Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization - Conclusion

Conclusion

Islamization was sometimes used as a political process. Zia's interpretation of Islam may have contributed to the rise of fundamentalism, obscurantism and retrogression. Since the death of General Zia in 1988, inconsistency and instability has prevailed in Pakistani laws.

Instability means that the law is frequently changing or is under threat of change because of differences of opinion among the ruling factions. Three of the most obvious inconsistencies in Zia's Islamic law are:

  • Those between legal norms and socially observed norms;
  • Those between statutory legal norms and the norms applied in practice in the courts (e.g. Hadd is difficult to implement as confession, retraction of confession and strict standards of proof make it difficult to execute);
  • Those between different formal legal norms (e.g. non-compliance with the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance is compromised by the courts but is strictly punished under the Zina Ordinance). Another example of this contradiction is that the constitution assures women equal status on the one hand but, on the other hand, they are greatly discriminated in criminal law.

Read more about this topic:  Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization

Famous quotes containing the word conclusion:

    We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher’s task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    I have come to the conclusion that the closer people are to what may be called the front lines of government ... the easier it is to see the immediate underbrush, the individual tree trunks of the moment, and to forget the nobility the usefulness and the wide extent of the forest itself.... They forget that politics after all is only an instrument through which to achieve Government.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

    Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.
    Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)