Джамаат-и Ислами Пакистана: История и Деятельность

Jamaat e Islami Pakistan

Jamaat e Islami (Urdu: , English: Islamic Party; abbreviated JI), or Jamaat as it is commonly known, is an Islamist political party based in Pakistan and founded by Abul Ala Maududi. It is the Pakistani successor to Jamaat e Islami, which was founded in colonial India in 1941. Jamaat e Islami was founded in Lahore, British India in 1941 by the Muslim theologian and socio political philosopher, Abul Ala Maududi, who was widely influenced by the Sharia based reign of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. At the time of the Indian independence movement, Maududi and the Jamaat e Islami actively worked to oppose the partition of India. Other wings of Jamaat include Jamaat e Islami Kashmir, founded in 1953, Jamaat e Islami Azad Kashmir founded in 1974, and Bangladesh Jamaat e Islami, founded in 1975. Jamaat e Islami Pakistan came under severe government repression in 1948, 1953, and 1963. During the early years of the regime of General Muhammad Zia ul Haq, Jamaat e Islami's position improved and it became seen as the "regime's ideological and political arm", with party members at times holding cabinet portfolios of information and broadcasting, production, and water, power and natural resources. In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, JI opposed the independence of Bangladesh. However, in 1975, it established Jamaat e Islami Bangladesh with Abbas Ali Khan (Joypurhat) as the first ameer. Since the early 1980s, it has also developed close links with Jamaat e Islami Kashmir and acted as the vanguard of the armed insurgency in that province.

Jamaat e Islami was founded in colonial India on 26 August 1941, at Islamia Park in the city of Lahore, before the Partition of India. JI began as an Islamist social and political movement. Seventy five people attended the first meeting and became the first members of the movement. Maulana Amin Ahsan Islahi, Maulana Naeem Siddiqui, Maulana Muhammad Manzoor Naumanai and Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi (although he left after a few years) were among the founders of Jamat e Islami along with Syed Abul Ala Maududi. Maududi saw his group as a vanguard of Islamic revolution following the footsteps of early Muslims who gathered in Medina to found an Islamic state. After Pakistan was formed, it forbade Pakistanis to take an oath of allegiance to the state until it became Islamic, arguing that a Muslim could in clear conscience render allegiance only to God.

After Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1973–1977) was elected, the student wing of the Jamaat e Islami (Islami Jamiat e Talaba) burned effigies of him in Lahore and declared his election a "black day". In early 1973, the amir, of the JI even appealed to the army to overthrow Bhutto's government because of "its inherent moral corruption." JI "spearheaded" the anti Bhutto political movement under the religious banner of Nizam i Mustafa (Order of the Prophet). Bhutto attempted to suppress JI through the imprisonment of JI and Islami Jamiat e Talaba members. There were electoral irregularities at the 1975 elections with JI members being arrested in order to prevent them from lodging their nomination papers. However, by 1976, JI had 2 million registrants. In the 1977 election, JI won nine of the 36 seats won by the opposition Pakistan National Alliance. The opposition considered the election rigged (Bhutto's PPP won 155 out of 200 seats) and Maududi, who had been arrested, called on Islamist parties to commence a campaign of civil disobedience. The Sunni led government of Saudi Arabia intervened to secure Maududi's release from prison warning of revolution in Pakistan. JI assisted the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) to oust Bhutto and met with Zia ul Haq for ninety minutes on the night before Bhutto was hanged. Initially, JI supported General Zia ul Haq (1977–1987). In turn, Zia's use of Islamist rhetoric gave JI importance in public life beyond the size of its membership. According to journalist Owen Bennett Jones, JI was the "only political party" to offer Zia "consistent support" and was rewarded with jobs for "tens of thousands of Jamaat activists and sympathisers", giving Zia's Islamic agenda power "long after he died." However, Zia failed to deliver timely elections and distanced himself from the JI. When Zia banned student unions, Islami Jamiat e Talaba and pro JI labour unions protested. However, JI did not participate in the Pakistan Peoples Party's Movement for the Restoration of Democracy. JI also supported Zia's Jihad against the Soviet–Afghan War and its sister party Jamiat e Islami led by Burhanuddin Rabbani became part of the Peshawar Seven that received aid from Saudi Arabia, United States and other jihad supporters. Such conundrums caused tension in JI based on conflict between ideology and politics. In 1987, Mian Tufail declined further service as head of JI for health reasons and Qazi Hussain Ahmad was elected.

In 1987, when Zia died, the Pakistan Muslim League formed the right wing alliance, Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI). In 1990 when Nawaz Sharif came to power, JI boycotted the cabinet on the basis that the Pakistan Peoples' Party and the Pakistan Muslim League were problematic to equal degrees. In the election of 1993, JI won three seats. In this year, JI was a member of the newly formed All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) which promotes the independence of Jammu and Kashmir from India. Prior to this, JI had allegedly set up the Hizb ul Mujahideen, a Kashmir liberation militia to oppose the Kashmir Liberation Front which fights for the complete independence of the Kashmir region. Ahmad left his position in the Senate in protest against corruption.

In 2008, JI and Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf again boycotted the elections. Ahmad declined to stand for re election due to health issues, and Syed Munawar Hassan was elected as the ameer.

On 30 March 2014, Siraj ul Haq, serving as senior minister in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the party's deputy chief, was elected as the new ameer. He replaced the incumbent Munawer Hasan and the party's general secretary, Liaqat Baloch. 25,533 office bearers of the party out of a total of 31,311 voted in these elections. It was the first time that the party had voted out an ameer after just one term. He, therefore, resigned from his role as senior minister. This coincided with a drone attack on a madrassa in Bajaur Agency. In 2016, Siraj ul Haq led funeral prayers for Mumtaz Qadri, who had been executed for assassinating Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer while serving as his bodyguard. Siraj ul Haq called for nationwide protests against the execution of Qadri.

Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman was elected the Ameer of Jamaat e Islami on 4 April 2024.

JI provides unions for doctors, teachers, lawyers, farmers, workers and women, for example, Islami Jamiat e Talaba (IJT), Jamiat Talaba Arabia and Islami Jamaat e Talibaat (its female branch) a Students' union and JI Youth Pakistan, a youth group. The party has a number of publications from affiliated agencies such as Idara Marif e Islami, Lahore, the Islamic Research Academy, Karachi, Idara Taleemi Tehqeeq, Lahore, the Mehran Academy, and the Institute of Regional Studies. Its print media publications number 22, including the daily Jasarat, weekly Friday Special, weekly Asia, monthly Tarjumanul Quran and fortnightly Jihad e Kashmir, with Jasarat in particular having a circulation of 50,000. The Islami Nizamat e Taleem, led by Abdul Ghafoor Ahmed, is an educational body that includes 63 Baithak schools. Rabita ul Madaris Al Islamia supports 164 JI madrasas. JI also operates the Hira Schools (Pakistan) Project and Al Ghazali Trust. The foundation administers schools, women's vocational centres, adult literacy programs, hospitals and mobile chemists and other welfare programs. In this respect, JI interacts with the general market. In total, there are around 1000 registered madrasas affiliated with the JeI in Pakistan, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa having most of them, with some 245 or nearly a quarter of the total.

An independent wing of Jamaat e Islami in Azad Kashmir was started in 1974. According to journalist Arif Jamal, it was done to slow the spread of secular ideas in Azad Kashmir. It had its own amir, Maulana Abdul Bari, who had previously participated in the First Kashmir War (1947) as well as the Operation Gibraltar (1965). The main activity of the Azad Kashmir wing is noted as the sponsorship of jihad in Indian administered Kashmir. Bari said that he was called for a meeting with President Zia ul Haq in 1980, and asked to make preparations. He travelled to the Kashmir Valley and eventually persuaded the leaders of Jamaat e Islami Kashmir. However, despite having several groups of Islamist youth trained in militancy, the Kashmiri Jamaat was hesitant to take the plunge. Pakistan's ISI then used the pro independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) to initiate operations in July 1988. A year later, Jamaat e Islami Azad Kashmir sent operatives to Indian administered Kashmir to bring all the Islamist groups under an umbrella group called Hizbul Mujahideen as a counter to the JKLF. Jointly with Jamaat e Islami Pakistan, it also persuaded the Kashmiri Jamaat to take charge of Hizbul Mujahideen by June 1990, and a Jamaat leader called Syed Salahuddin was appointed as its chief. Jamaat e Islami Azad Kashmir also has a student wing called Islami Jamiat i Tulaba (IJT). It gained popularity after the founding of Hizbul Mujahideen. When the founder was imprisoned on 15 January 2002, Maulana Fazlullah, his son in law, assumed leadership of the group. In the aftermath of the 2007 siege of Lal Masjid, Fazlullah's forces and Baitullah Mehsud's Tehrik i Taliban Pakistan (TTP) formed an alliance. Fazlullah and his army reportedly received orders from Mehsud. After the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone attack, Fazlullah was appointed as the new "Amir" (Chief) of the Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan on 7 November 2013. In a May 2010 interview, U. S. Gen. David Petraeus described the TTP's relationship with other militant groups as difficult to decipher: "There is clearly a symbiotic relationship between all of these different organizations: al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, TNSM [Tehreek e Nafaz e Shariat e Mohammadi]. And it's very difficult to parse and to try to distinguish between them. They support each other, they coordinate with each other, sometimes they compete with each other, [and] sometimes they even fight each other. But at the end of the day, there is quite a relationship between them." According to another source, TNSM and Jamaat e Islami (JI) seem to have been locked in a turf war in the Malakand District of Pakistan, and the Jamaat Ulema e Islam, JI, and TNSM are in conflict with each other in the tribal areas for power and influence.

No. Name Term 1 Abul A'la Maududi 1941–1972 2 Mian Tufail Mohammad 1972–1987 3 Qazi Hussain Ahmad 1987–2009 4 Syed Munawar Hassan 2009–2014 5 Siraj ul Haq 2014–2024 6 Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman 2024–present