Although state building, national integration and political mobilisation are common throughout the Muslim world, there is considerable variation in the character of political regimes, on the one hand, and state policies towards the Islamic movements, on the other. In other words, the degree of pluralism of the political regime and the extent of accommodation or political integration of the Islamic movements affect the choice of oppositional political Islamic groups between constitutional pragmatism and revolutionary radicalism. (These two factors are inter related as the monolithic regimes also tend to be exclusionary.) In societies characterised by religious pluralism, Islamic resurgence is also correlated with sectarian strife, often under clerical leadership.
Accommodation versus revolution
As the following cases show, partial political integration tends to give rise to political pragmatism and splinter ideological radicalism, while political exclu sion fosters Islamic revolutionary radicalism. Furthermore, the character of the regimes and inclusion or lack thereofin the political process also affects the possibility of an intellectual clerical alliance among the leadership of Islamic oppositional groups.
The Jama'at i Islam"! had a major impact on the process of Islamisation in Pakistan in the 1970s as an opposition party. The Constitution of 1972 pre emptively entrusted the Council for Islamic Ideology with preparing pro grammes for extensive Islamisation of Pakistani society which only stimulated the opposition to propose the complete nizam i mustafa (prophetic order) in 1977 that led to the overthrow of the government of Zulfiqar 'Ali Bhutto. The Jama'at remained integrated into the Pakistani political process under General Muhammad Zia ul Haq (1977 88), and the prominent Jama'at leader Khurshid Ahmad became one of Zia’s confidants. Mawdtid"i himself lived to approve the execution of Bhutto and approve Zia ul Haq’s first Islamisation initiatives. This political integration was enhanced when the Jama'at was given four cabinet posts in 1978, and continued with ups and downs after Zia’s death to May 1992, when it was one of the three partners in the ruling coalition.
World History
