The Sword Of Islam

It's become a habit in Pakistan that whenever a ruler's popularity disintegrates, he or she begins waving the scimitar of Islam. Never mind that not once since Pakistan became a nation 51 years ago has this noisy brandishing of faith ever worked to bolster the leader's popularity. Now, with Pakistan ostracized after its nuclear tests and on the edge of economic collapse, Prime Minister Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif is reviving the old custom of trying to make the Islamic Republic of Pakistan even more Islamic than it already is.

Even in the best of times, the implementation of Shari'a, or Islamic law, led to quarreling among the country's 72 Muslim sects and subsects over the "pure" interpretation of the law. And this could be the worst of times for Pakistan to try to revive fundamentalist laws. Everything seems to be going wrong for Nawaz Sharif. His support of the Taliban militia in neighboring Afghanistan has drawn enmity from Iran and the Central Asian republics (see following story). India and Pakistan have intensified their cross-border artillery fire in disputed Kashmir. Nearly bankrupt, Pakistan may run out of foreign exchange by the end of the month, and the Karachi stock exchange imploded after the May 28 underground nuclear tests, wiping out half its share value.

If the nukes didn't scare off foreign investors, the mob outrage over the U.S. missile strike last month in nearby Afghanistan certainly did. Diplomats and executives from many Western companies fled Pakistan, fearing revenge attacks by supporters of Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden, the intended target of the American raid. In the port city of Karachi, ethnic gangs armed with grenades and machine guns prowl neighborhoods hunting for enemies. Sectarian rivalry among Muslims has become so fierce that some clergymen post bodyguards at their mosques to guard against bomb throwers speeding by on motorcycles. In Karachi, kidnappings of clergymen have become routine; their mosques are then seized by adversaries who try to convert the prayergoers to a harsher vision of Islam.

Will a stronger dose of religion cure Pakistan's ills? Many of Nawaz Sharif's countrymen think it could send Pakistan into terminal decline. According to the well-respected Karachi newspaper Dawn, people "just want a little improvement in their lives from the tyranny and callousness of Pakistani officialdom." Political opponents, including, of course, ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, say the new Islamic bill is likely to increase that tyranny. One interpretation holds that this amendment will anoint Nawaz Sharif as a religious dictator, a supreme arbiter of what is considered good and evil under Islam. Nawaz Sharif, though, contends that only a strict adherence to Shari'a--which relies on the Koran and on the Sunna, a record of the Prophet Muhammad's deeds and sayings--can save Pakistan from "corruption and maladministration."

At the moment though, Nawaz Sharif is hoping for a more earthly kind of intervention: he is in New York City this week at the United Nations, where he will appeal to Bill Clinton to lift economic sanctions--imposed after the nuclear tests--and push the International Monetary Fund into mounting a rescue. As part of the trade-off, Clinton wants him to sign the nuclear test-ban treaty. This may help him get the money he urgently needs, but would anger fundamentalists at home who would see this as capitulation and surrender.