Jinnah wanted a “Muslim state” not an “Islamic state”.
The author of “Why God? Why Islam?” Husnain Bin Sajjad has made a thread on X regarding the viewpoints of the founding fathers of Pakistan about the Islamic/Secular outlook of the state.
Husnain Bin Sajjad believes that “the discourse about whether the founding fathers of pakistan wanted the state to be secular or islamic has existed since the first constitutional formation.”
“Much material has been published on this debate, one thing however that’s usually constant from both the sides (Islamic state advocates and secularists) is a presumptuous undertone that the founding father were in some sense intellectually infallible and therefore all of their statements/claims are to be definitively made sense of with any means possible.”
“One sees people using such technical hermeneutics to synthesise the contrasting views of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his colleagues regarding the ideological foundations of the country without even considering the possibility that maybe the founding fathers, regardless of their socio-political acumen lacked an understanding of the Islamic political theology and therefore ended up making claims, the religio-constitutional consequences of which they themselves didn’t foresee.”
“Islamic State” as a pragmatic tool
Husnain Bin Sajjad says that the founding fathers “either had an incoherent understanding of an “Islamic State” or simply used it as a pragmatic tool to unify the muslims (and other minorities) for a separate homeland (from the hindus).”
“For Jinnah, the meaning of an Islamic State was clearly unclear, he would be claiming Islam to have a social and political meaning at one place and at another, he wanted it be separated from the administration of the state.
Which only shows that for Jinnah, the reference to an Islamic State meant only the general ethical principles of islam such as social justice and freedom etc – making it to be a reference for pragmatic (unifying) purposes and not definitive legal/theological reasons.”
“Since a homeland for mainly muslims (majority) was in demand, it was only natural for Jinnah to mobilise masses under the slogans of Islam, & he did it, with his own modernist understanding of Islam hence giving birth to a double edged problem for future legislators of the state.
And this precisely was also the problem, that although for pragmatic purposes, Jinnah was able to unite millions and millions of muslims, and the Muslim league was constantly in a bargaining counter with the british and the congress regarding a separate state, they never really the time or the mental space to sit and discuss the technicalities of what it means for a state to be ideologically Islamic.”
“And therefore, under the popular slogans of striving for an Islamic state, the narrative of pakistan’s religious foundation gained a separate momentum amongst the masses and the religious elite, for whom the meaning of this idea naturally differed from the actual vision of the founding fathers and nobody ever got the opportunity to ever discuss (pre-partition obviously)
this fallacy of equivocation that organically arose in this movement, with each integral component of this movement understanding “An Islamic State” differently.”
“For the westernised fathers, an Islamic State simply meant a state that consisted of majority muslim population based on generalised universal principles of islam such as tolerance, justice etc. What they wanted therefore was a “Muslim state” rather than an “Islamic State”.
And this realisation strongly hit the ulema when it came to the process of constitution-making and thus many critiques were posed at the muslim league leadership , even the ones that were published pre-partition rose to limelight regarding their westernised worldviews.”
“This is not to say that the ML leadership in any manner deliberately deceived the ulema by tricking them through the “Islamic State” narrative, in fact the modernist themselves didn’t really even understand the extent of their slogan in terms of legislation and ideology.
Jinnah & his colleagues really believed Islam to be compatible with nationalism/secularism. For Jinnah, an Islamic state meant everything in Islam that supports the movement and minus everything that could act as a hurdle in the movement. Thus, often giving oxymoronic speeches.”
Liaquat Ali khan in the line too
Husnain Bin Sajjad says “Not only Quaid but later Liaqut Ali Khan also had his fair share of oxymoronic views when it came to constitutional debates regarding the sovereignty of God (islamic) and people (republic), his views according to his religious critics were simply models of western liberal democracy packaged with an ‘Islamic touch’.”
“To solidify the concerns of the ulema regarding the modernist tendencies of the founding fathers, ayub khan took open measures to promote the narrative that fathers of the state were secular and envisioned a secular state.
Plus, the ideological found. of Pak were never set in stone, they were being constantly moulded with the unfolding of socio-political events for pragmatic purposes,whether Pak was to be even a homeland for Muslims or all minorities also at times dependent on various circumstances.”
“Also in the early formation of the Pak identity, things unfolded so chaotically that early ideological sculpting was at times done arbitrarily by the bureaucrats for whom the meaning of being a Pakistani was dependent on factors that were as much of pragmatic as ideological.
From the get go therefore, pakistaniat and musalmaniyat were terms which were used synonymously, only when the situation demanded, otherwise by default, at least in the opinions of the founding fathers carried distinct meanings (A Hindu and Muslim being equally Pakistani).”
Read the thread here:
The “Islamic (/) Secular” Pakistan in the imagination of the modernists founding fathers of the state | an extensive 🧵
The discourse about whether the founding fathers of pakistan wanted the state to be secular or islamic has existed since the first constitutional formation. pic.twitter.com/xuKLyKPHBL
— Husnain Bin Sajjad (@husnayn_) May 11, 2024
