Islamic constitution: Non-Islamic laws
By Muhammad Daim Fazil
If you go through daily newspapers of recent days, you will discover one frequent connotation, however, with dissimilar arguer, and that is “Constitution of the country is based on Islamic values and no law can be enforced other than Quran and Hadith”. People read and move to next headline but nobody has bothered to ponder on this statement. Even some religious scholars have bluntly shared their views in relatively same way as was expressed by political elite. Although the Pakistani constitution is based on Islamic norms and values however, it is totally erroneous and wicked to utter that no law has been made higher than preaching’s of Quran and Hadith. The truth is diverse. Many of our societal laws are imposed with no Islamic guidance and regulations. Even the genuine spirit of Islamic democracy is not witnessed on socio-economic fabric of the entire system. Islamic welfare state ‘Pakistan’ is opting westernized democracy which is beset with liberal decree and fundamentals of a citizen are still not accessible despite the state has surpassed six decades of its independence on the name of Islam.
The mantra of ‘Islamic constitution’ started when government initiated peace talks with Taliban groups this month. Taliban initially came hard to deny the Pakistani constitution by projecting it non-Islamic and therefore declaring negotiations will be conducted outside of the constitutional framework. Later developments and statements by several dignitaries, belonging to purely religious background, and some parliamentarian altered scenario. However with no precondition, the hard core Taliban made themselves available for talks within the fringe of constitution.
Regardless of the consequences of governments talks with Taliban, religious leaders, scholars and parliamentarians must not deceive the nation on the name of Islam as has been happening is the last sixty six years. If Islamic laws would have been implemented in their real spirit, naive killing, suicide bombing, snatching and other crime ratio would not have been incredibly soaring and the society must not have underwent to the lowest ebb of morality and brotherhood. The constitution is based on Islamic ethics but laws are not purely enforced in the country on Islamic practicalities. Several recommendations of Federal Shariat Court and Council of Islamic Ideology have been snubbed into basket and no somber stride has been taken in this regard. We are already paying off for our misdeeds on the name of religion and cannot swallow more wrath of Allah. Therefore, stop making people fool on the basis of Islamic ideology and must not correlate western manufactured laws in the realm of an Islamic society. The writer can be reached at daimfazil@gmail.com
