for sectarianism in Pakistan.
Pakistan's regional jihad, in India and Afghanistan, produced an escalation of domestic sectarian conflict. In 1997, celebrations of the 50th year of independence were accompanied by an unprecedented wave of sectarian killings. More than 100 people, mainly Shias, were killed in ten days.
Local militant movements sought to replicate the Taliban system. Emboldened by the movement's success in Afghanistan, many Tehrik-e-Taliban (the movement of the Taliban) leaders set up their own Sharia-based systems in Pakistan's tribal areas. One, Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM, the movement for the enforcement of Mohammad's Sharia), forced the Nawaz Sharif government to enact Sharia laws in the Swat-Malakand area of NWFP in 1998.
The Taliban also helped reinforce the old jihad ties between Pakistani sectarian groups and drug and smuggling cartels in Afghanistan. That mutually beneficial relationship resulted in the "Islamisation of criminal activity and criminalisation of segments of Islamism in Pakistan". Hundreds of Pashtun and Punjabi youth entered Afghanistan and joined Taliban-operated terrorist training camps, inspired by a Sunni revolution and anti-Shia jihad. Sipahe Sahaba militants took part in massacres of Shias and in battles against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
Just as the military denied the Bhutto and Sharif governments control of Pakistan's Kashmir or Afghanistan policies, it also made and unmade governments, dismissing four successive elected governments before they completed their terms of office. But each elected government had to bear the brunt of sectarian violence and the resultant insecurity and alienation it generated.
During Sharif's first term of office, for instance, sectarian violence spread from traditional arenas such as Jhang in Punjab, Parachinar in NWFP, and Gilgit in the Northern Areas to the urban heartland. The nature of attacks also changed. The initial pattern of targeting leaders, diplomats and other high-profile figures widened to include mosques, public places, graveyards and religious processions. Government functionaries, judges, police officials and professionals were killed solely on the basis of their sectarian identity.
Both the Bhutto and Sharif governments took some steps to quell sectarianism but with scant success. Given the military's backing for the regional jihad, Bhutto had little option but to withdraw her decision to audit the finances of madrasas, reform their hate-based curricula, and end their jihadi training. Sharif's attempts to curtail sectarian extremism also failed.
Although the political needs of both prime ministers resulted in some concessions to the religious right, such as Bhutto's alliance with the JUI-F and Sharif's Sharia bill, they at least attempted to crack down on sectarian groups. It is difficult to assess if they would have succeeded had their governments survived. Yet, even the sporadic efforts to deal with sectarian extremists, such as that by Bhutto in 1995 and Sharif in 1997 and 1998, were more thorough than Musharraf's current policies.
V.   Reign of Terror
A region-by-region analysis of the shape and directions of sectarian terrorism can best demonstrate the seriousness of the current threat.
A.   Punjab
With 68 per cent of its population living in rural areas, Punjab is still an agrarian society. Though weakened considerably by the Auqaf Department and puritanical Sunni movements, Sufi Islam and its Barelvi component have the largest following. Except for some rural pockets in southern Punjab and around industrial towns such as Gujranwala and Faisalabad, militant sectarianism has not taken root in the villages. But urban areas are hard hit by sectarianism and awash in jihadi movements.
Mumtaz Ahmed identifies three groups as most active in sectarian violence: the bazaar (market) merchants, who finance sectarian organisations; the madrasa students, who provide the manpower for these movements and parties; and the semi-educated unemployed youth in urban centres, who act as hired guns for organisations such as the Sipahe Sahaba and the Sipahe Muhammad.
Religious parties lack a popular base in Punjab, where mainstream moderate parties, particularly the PML (N) and the PPP, remain the main contenders for power, or will be once again when there is an even playing field. Until then, the military-created PML (Q) will remain the dominant political force. Yet, the military's sidelining of the two most popular and moderate parties has expanded the political space for sectarian actors like the Sipahe Sahaba, enhancing the potential for sectarian violence.
1.   Southern Punjab
Southern Punjab, particularly the belt that stretches from Jhang to Dera Ghazi Khan, has the highest rate of growth and concentration of madrasas in the province. It is also the stronghold of the Sipahe Sahaba and its twin, the Lahskar-e-Jhangvi.
Jhang, a city at the cusp of southern and central Punjab, is the birthplace of organised sectarian militancy not just in Punjab but countrywide. Jhang district has a population of 3 million, a quarter of which is Shia. Half of Jhang's urban population are migrants from East Punjab, many of whom belong to the Deobandi sect. Local Sunnis and Shias have no history of conflict. While sectarian politics in Jhang dates back to the 1960s, other than the occasional skirmish during Muharram, anti-Shia violence was unknown until Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, then vice president of the JUI, Punjab, formed the SSP in September 1985 and openly espoused sectarian militancy.
Jhangvi, who started his career in Deobandi mosques and was well known for anti-Barevli and anti-Ahmadi campaigns, focused his attention on the Shias. SSP workers, for instance, would take over the city and set up pickets to single out and target Shias and prevent them from conducting their religious rituals. A Shia leader says, "It was [more] convenient to pose as a non-Muslim in such situations and pass by". The two sects now live in separate parts of the city. More than 300 Shias were killed in sectarian violence between 1985 and 1989 in Jhang district before Jhangvi was murdered in January 1990.
The Sipah Sahaba's rise (it now has a vote bank of 40,000 to 60,000 in Jhang city) reflects the district's socio-economic divisions. Bazar merchants (including traders, shopkeepers and businessmen) support the SSP to counter the traditional political dominance of Shia and Sunni pir families. The SSP also receives funds from expatriates in the Middle East. "The politically weak but economically strong migrants in urban Jhang challenged, with Zia's support, the politically strong landowners of the rural areas", says Zafarullah Khan, a resident of Jhang. Other than bazaar merchants and urban, educated youth, madrasas are the mainstay of the SSP's politics. Its sister organisation, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is also financially supported by bazaar merchants in southern Punjabi towns. The SSP has, however, failed to gain support among Punjab's predominantly rural population, where Sufi Islam is still supreme.
Forced by the demands of electoral politics, SSP's leader, Maulana Azam Tariq, tried to dilute its militant image. By participating in electoral politics and ostensibly distancing itself from the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) faction formed by Riaz Basra after Jhangvi's murder, the SSP is also able to deny any hand in anti-Shia terrorism even as it pursues the same agenda. Nevertheless, it is estimated that some 5,000 to 6,000 SSP activists have undergone jihadi training.
Along with its LJ offshoot, SSP is the only sectarian group that has targeted Iranian officials and interests, although other Sunni organisations also share its anti-Iranian bias. An Iranian diplomat, Sadeq Ganji, was killed in Lahore in December 1990, apparently to avenge Haq Nawaz Jhangvi's murder. Iranian diplomat Muhammad Ali Rahimi was assassinated weeks after a bomb blast at the Sessions Court in Lahore killed then SSP chief Zia-ur-Rehman Farooqi in 1997. Azam Tariq, the SSP leader assassinated in October 2003, was himself implicated in a number of murder cases.
In its prime, the SSP had a student wing, a welfare trust and a vast network of local offices. It had branches in 74 of Pakistan's 102 districts and in 225 subdivisions, with 1 million fee-paying, card-holding members. Initially, it gained manpower from madrasas belonging to the four Deobandi unions but later established it