Islamic Movements, Women, and Social Reform: Who Speaks of the Sharia in Pakistan?

• Published in: Sharia Dynamics pp. 223 - 249
• Main Author: Zaman, Meryem F.
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing
• Series: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion
• Subjects: British Court; East India Company; Islamic Banking; Religious Authority; Sacred Text
• ISBN: 9783319456911; 3319456911
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-45692-8_9

While postcolonial movements of Islamic renewal around the world often draw on the authority of the sharia to support their social reforms, Pakistani piety movements instead frame their teachings as “good” behavior, never explicitly referencing the sharia while constantly obliquely drawing on its maqasid (desiderata). I argue that this unique relationship to the sharia can be explained by colonial history, and illustrates the particular complexities and challenges nonpolitically oriented. (When I call them nonpolitical, I am taking these movement’s self-representations and positioning of themselves vis-à-vis explicitly political Islamic movements [e.g. the Jama’at Islami] as primary.) Islamic movements in Pakistan must navigate in order to cultivate religious authority while simultaneously signaling their lack of interest in control of the State.