TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Pakistan: 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...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.