Pakistan has yet to decide whether it wants to be a secular state with a Muslim population or an Islamic state in which the law of the Koran holds sway, writes Mary Fitzgerald
Pakistan's law minister had barely started his speech to parliament when it happened. With cries of "Allahu Akbar" bouncing off the chamber walls, assembly members belonging to the country's religious alliance rushed the speaker's podium. Grabbing copies of the draft Bill being tabled that day, they ripped the sheets into tiny pieces.
Those still sitting looked on incredulous as what remained of the Bill was thrown into the air.
"This Bill is against the Holy Koran," declared opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman. "We reject it and will try to block it in any possible manner."
One minister stood on his seat and tried in vain to speak above the din, which by then included shouts of "Death to Musharraf".
Another pointed out that tearing up the Bill, which carried excerpts from the Koran and Sunnah, was an act of desecration by those who claimed to be acting in defence of Islam. Dozens stormed out in protest. The ruckus lasted for more than two hours.
Even by the usual rough and tumble standards of Pakistani politics, these were extraordinary scenes. But then the Bill under consideration is no ordinary piece of legislation.
The debate over amending the Hudood Ordinances, a series of sharia-based laws introduced almost three decades ago, goes straight to the heart of the identity crisis Pakistan has wrestled with since its creation in 1947.
Founded on the idea that it was to be a homeland for Muslims, the country has never quite decided whether it wants to be a secular state with a Muslim population, or an Islamic state in which the law of the Koran holds sway.
INTRODUCED BY MILITARY dictator Zia ul-Haq in 1979 as part of an "Islamisation" drive designed to bring Pakistan's religious leaders on board, the Hudood Ordinances have been considered largely untouchable up to now, despite regular calls from human rights activists for their repeal.
Based on centuries-old Islamic law relating to hudood (meaning "limit" or "boundary") offences, the legislation includes severe punishments for crimes such as adultery (stoning or whipping), theft (cutting off the right hand), and drinking alcohol (whipping). Similar sharia-based laws exist in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan.
For conservative Muslims, it is impossible to separate sharia from Islam, though many scholars differ on how the laws should be interpreted.
In Pakistan, defenders of the Hudood legislation claim its purpose is more of a deterrent than anything else, pointing out that the penalties have rarely been invoked, let alone carried out.
"We don't think the Hudood laws are against human rights," says Dr Mirajul Huda, from Jamaat-e-Islami, the biggest grouping in the six-party Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), Pakistan's Islamist alliance. "They act as a deterrent to prevent people going to the limits. They put an obstacle on all types of obscenity and they protect society."
To critics, however, the legislation is rife with legal ambiguities and none more so than the controversial Zina Ordinance which deals with adultery, premarital sex and rape.
The maximum punishment for zina offences consists of stoning to death for married people and 100 lashes for those who are not. These punishments require as proof four "pious" adult Muslim male witnesses to the actual act of penetration. Evidence from female and non-Muslim witnesses is seen as worthless.
Those in favour of the law say such strict conditions have led to most cases resulting in acquittals. However, because the law makes no strong distinction between adultery and rape, if a woman files charges of rape there is a possibility that she may herself be accused of adultery if she cannot provide the four male witnesses, an almost impossible burden of proof. If she is unable to prove her allegation, simply bringing the case to court is considered in itself a confession of unlawful sexual intercourse outside marriage.
In addition, the law sets no minimum age for sex with girls, stating only that they should have reached puberty. The Zina Ordinance has led to a number of high-profile cases that drew unflattering international attention to Pakistan.
Four years after the Hudood laws were introduced, 15-year-old Jehan Mina filed a complaint with police, alleging she had been raped by her uncle and his son. She had become pregnant as a result, a fact that was held against her as proof of unlawful sex.
She was charged and sentenced to 100 lashes, later reduced to 15 because of her age.
In 1985, a blind maid, Safia Bibi, was sentenced to a similar punishment, her pregnancy used against her in the same way. In both cases the men were acquitted on benefit of doubt.
Four years ago, Zafran Bibi, a woman from Pakistan's heavily tribal North West Frontier Province (NWFP), was found guilty of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning, despite repeated assertions that her brother-in-law had raped her on a number of occasions. The sentence was later overturned on appeal.
Human rights groups say up to 80 per cent of the women in Pakistan's jails are facing charges related to the Hudood Ordinances. While few see their case end in an actual conviction, the accusation alone can lead to years in prison and a stigma that lasts a lifetime.
Lawyers who deal with such cases report that the law is often used as a means of revenge by parents whose daughters have refused arranged marriages, or husbands in divorce cases.
In conservative rural areas where maintaining family honour is paramount, many parents file charges against children who have defied tradition and married partners of their own choice.
"These laws have played such havoc in our country, particularly to women, and they have given such a bad image to Islam and Muslims," says Majida Rizvi, a retired Supreme Court judge who led a review of the issue for a government-commissioned report three years ago.
"The mullahs have presented these laws as if they were given by God but they are man-made, brought in by presidential ordinance, without any parliamentary debate. The so-called religious leaders have created such a hue and cry, saying any changes would be un-Islamic.
"The problem is that the mullahs have influence on the ordinary public and many people are confused over what the laws stand for as a result."
Rizvi's report recommended a complete repeal of all the Hudood Ordinances on the grounds that the laws, as enforced, are "full of lacunae and anomalies and the enforcement of these has brought about injustice rather than justice, which should be the main purpose of the enforcement of Islamic law".
Some of those opposed to reform acknowledge the ordinances have been misused and women unfairly jailed, but argue that this is a problem with the police and judiciary, not the law itself.
The issue now is whether the political will exists to push for reform.
Many consider the Hudood debate a stiff test of President Pervez Musharraf's much vaunted vision of "enlightened moderation" which, up to now, has moved little beyond rhetoric. In a country where hardline and often militant religious groups have long enjoyed the support of ruling politicians and the powerful military establishment, he treads a narrow line.
Gen Musharraf, who has survived several assassination attempts since he seized power in a military coup in 1999, has angered clerics and many ordinary Muslims by allying himself with the US, outlawing extremist organisations and attempting to reform Pakistan's religious seminaries.
Five years ago he promised to amend the Hudood laws, only to back down in the face of trenchant opposition from religious leaders. Recent months, however, have seen the Hudood debate take on a higher pitch than ever before.
Much of this is down to a groundbreaking series of programmes broadcast by Geo TV, one of several privately-owned stations that have emerged in recent years. Earlier this year the station brought together Muslim clerics, scholars, and jurists to discuss whether the Hudood laws are divinely ordained or merely man-made. The results proved surprising, with some participants acknowledging some reform, if not outright repeal, was needed.
Musharraf asked the Council of Islamic Ideology, a panel which advises legislators on a particular Bill's compatibility with Islam, to review the laws and recommend suitable amendments. He also announced the release on bail of some 1,300 women awaiting trial for Hudood-related offences.
THE BILL NOW BEFORE parliament proposes that the offence of rape be dealt with under Pakistan's penal code rather than the Hudood Ordinances.
A rape victim will no longer need to produce four male witnesses to press her case. Another amendment stipulates that sex with a girl under the age of 16, with or without her consent, will be considered rape.
A reform rather than a repeal of the entire Hudood, it is still enough to raise the hackles of the religious parties.
Buoyed by an unexpectedly strong performance in the country's last parliamentary elections, the parties that make up the MMA coalition - now the third largest grouping in the national assembly - have been making their presence felt.
In the North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, the MMA-dominated government has passed a Bill calling for the full implementation of sharia law. They talk of closing down cinemas and music shops, making the hijab compulsory for women, replacing "Western" school uniforms with the national dress of shalwar kameez, and introducing gender segregation in schools.
Another Bill proposes the setting up of a religious police force similar to that used during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It would be run by a cleric, the draft Bill states, whose main duty would be to "ensure adherence to Islamic values in public places".
That would involve ensuring people adhere to prayer times, preventing men and women from mixing together in public and discouraging singing and dancing.
Activists in the province have defaced billboards featuring female models, vandalised satellite dishes and burned stacks of television sets.
"These are just isolated incidents of little importance," protests Asif Luqman Qazi, of Jamaat-e-Islami. "The whole issue of what is happening in the NWFP has been blown out of proportion by those opposed to the MMA."
While some believe that what happens in the NWFP can be put down to the deeply-rooted religious conservatism particular to that area, it is not so easy to dismiss similar incidents in Lahore, long considered Pakistan's sophisticated cultural capital.
Advertising hoardings have been daubed with paint, erasing the faces of models. In January thousands of riot police were deployed to guard runners taking part in a mixed-sex marathon in the city after protesters declared it un-Islamic. Similar protests the previous year had led to counter-demonstrations outside the parliament in Islamabad, calling on the government to "save the society from Talibanisation".
Some have voiced concern over the growing influence of religious conservatives within Pakistan's universities. Three years ago lecturers at the English department of Lahore's Punjab University were dismayed to discover a colleague, Shahbaz Arif, had been asked by university officials to "purge" the curriculum of anything "vulgar, obscene and morally corrupt". The texts deemed to contain offensive sexual connotations included Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
In an internal memo, Arif wrote of Hemingway's novel: "All characters sexually astray: men homosexuals; females lesbians/promiscuous; Brett Ashley nymphomaniac and so on." Dismissing a volume of John Donne's poetry, he noted: "Almost every poem has the connotation of sex where the poet wants to take every lady to bed for sexual pleasure."
Seán O'Casey's play The End of the Beginning was singled out for the sentence, "When the song ended, Darry cocks his ear and listens." Arif had underlined the word "cocks".
Such incidents play to fears of what some commentators have described as a "creeping Talibanisation" that threatens to seep beyond the areas under MMA control. For their part, members of the religious alliance insist they are committed solely to democratic reform.
"We do not seek radical changes in the country," says Asif Luqman Qazi. "Our goal is the implementation of Pakistan's national constitution as it stood before the Musharraf regime took power. We believe in fairness, justice and democracy, all of which are lacking in our country today."
Many believe Musharraf and previous administrations are in many ways to blame for the increasingly assertive religious parties.
"How many links does the establishment have with jihadi, extremist and hardline groups, now and over the last 20 years?" asks Asma Jehangir, a prominent human rights lawyer and activist who has received numerous death threats from militants.
Some put the MMA's electoral success down to Musharraf's ban on his two main rivals, former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. "Having a military government in the country has created a dangerous vacuum, a huge space for the religious parties to flourish and the government has used them quite effectively when it needs to," adds Jehangir.
MEANWHILE, THE HUDOOD debate rumbles on with the religious right and liberal secularists engaged in a tug-of-war over how Pakistan chooses to define itself. In the middle are many who consider the issue a convenient diversion from more pressing problems. "I have never heard the common man talking about the Hudood," says Imran Khan, the famous cricketer turned politician. "They talk about police brutality, injustice, poverty, the real issues that face our country. In many ways, this debate is about power politics and little else."
With an election due next year, Musharraf and his government must weigh their options carefully when it comes to the religious parties alliance and their powerful voting bloc. Emboldened by its new-found influence within parliament, the MMA is intent on upping the ante.
Members have planned a countrywide strike and a demonstration at parliament buildings in Islamabad to protest the Hudood amendments. No one expects their campaign to end there.
At an MMA rally in Karachi last weekend, a veritable who's who of Pakistan's Islamist politicians sat on a platform and listened as speaker after speaker denounced Musharraf as America's stooge.
The "dictatorial" regime was to blame for all the country's ills, they railed, and the president was trying to turn Pakistan into a secular state on US orders.
The crowd, mostly young men in white embroidered prayer caps, lapped it up. At the urging of one speaker, his voice hoarse with emotion, thousands leapt to their feet and punched the air. "Jihad is our way," they shouted in unison, "Allahu Akbar."
maryfitzgerald@irish-times.ie
Mary Fitzgerald is the winner of the Douglas Gageby Fellowship. Her reports on the "The Faces of Islam" appear in Friday's Irish Times.