84pc of Pakistani Muslims want Sharia

The latest US-based PEW Research Center survey, released 11 days before Pakistan goes for elections, shows that 84% of Pakistani Muslims favour Islamic sharia as their official law.

While none of the leading political parties with the only exception of Imran Khan’s PTI promises to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state, the 30th April Pew Research Center survey of Muslims around the globe finds that most adherents (including Pakistanis) of the world’s second-largest religion are deeply committed to their faith and want its teachings to shape not only their personal lives but also their societies and politics.

As against the recent hints of PPP, MQM and the ANP to make Pakistan a secular state, the PEW survey concludes, “Support for making Sharia the official law of the land tends to be higher in countries like Pakistan (84%) and Morocco (83%) where the constitution or basic laws favour Islam to other religions.”

Pew research says: 84% of Pakistani Muslims favour Islamic sharia as their official law.

And yet we know that a high proportion of people from Pakistan do not reflect in their personal behaviour the values enshrined in the Sharia. Sharia says speak the truth, be honest, feed the poor, be kind to those in need, respect minorities and the list goes on. The argument appears to be that people of Pakistan will not act on what is dictated by and written in Allah’s book but if an assembly of human beings, with all their weaknesses and frailties, writes in their constitution, then they will follow it.

The good news coming out of this research is that it suggests that three quarters of Muslims in Pakistan believe in freedom of religion for others.

As with any survey we always take these things with ‘a pinch of salt’, but the full article makes for an interesting and sometimes depressing reading.

Original Source: TheNews