Pakistan Lynching: How Did Blasphemy Become a Political Tool?

Part of the problem lies either in history or the way religion was interpreted in earlier centuries.

Family of Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara, who was lynched to death in Pakistan's Sialkot on 3 December. 

(Photo: Twitter)

Priyantha Kumara, a Sri Lankan man working as a manager in Sialkot in Pakistan, was lynched by an angry mob on 3 December. Kumara’s corpse was set on fire on the road, where civilians recorded the bone-chilling tragedy and uploaded videos on social media.

The cold-blooded murder, which brought “shame” to the nation, has perhaps revived public discourse in the country. Generally, Pakistani media and civil society focus on two points: the rise of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and the government’s inability to effectively contain their extremist ideology and repeal the blasphemy law. The problem with these recommendations is twofold. One, they ignore the historical roots of violence in the name of religion. Two, they also overlook how Islam relates to politics and modern ideas such as freedom of speech.

To What Extent Can State Curb Religous Violence?

I contend that the state’s capacity to deal with such cases is often overestimated. There is little a state can do in matters where a major chunk of society can potentially come out on the streets – for example, the question of the sanctity of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.H). No law can ever punish a whole community. Laws are made to ensure order through mending a few miscreants’ rogue behaviours, not to correct entire communities or their ideological orientation.

In the latest case, the vast majority, tacitly or otherwise, believes that “blasphemers must be beheaded”.

Those who accused the victim of blasphemy might have had some personal grudges, but the hundreds of Muslims on the roads were religiously motivated. There was no personal enmity, and this demands a serious discussion.

This piece is an invitation to think about blasphemy laws and the rise of religiously motivated violence in the Muslim world in a historical context. I do not claim to offer any definite answers. But what I intend to do is form a diagnosis of our multifaceted challenges.

Violence In the Name of Religion

Violence in the name of religion is dangerously rampant in Pakistan. Though the country did not execute even a single convict under the controversial blasphemy laws, yet, from 1990 to 2021, as many as 70 people have been killed by mobs. Recently, a charged mob set a police station on fire in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Charsadda district when officials declined to hand over an alleged blasphemer to the mob. Similarly, on 13 April 2017, a young man, Mashal Khan, was tortured to death by his colleagues within university premises in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The blasphemy dynamic has particularly been converted into a political movement in recent years. Some events, such as the killing of Salman Taseer, Governor of Pakistan’s largest province, by his security guard, Mumtaz Qadri; the decision to hang Qadri for his crime helped Khadim Rizvi launch his TLP party; the release of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman falsely accused of blasphemy, by the Supreme Court of Pakistan; and the recent rise of anti-Islam sentiments in France contributed to the emergence of militarised politics of blasphemy. It may also be noted that apostasy is now understood as blasphemy.

As stated above, the matter’s complexity needs a historical and broader understanding of violence in the name of religion in the Muslim world. There have always been such cases throughout Muslim history. In the mid-fourteenth century, a scholar, Ibn al-Khatib, or “the man who had two deaths”, disagreed with mainstream scholars on whether the Black Death had a contagious nature. He interpreted a hadith differently and maintained that the illness was contagious.

The chief judge censored Ibn al-Khatib and passed an order to burn all his books. Later on, he was arrested and tortured to death. Although he was buried the next day, an angry mob reopened his grave and set his corpse on fire.

Interpretation of Religion Is Part of the Problem

Part of the problem lies either in history or the way religion was interpreted in the earlier centuries. Unsurprisingly, Shafi and Maliki jurists held that the blasphemer shall be punished if they do not immediately repent. Hanbalis went a step forward and held that the blasphemers shall be punished even if they repent. A few Hanafis argued that there was no categorical basis for the execution of blasphemers, they may be “jailed and beaten with sticks”. These interpretations were made in medieval times, but they continue to shape religious discourse and the cultural imagination of countless Muslims across the globe.

In the following years, one man who played a significant role in making the blasphemy and apostasy question more explicit and popular was Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, a prominent Islamic scholar of the 11th century. He declared several Muslim philosophers like Ibn Sina and al-Farbi as apostates punishable by death. His theorisation was used by empires to punish freethinkers who may be seen as a threat to Sunni orthodoxy in any way.

Professor Ahmet Kuru, a Turkish-American scholar, in his book Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment, explains the role of Ghazali. He writes that “Ghazali was not an inventor of the idea of declaring a self-avowed Muslim as an apostate, but as a leading scholar, he helped legitimise it”. Kuru also explains that “the main contribution of Ghazali to the ulema-state alliance was his theoretical role in the formation of Sunni orthodoxy”. Through his writings, Ghazali made “orthodox views almost unquestionable”.

Ghazali himself was declared as an apostate by his critics for calling God the ‘true light’ in his Niche. Unlike Mashal Khan and other victims of Ghazali-inspired extremism, he had an opportunity to clarify his position.

In contemporary Pakistan, Ghazali and Muhammad Iqbal are two figures revered for their “right” interpretation of religion. The literalism inspired by prominent medieval figures has not only caused intellectual and cultural stagnation in the Muslim world, but it has also led to the rise of extremism and fundamentalism. It has made simple-minded individuals permanent prisoners of history. These young men who lynched Kumara are physically in the 21st century but ideologically in 11th-century Muslim empires.

Muslim World Is a Victim of Ideological Battles

In the Muslim world, the historical process remained effective – with a few exceptions during the Ottoman Empire – until 1924, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk attempted to disrupt it through his top-bottom approach. Reza Shah Pahlavi did the same in Iran. Muhammad Bin Salman is following the same path, but in a different way. As far as the success of the top-bottom project is concerned, present-day Turkey and Iran are glaring examples of the failure of the modernist project.

The Muslim world, including Pakistan, is a victim of ideological battles and imposition of selective doctrinal understanding of Islam throughout history.

All religious-political parties – be it Abul A'la Al-Maududi’s Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Tahir-ul-Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek, or Khadim Rizvi’s TLP – are manifestations of Islam’s unique relationship with politics. This is the question we need to address. There is little the state can do in the long run in Pakistan unless the Muslim world largely reflects on how Islam relates to politics and statecraft. Once that is settled, neither the state shall use religion to suppress free thinking nor extremists will demand the implementation of sharia.

(The writer is a research assistant at San Diego State University, US. He tweets @Farah_adeed. This piece first appeared on Global Village Space. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)