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Introduction: The Kurd-Shiite version of Iraq’s constitutional draft was presented to the National Assembly on August 28 for a vote in a referendum scheduled for October 15. The entire country will now spend six weeks debating the draft constitution leading to October referendum. Sunnis had boycotted January’s elections that resulted in the interim government with inadequate Sunni participation as an after-thought and now Sunni population is being asked by its government representatives to defeat the proposed constitution in the referendum. The irony is for Sunnis to defeat the constitution they will have to participate in the vote. That is more than they did in January’s elections, and by itself represents a commitment to democratic process.

Iraq has seen dramatic changes in the last two years. All segments of society – Arab, Kurd, Turkoman, Assyrian, Sunni, Shiite or Christians – struggle for security, stability and a decent future. Ethnically ratio of Arabs to Kurds to others is 15:4:1 and that of Shiites to Sunnis is about 2; Christians are 3 percent and Muslims are 97 percent. The revitalization of Iraqi national agenda is being addressed by taking into account ethnic and religious diversities as a source of richness. The traditional harmony among its citizens and the region was sacrificed by the decades-long plight under a brutal and adventurist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. While an overwhelming majority of Iraqis search for a new order, those engaged in and sympathetic with violence and terror seek to take advantage of the situation.

The article examines constitution drafted by Iraqi representatives. The disadvantages associated with Shariah system of laws and justices are discussed. The similarities in the budding Iraqi model of democracy and that of 58 year old Pakistan are identified. The influences of an Islamic educational model used in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the spread of terrorism to America and its impact on the political order in Pakistan are presented.

Iraq’s Draft Constitution: Under pretext of finding Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of WMDs American and British forces occupied Iraq in 2003 and got rid of the tyrant. The occupation forces initiated a process to help install a democracy in Iraq. America facilitated in the drafting of a constitution by Kurds, Shia and Sunni representatives. Shias are also known as Shiites. The draft document may appear to be a tripartite mess. The constitution draft promotes the rights of groups and religion above those of the people. It does not offer a united purpose for all Iraqi people. It promotes a “switch in power” from Sunnis to Shiites and Kurds without an acceptable central civil code for all. Instead of being a progressive document the constitutional draft takes steps backwards in human rights, women’ rights and secularism.

The draft document describes Iraq as “a democratic, federal, republic.” It includes an oil-sharing formula which would distribute wealth equally among the provinces according to population and it reduces potential for political domination by Sunnis; the latter may make federalism unacceptable to Sunnis. The political process of drafting the document was not carried with a complete consensus; it was approved only by Kurd and Shia but not by Sunni representatives; it created a huge disaffected element of Sunnis. Sunnis’ tried brinkmanship and failed to stop submission of the document for approval by Iraqis in a referendum scheduled for October. The essay compares Iraqi situation to the military democracy in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in an attempt to highlight what may happen if Iraq becomes an Islamic Federal Republic.

Framing a constitution is an arduous task as Iraq is divided in 18 provinces; Kurds are mostly in north (Mosul area), Shias occupy nine Southeastern provinces (Baghdad and Basra areas) and Sunnis are in West-central and -north (Sunni triangle) Iraq. Under the rules agreed to last year, a two-thirds majority voting against the constitution in any three of Iraq`s 18 provinces would send the document down to defeat. Thirty-five percent Iraq populations are Sunni and they are thought to constitute a majority in four central provinces.

Crude oil properties are concentrated in Kurd and Shias dominated areas. The Sunni leaders adamantly oppose language in the constitution that could allow the Shias to create a vast autonomous region in the oil-rich southeastern part of the country. The draft constitution says each province may form its own federal region and join with others. The Kurds already have an autonomous region in the north. The Shia leadership has been ardent in its desire to set up a Shia-dominated autonomous region, which would comprise nine of Iraq`s 18 provinces, nearly half the nation`s population and its richest oil fields.
A terrorist dominated insurgency was launched in the Sunni triangle areas of Iraq in 2003; it got stronger day by day and the allied forces are now paying a heavy price in man and materials trying to protect the elected interim Iraqi government. Under America’s watchful eyes Iraqi politicians put together a constitution that may protect rights of Iraqi citizens as individuals and recognize the fundamental diversity of Iraq within a federation. The debate was focused on choosing a constitution that incorporates federalism, rights for women, religious freedom and justice vs. one that incorporates Shariah law, which entails a possibility of placing unelected clergy in charge of Iraqi society through its legal system. The role of Islam is designated as “a” (not “the”) “basic source of legislation.” Some critics see this as evidence of incipient theocracy. The interpretation of that clause will be up to elected representatives. The existing Pakistani constitution, which incorporates ‘Islamic’ laws like the Hudood and Blasphemy Ordinances, is closer to the model of Iraq’s constitutional draft and so it should be relevant to discuss Pakistan’s political system.
Federalism means decentralized power. Federalism allows the existence of two sovereigns (i.e. central and provincial) in one state. It is a system in which there is government within the government, both independent, yet dependent on each other. Federalism caters for cultural pluralism and is based on respect for regional identities. It seeks unity in diversity. It therefore requires innovation and responsive governance; there is no fits-all model.

Federalism works if all changes are accomplished in a spirit of compromise. Central power in a federation must yield authority, both at the provincial and local level, but the degree of giving and taking varies from nation to nation. The recipe for a successful federation is “Autonomy with Cooperation”. Various units of a federation remain together because they are convinced that they can be more productive as a team than as independent entities. President Roosevelt (1908) described the working of a federation: “In a Federation both the national and state governments do their parts and each can do a certain amount that the other cannot. But a satisfactory result can be obtained when (both) work heartily together.”

By definition, a democracy is a voluntary union of its people. Democracy respects religion and individual, preserves human rights, offers equal justice, individual freedom, and individual and communal self-determination. A major concern is that by making Shariah a part of the constitution Iraqi women will lose their human rights. There are serious disadvantages associated with Shariah legal and judicial system.

The inherent contradictions for establishing a constitutional Islamic democracy in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-sect country are associated with several concerns about the Islamic law called Shariah, which is discriminatory against women and non-Muslims, prohibits freedom of religion, and the requirement that unelected Muslim clerics and Shariah experts occupy judiciary. Incorporation of Shariah in the constitution essentially grants judges wide latitude to strike down legislation that may contravene the faith.

The future Iraqi governments will face law and justice related problems that secular democracies solve using legislation and amendments to accommodate changed social, economical and political realities. Islam integrates religion with political (autocrat oriented), legal (Sharia) and economic models (interest-free banking), which were based on seventh century tribal practices in Arab lands. Muslims believe that Koran was delivered by Allah to Mohammed and hence with Koran they follow God’s “the perfect religion”, not man made religion or social, political and cultural rules and regulations. The holiness of Islam is taken for granted and amendment to Fiqhs (rules of law) in Shariah or other part of Koran is disallowed.

What we may consider illegalities of Shariah courts were discussed by Balbir K. Punj, see http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=93&page=8. Unlike legal systems of constitutional democracies, the Shariah is grossly discriminatory, for example:

• The Sharia disallows freedom of religion that is practice and propagation of non-Islamic faiths. All Fiqhs (Shia or Sunni) prohibit building of any new churches, synagogues or temples in "Muslim" lands, and even restricts the repair of existing ones or propagation of their faith among Muslims, and the more extreme ones (like the Salafi) even reject the public practice of other faiths.

• The Sharia accords a different status to Muslim men, Muslim women, non-Muslim men and non-Muslim women in almost all civil matters, - whether it be inheritance, marriage, divorce, custody of children etc, or even in the simple matter of being a witness in a court of law. The punishments for the same crime vary if the perpetrator or victim is a Muslim or non-Muslim and man or woman. An extreme case is that Shariat law penalizes a victim of rape by dissolving her marriage with her husband and counsels her remarriage with rapist but ironically it spares rapist of Shariat punishment of stoning by death.

• The Koran denies "partial" acceptance, dictates Muslims to follow the ways of the Prophet and the Koran touts Islam as "perfection" in religions.

• Mohammed followed seventh century tribal practices, which included making a living as a caravan robber, punishing or killing those who refused to follow Islam or the Islamic economic model, and exploiting women to satisfy his lust. The often violent (e.g. Banu Qureish), misogynist (e.g. threatening divorce to Sawda and Ayesha), lustful (e.g. Zainab) and devious (e.g. Hudaybiya) ways of Muhammad are recorded in Koran and the Hadith.

• Only clerics are allowed interpretation of Koran and all Muslims are required, under threats of punishment up to death for blasphemy and fatwa (religious ruling) not to question cleric’s interpretations of Islam or even the objectionable aspects of seventh century tribal behavior of Mohammed.

• Muslims are not far too wrong when they call Islam a complete system. Islam as a religion (mazhab) is utterly incomplete without its jurisprudence (Shariah) and Sunna (praxis) of its Prophet. Thus Islam is not just another religion that is limited to spiritual life of a person and leaves him to participate as a normal social being in society. It also means that civil society will not be able to normalize its relationship with followers of Islam by acknowledging Allah. Many things pertaining to Islam lie outside the ambit of religion like its education and its judiciary.

• Law is not merely a set of acts, provisions, precedents etc. There is a philosophy associated with law. The philosophy is that law must retain cause-and-effect principle. The most famous code of antiquity was Hamurabbi’s law code in Babylon formulated in the 18th century BC. Ancient Greeks and Romans codified criminal, civil and commercial laws that became foundation of modern day laws made universal by Western powers. These are works of human intellect based on cause-and-effect principle and open to evolution. These might also vary from country to country viz. USA has capital punishment but the UK does not although both acknowledge Greeko-Roman origin of their laws. The ancient Jews on the other hand claimed to receive their laws (Torah) from God. Thus for ancient Jews law was another branch of theology—every sin was a crime and every crime was a sin. The Islamic law follows this pattern.

• Islam claims a divine origin for its laws. It matters little whether the cause-and-effect principle holds good or not. For instance, witness of two women is equal to witness of one man. This might be irrational but it must be followed since Prophet Mohammed promulgated it. It is a shameful story why adoption of a child/orphan is forbidden in Islam, adoption can’t take place since Mohammed had forbidden it. A thief’s hand must be cut off; an adulterer must be stoned to death; and one who leaves Islam must also be stoned to death. But any crime committed against a kafir (non-Muslim) should attract no punishment. Killing of kafir, looting his property including livestock and womenfolk is legitimate. These are divine inspired laws of Islam although one might find them incredulous.

Except for a handful of countries like Saudi Arabia, Muslim countries don’t follow Shariah completely. Most follow modern laws in criminal and commercial matters keeping Shariah in personal matters. Since colonial era, Muslims follow modern laws in criminal and commercial matters because they are at an advantage in doing so. Ask a Muslim thief whether he will like to lose his hands as a tribute to Allah’s intelligence or serve three months imprisonment as tribute to human intelligence. The answer is any body’s guess. But do they have Allah’s permission?

• Marriage is a contract in Islam while sacrament in all other religions. Thus while a Hindu or Christian might have to go through painful and protracted process of law for getting divorce, a Muslim can finish the business by uttering the words talaq (I divorce you), talaq, talaq without even approaching a cleric, let alone a judge.

• The other important feature is that Shariah implies individually not territorially. Daniel Pipes has elucidated the issue in an article in 1995 “The Western Mind of Radical Islam” — in traditional Islam (as in Judaism) laws apply to the individual, not (as in the West) to the territory. It matters not whether a Muslim lives here or there, in the homeland or in the diaspora; he must follow the Shariah. Conversely, a non-Muslim living in a Muslim country need not follow its directives. For example, a Muslim may not drink whisky whether he lives in Tehran or Los Angeles; and a non-Muslim may imbibe in either place. This leads to complex situations whereby one set of rules applies to a Muslim thief who robs a Muslim, another to a Christian who robs a Christian, and so forth. The key is who you are, not where you are.

Moreover, Koran foments, justifies or glorifies terrorist or Jihadi violence in furtherance of particular beliefs and fosters hatred and intolerance which might lead to inter-community violence. Contrary to claims otherwise, many Muslims advocate violence, disrespect for religions other than Islam and unacceptable behavior against non-Islamic people in writing, producing, publishing or distributing material; public speaking including preaching; running a Web site; or using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader.

There is the Islamic law dilemma which is a universal Muslim dilemma. The Iraqis are more modern than most Arabs and the process of developing Iraq’s constitution has exposed the transnational impulse to impose the shariah. Who is objecting to it? Some “secular” men and most women from all communities are objecting to it. Since more Shias were kept poor and unmodernised under Saddam, there may be fewer Shia women opposing it than Sunni women. As in Pakistan, “modern” women staging processions against the “Islamic” nomenclature of the state are up against even more vehement hijab-clad women who want nothing but the male-dominated shariah, which mandates that women stay at home and bear children. Nonetheless, Iraqi women are sophisticated enough to know what will happen once the slippery slope of Islamic law is allowed in Iraq. Women’s commissions will repeatedly recommend relief from draconian misogynist laws which the nation (read men) will ignore.

All Muslim states are unstable either because they are secular or are “incorrectly” Islamic. In Turkey, democracy has to be bent to keep the Islamists in check. In Pakistan, more stringent shariah laws (of the 15th amendment variety) and hasba bills (accountability law to monitor observance of Muslim religious practices and values) are being attempted to achieve an approximation of the utopia of the Medina city-state without which the Muslims remain strangely depressed. Iraq will also have to live next to Iran which has just completed its first internal clash over how hard the shariah should be. Indeed, Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared that he won’t let the country become democratic because democracy is a Western notion repugnant to Islam. Therefore the tacit clerical consensus in the Muslim world is: let there be no political parties, no opposition in parliament and let sovereignty rest outside the elected representatives of the people. In Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai is more effectively supported externally, the shariah rules supreme under a Taliban-style chief justice, who has graduated from a tough-Islam seminary in Peshawar.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is using terrorism in an insurgency against American led forces to foil establishment of a constitutional democracy in Iraq. Zarqawi claims that tenets of democracy are contrary to the tenets of Islam. In democracy, in an audiocassette Zarqawi explained, “The one who is worshipped and obeyed and deified, from the point of view of legislating and prohibiting, is man, the created, and not Allah.”

Unlike Islamic societies, secular democratic nations are progressive open societies. In contrast to Islamic nations ruled by authoritarian kings or military men-elites-clerics-feudals alliances, the constitutional democracy in secular nations grants certain inalienable rights to all citizens, freedom of religion, a political system that treats all its citizens equal under law and allows for a banking system tied to interest payments. For instituting a constitutional democracy that provide level playing field for all its citizens, the political leaderships of Islamic nations (e.g., American led occupied Iraq and Afghanistan) are facing challenges, either to reform Islam or adopt secular methods of political governance.

The security-minded authoritarian Islamic regimes fear regional democratic transformation. Although Washington is known for coddling Arab and Pakistani dictators, for preserving its hegemony on Islamic nations and also for protecting its vital energy and economic interests, the American policy was changed to get rid of Saddam Hussein and an initiative was launched to establish democracy in Iraq. Americans are hoping for a constitutional democracy in the heart of Arab lands. Once democratic rule is stabilized in Iraq over next few years, may be longer, then likes of Zarqawi and other al Qaeda leaders will be marginalized and autocratic Islamic rulers in the region have a successful model to follow for establishing democratic institutions in their lands.

Among Islamic countries the norm has been a centralized unitary nation that breeds dictatorship. Mansoor Alam (Dawn, Aug. 22, 2005) observed that:

• Islamic nations do not have a common political system as the Christian West has — democracy. The political systems currently prevalent in the Muslim countries encompass all forms of government that ever existed in human history. There is monarchy (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait UAE, and Brunei), absolute dictatorship (Libya), mixed dictatorship (Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Uganda and Eritrea), democracy (Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh), mixed democracy (Algeria and Nigeria), militarized democracy (Pakistan), theocratic democracy (Iran), and a foreign power-propped democracy (Afghanistan), which was a theocracy until recently. Most of the Muslim countries have no working constitutions and no common legal or banking systems.

• Most of these nations having been colonies of the West, have inherited the legal and banking systems bequeathed to them by their colonial rulers. The religious class in Muslim countries believes that the implementation of Shariah is an indispensable responsibility of an Islamic state, so Pakistan, Iran, (Afghanistan under the Taliban) and some others have incorporated Islamic laws in their legal system.

• The incorporation of the Hudood and Blasphemy ordinances in constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has produced disastrous consequences. It has enabled the unelected clergy to run a parallel judicial system in the country and they have encouraged honor killings, made victims of rape guilty of adultery and let the rapist go free. Innocent persons are arrested in Pakistan on a charge of blasphemy without prior investigation of the charge and at times have been killed in prison or in public places after being acquitted. The law of blasphemy is being used to take revenge, misappropriate property of the weak by the strong and incite the mob to lynch sweepers if they throw anything written in Arabic such as a piece of an Arabic newspaper.
Details of Pakistan’s judicial practices illustrate what may happen in Iraq if American efforts fail and Iraq as “a federal, democratic republic” is reduced to an Islamic republic characterized by a centralized unitary nation. Like Iraq, Pakistan is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation; Pakistan has Punjabis + Siraiki, a Punjabi variant (58 percent), Sindhis + Muhajirs (20 percent), Balochi (3 percent), Pashtuns (8 percent) and other tribes and Hindus (balance); 77 percent Pakistanis are Sunni, 20 percent are Shias and Christians and Hindus are 3 percent.

What are the chances for American initiative to succeed in helping establish a secular constitutional democracy in Iraq? Will this constitution deliver a federal, secular democracy that incorporates rights for women, religious freedom and justice or would it allow Shias to establish an Islamic state in Iraq? Will this constitution suffer a fate similar to the constitution of Pakistan for last thirty plus years?

For all Iraq’s security problems, at the present moment of remarkable promise a constitution written in a spirit of compromise rare in Muslim world has been adopted by a freely elected, multiethnic, multi-denominational Muslim government. This government has put the constitution for a vote and if it would abide by the results, that would be an amazing historical moment in the making for notice by dictator Musharraf and those of other Islamic nations.

Under dictator Zia-ul Haq general Musharraf was instrumental in establishing the Jihadi training camps for the madrassah graduates and institutionalizing the Islamic educational system in Pakistan. Parts of the education system are modeled after that created by king Fahd of Saudi Arabia, which is a major financial supporter of Pakistan. The Islamic education system has helped the spread of Jihad to America and it has also impacted on the militarized democracy of Pakistan.

Jihad, Terrorism, Madrassah brand Education: Keeping in mind that terrorism is an integral part of life in present day Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan it is important to understand how Islamic education influences the terrorist mindset. What is the role of madressah education in spreading terrorism and inhibiting establishment of democratic rule in Islamic nations? Are there any visionary leaders with wide public support and political strength in these Islamic nations to set aside the Shariah to marginalize its unelected powerful clergy dominating its legal systems? Are there any popular visionary leaders in such Islamic nations, who abhor hate and revenge and do they have an abundance of love that looks at all human phenomena, including individual and social conflicts, with understanding? The rest of the essay attempts to address such questions.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times (June, 14, 2005), Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey argued that there is little or no evidence that madressahs produce terrorists capable of attacking the West. Having examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists who carried out some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners, they found that a majority of them were college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.

In four attacks — the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 — 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had college degrees. Of the 75 terrorists investigated, only nine had attended madressahs. The authors also go on to question the view that poverty drives terrorism.

A more detailed independent account confirming above analysis and a 25-year history of al Qaeda’s terrorist activities was presented in a 4-hour documentary, Inside 9/11, by the National Geographic channel (August 22, 2005). The Saudi Arabian king Fahd, who actively ruled for the 1982 – 1995 period, had quietly pushed the agenda of the most extremist Islamic factions, Wahabi and Salafi at universities he founded in Saudi Arabia and at the International Islamic University, funded by him in Islamabad, Pakistan. These institutions became the centers of Islamic extremism in the world, teaching a brand of Islam that had no roots in Pakistan and inspiring their students to take up arms against all those who did not agree with their extremist view of the world.

Dr. Shahid J. Burki (Dawn, Aug. 23, 2005) reported that “The king allowed the universities he had founded to restrict their instruction to little beyond the Wahabi doctrine. Several of these institutions ended up spewing thousands of highly indoctrinated students into the cramped labour markets of Saudi Arabia. It was this cohort that lent its ear to the teachings of Osama bin Laden when he arrived on the kingdom’s political scene in the early 1990s. Of the 19 suicide bombers, who on September 11, 2001, crashed the hijacked planes into New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon near Washington, 15 were Saudi citizens and most of them were educated in the universities King Fahd had built.”

Steve LeVine and Zahid Hussain (Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2005) reported on the broad educational ills in public schools and madressahs of Pakistan. Most of these schools offer madressah brand education, which focuses on memorizing Koran and students are not prepared for independent thinking or taught to question tenets of Koran. Mr. Alam in the Dawn article laments that there are many causes of Pakistan’s decline but the one that stands out in Pakistan’s history is Pakistanis refusal to think, reason, and question as they fear that it will destroy their faith.

To divert attention away from complicity of Pakistani army in training terrorist and contrary to analysis by leading American and Pakistani journalist a frequently used fiction is that madressahs produce Jihadi suicide bombers. The quality of madressah brand education is poor; students learn to hate and be intolerant of non-Islamic faiths rather than acquire technical skills needed for planning and executing attacks on Western targets. Madaris with limited reading abilities lack skills in math, sciences and English. Without Pakistan army’s ISI managed camps offering additional training madaris can’t be turned into Jihadi terrorists. The 9/11 terrorist received training at the al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan during 2000. The camps in Afghanistan were established by Pakistan’s ISI for operations by al Qaeda. Without ISI provided training madaris at best are cheer-leaders for Jihad.

According to the WSJ article 25 million students are enrolled 187,000 public schools and 1.7 million students are in 11,221 madressahs registered with the Pakistani government. The madrassahs churn out ‘Arabized’ Koranic robots in tens of thousands, which generally jeopardizes the future of civil society in secular nations. Dr Manzoor Ahmad (Islam: chund fikree masayel) stated that students in Pakistan’s public schools and some madressahs may be taught the traditional course, but they are not taught values that go into the making of a refined human being — an individual who is a citizen of planet earth, who abhors hate and revenge, and who has an abundance of love that looks at all human phenomena, including individual and social conflicts, with understanding. He respects every human being and considers human life sacred. He loves both the wronged and the wrong-doer. He may hate sin but he does not hate the sinner. He believes in salvaging the sinner rather than in punishing him and making a spectacle of punishment. These are values promoted by modern education.

One reason for the tragedy is the absence of humanities literature from the syllabi of most madressahs and public schools in Pakistan. Indeed, both students and teachers have a poor understanding of the purpose of education and its effect on society as they don’t understand the impact of humanities literature on the development of human mind, outlook and personality.
Think of 19 terrorists who used hijacked commercial planes in human missile attacks in America on 9/11 to understand the following: teach a brainwashed student a subject like aerodynamics or marine biology and he would still remain beholden to al Qaeda leaders because he would continue to view the world through the prism of the “ideology” as taught by teachers who themselves have had no exposure to humanities. In Pakistan and other Islamic nation’s madressah and weak public education system is conducive to propagating dominance of an authoritarian political system, not democracy.

As a nation Pakistan is confused and Pakistanis can’t seem to make up their minds given political choices of a normal democratic republic, an Islamic republic, a state modeled on the first caliphate or a state dedicated to perpetual militarism. The educational ills and more than five decades of its history are indicative of why Pakistan is a dictatorship and a failed democracy. A brief look at history of Indian subcontinent may explain the depth of confusion in Pakistan.
Like Iraq Pakistan is a multiethnic region with various Muslim denominations. The Pakistani democracy according to Husain Haqqani (Indian Express, Aug. 31, 2005) is a hit-and-run democracy. Under Pakistan’s system the purpose of elections is merely to identify intermediaries between the people and a permanent State establishment. The State establishment monopolizes executive power and retains a veto over legislation. In 1971 Pakistan suffered a breakup as dictator Yayah Khan failed to control the ethnic strife between Bengalis and Punjabis, which led to creation of Bangladesh as Bengalis of East Pakistan revolted against domination by the Punjabis of West Pakistan. The internal instability in Pakistan may bring about additional splits if the current dictator Musharraf fails to keep the extremist dominated provinces (NWFP and Balochistan) under control.

Unlike prosperous and energy exporting Islamic nations of Middle East Pakistan is an energy poor nation. Possibly driven by a political desire or an unrealistic expectation to share into Middle Eastern oil-wealth the elite ruling classes of Muslims Pakistan regularly invoke Arab descent; the want-to-be Arabs tend to go overboard in duplicating Arab political practices. Iraq has 65 percent Shia and Pakistan has 77 percent Sunni majority. Unlike Iraq’s Arab and Kurd ethnicity, Pakistan’s ethnicity is Indian. Pakistani Muslim’s are converted Hindus and Buddhists and children of Indian women (with or without matrimony) by Islamic invaders (Turks, Arabs and Arabized Islamic forces from Middle East and Central Asia) of the subcontinent. A brief history of a millennium of Jihad and dhimmitude on the Indian Subcontinent was given “In the legacy of Jihad in India,” (http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4616&search=bostom) by Andrew Bostom.

The 570 year period between the initial Arab Muslim razzias (ordered by Caliph Umar) to pillage Thana (on the West Indian coast near Maharashtra) in 636-637 and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate (under Qutub-ud-din Aibak, a Turkish slave soldier) can be divided into four major epochs: (I) the conflict between the Arab invaders and the (primarily) Hindu resisters on the Western coast of India from 636-713; (II) the Arab and Turkish Muslim onslaughts against the kingdom of Hindu/Buddhist Afghanistan during 636-870; (III) repeated Turkish efforts to subdue the Punjab from 870 to 1030 highlighted by the devastating campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni (from 1000- 1030); and finally (IV) Muhammad Ghauri’s conquest of northwestern India and the Gangetic valley between 1175 and 1206.

This summary chronology necessarily overlooks the very determined and successful resistance that was offered by the Hindus to both the Arab (in particular) and Turkish invaders, for almost four centuries. For example, despite the rapidity of Mahmud of Ghazni’s conquests—spurred by shock-tactics and the religious zealotry of Islamic jihad—his successors, for almost 150 years, could not extend their domain beyond the Punjab frontiers. Even after the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526), and the later Mughal Empire (1526-1707), Muslim rulers failed to Islamize large swaths of Indian Territory, and most of the populace. The first Mughal Emperor, Babur (1483-1530), made these relevant observations upon establishing his rule in India:
[Hindustan] is a different world…once the water of Sindh is crossed, everything is in the Hindustan way - land, water, tree, rock, people, and horde, opinion and custom…Most of the inhabitants of Hindustan are pagans; they call a pagan a Hindu.

Buddhist civilization within India, in stark contrast, proved far less resilient. Vincent Smith has described the devastating impact of the late 12th century jihad razzias against the Buddhist communities of northern India, centered on Bihar, based on Muslim sources, exclusively:
The Muhammadan historian, indifferent to distinctions among idolators, states that the majority of the inhabitants were “clean shaven Brahmans”, who were all put to the sword. He evidently means Buddhist monks, as he was informed that the whole city and fortress were considered to be a college, which the name Bihar signifies. A great library was scattered. When the victors desired to know what the books might be no man capable of explaining their contents had been left alive. No doubt everything was burnt. The multitude of images used in Medieval Buddhist worship always inflamed the fanaticism of Muslim warriors to such fury that no quarter was given to the idolators. The ashes of the Buddhist sanctuaries at Sarnath near Benares still bear witness to the rage of the image breakers. Many noble monuments of the ancient civilization of India were irretrievably wrecked in the course of the early Muhammadan invasions. Those invasions were fatal to the existence of Buddhism as an organized religion in northern India, where its strength resided chiefly in Bihar and certain adjoining territories. The monks who escaped massacre fled, and were scattered over Nepal, Tibet, and the south. After 1200 the traces of Buddhism in upper India are faint and obscure.

Three major waves of jihad campaigns (exclusive of the jihad conquest of Afghanistan) ultimately succeeded in establishing a permanent Muslim dominion within India, i.e., the Delhi Sultanate.
Pakistan is facing a tough task of identifying a heritage to be proud of or define Pakistani culture by choosing from history that start with invasions of Hindu and Buddhist dominated subcontinent by Gauri and Ghaznavis who mostly looted and plundered north India followed by the Mughal empire covering about two-thirds of the subcontinent lasting from Babur to Aurangzeb periods. The subcontinent experienced a transition (1650 – 1750) in political power with gradual demise of Mughal Empire at the hands of Marathas, Sikhs and some Indian principalities. The residual Mughal Empire as well as Maratha, Sikh and other Indian principalities (Nizam in Hyderabad and Raja and Tipu Sultan in Mysore) suffered losses as they fought each other using services of private militia provided by European merchants and traders. This military arrangement created a political vacuum that led to the British conquest (1750 – 1820) and rule of India (1857 – 1947). Consequently, the subcontinent today is no longer what it was prior to 950 (Hindu and Buddhist domination period), during 950 – 1700 (Islamic colonization period), or 1700 - 1947 (decline of Hindu and Mughal domination and colonization by British). The Pakistani and Indian societies, cultures, religions and political systems have been deeply influenced by British and Mughals.
Pakistan, a frightening country, demographically is young – a combustible compound. It honored Babur, Gauri and Ghazanavi, three invaders of India and Afghanistan known for their brutality and loot and plunder methods by naming some of its offensive missiles after each of them. Now, its politicians and dictators wonder why Pakistan is viewed as a nation sponsoring international terrorism!

Pakistan nourishes grandeurs as its population (60 percent below age 20) is potentially turbulent. Pakistanis, mostly semi-educated young and those with temperate and democratic inclinations are elated with possession of WMDs and associated delivery systems but they struggle with the military power, paranoia and a rigid religion. With occupation of Afghanistan by American led forces, a growing regional power in India, a weak economy and fractured political institutions, Pakistan is at the mercy of ambitious army generals for political governance. Pakistan’s constitution is neither truly Islamic nor secular; each of its four dictators’ exercised power arbitrarily without recourse to law or constitution. Constitution was repeatedly changed and it now incorporates ‘Islamic’ laws like the Hudood and Blasphemy Ordinances and it is devoid of values such as secularism, women’s rights and accommodation of ethnic and sectarian factions. A hasba bills (accountability law to monitor observance of Muslim religious practices and values) is in the making in one (NWFP) of its four provinces governed by elected extremist clerics turned politicians.

At this stage of establishing democracy in Iraq, a wish is that it’s elected rulers; a cleric-elite-feudal alliance do not reduce it to an Islamic Republic like Pakistan.

Kishan Bhatia, Ph.D.

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