by Mr. Fahd Zulfiqar<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Academician\nMuhammad Khalid Masud ascribes religion as the \u201cformidable challenge\u201d to the\nsocio-economic and political development in Pakistan. The more contemporary scholarship\nis not very critical of the relationship between religion and development. The\nincrease in the number of scholarly literature on the relationship between\nreligion and development can be attributed to the growth of madrassah<\/em> networks across South Asia; as\npart of these burgeoning networks another interactionist framework has emerged which\nexplains the relationship between ulama<\/em>\nand civil society. Building upon this relationship, this piece describes: (i)<\/strong> the conceptual foundations of\nreligion-development nexus, (ii)<\/strong> deconstructs\nthe role of ulama<\/em> in development\nprojects, and (iii)<\/strong> signifies the\nreticent stance of ulama<\/em> to social\nchange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Signified\nas one of the contemporary debates in Development Studies, religion-development\nnexus has long been viewed as unimaginable and dichotomous by modernization\ntheorists. One of the modernist justifications is that on etymological grounds\ndevelopment is defined along the axis of modernity, growth, acceleration,\nadvancement and progression. This evolutionist stance was invoiced in the ideas\nof enlightenment, rationality and scientific reasoning which in turn\npromulgated and later on surfaced the notions of autonomy, human rights,\nindividuality, and modernity in the West. This instrumental conceptualisation\nof development by the West which glorifies economic modernisation clearly\ndemarcated the world into developed and under-developed countries. The western\nscholarship on development stereotypes the under-developed region as backward,\nregressive, and deprived, and in need of helping hand extended by the West. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With\nthis competing argument at the backdrop, religion doesn\u2019t seem to be an organic\nfit because it is conceived as a component of tradition which resists change,\nmodernity and in simpler terms development (as conceived and institutionalised\nby the West and in wake of implementation in the East). In order to simplify\nthis entangled relationship and locate argument in the context of Pakistan, I\nrefer to Political Scientist, Louis Cantori who provides a detailed explanation\nof Muslim responses to modernisation. One of the two are the defensive\nresponses that glorify the \u2018social and political positions of the Ulama\u2019,\nwhereas the second ones are the apologetic responses describing that how Islam\nhad already anticipated modernity and how the Islamic revivalists such as\nSayyid Qutb, Hassan Turabi, and Sayyid Mawdudi re-conceptualised the Islamic\nideation of development in the light of the Western polemical stance against\nIslam. Later on, the re-interpreted Islamic views on and of development were\ncommunicated to the world by articulating lexicons from Arabic language and\ndrawing parallels within the lexicography of Development Studies. For instance,\naccording to Khurshid Ahmad the Islamic perspective of development is based on\nthe theological terminologies such as tawhid<\/em>\n(unity), tazkiya<\/em> (purification) and taghayyur<\/em> (change). Opposed to this line\nof thinking are the neo-revivalists who claim to mark the difference between\nMuslims and West. Along this domain, it is imperative to signify that ban on\nbank interest, ban on family planning, defining women\u2019s status in the society,\nand circulation of money through zakat<\/em>\n(among others) differentiate Muslims from the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On\nexplaining the intersectionality of ulama<\/em>\nwith development in Pakistan a few studies can be cited. A study conducted by\nRiaz Hassan in Faithlines<\/strong> was based\non interviews conducted in 1996-98 with 4500 Muslims from Indonesia, Pakistan,\nEgypt and Kazakhstan. The study showed that in Pakistan the number of people\nwho trusted ulama<\/em> was less than in\nother countries included in the research although they trusted ulama<\/em> more than the pirs<\/em>, politicians and parliamentarians. Having said that, the\nrespondents had more trust in educational, judicial and intellectual\ninstitutions than the ulama<\/em> which\nclearly signifies the fact that the notion of religiosity is socially\nconstructed in Pakistan. Another significant research which can be cited in\nthis regard is \u201cUlema and Development<\/em>\u201d\nby National Research and Development Foundation (NRDF). The report is a\ncorollary of different development projects in which the role of ulama<\/em> was highlighted as of being\ntrusted and of those who can motivate people to development practices. One of\nthe significant features of the report was the role of ulama<\/em> in sensitising about reproductive rights of women. The\nproject though proclaimed to be a success, stays silent on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nstudy highlights that in rural areas the role of ulama<\/em> is more significant where literacy rates are low and media is\nrelatively limited, as they occupy a powerful status in religious seminaries\nand mosques. They are also bestowed with the platform of exfoliating\nmisperceptions and propagating positive conduct and behaviours in the society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\nGoing by this positive assertion about role of ulama<\/em>, Carol Rakody\u2019s (an academic with\nexpertise in religion and development) research asks whether ulama<\/em> really function as agents of\nchange in Muslim societies. The study highlighted that more than functioning as\nagents of social change in Pakistan, ulama<\/em>\nfunction as political forces governed by the interests of the religious\npolitical party\/ies they are associated with. In addition, they also exert\nstrong power and authority on the body polity and governmental structures of\nPakistan. The lack of public discourse questioning and deconstructing this\npoliticised hegemony of religious supremacists exacerbates the instrumentality\nof religion in Pakistan. Religion as an instrument to one\u2019s own vested\ninterests has been theorised in Bourdieusian (social inequalities on the basis\nof religious capital possessed by religious scholars), Marxist (false\nconsciousness as a strategist stance on creating class inequality) and\nFoucauldian (religious texts, imagery and symbols in popularising dominant\ndiscourse) schools of thought. In Pakistan the instrumentalization of Islam is\noperating on manifolds; through formal and informal institutions of social\ncontrol, through religious seminaries in the form of madrassah<\/em> and through political parties. Therefore, the nexus\nbetween religion and development needs to be problematized in Pakistan on\ntheological, discursive and political fronts.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Mr. Fahd Zulfiqar Academician Muhammad Khalid Masud ascribes religion as the \u201cformidable challenge\u201d to the socio-economic and political development in Pakistan. The more contemporary scholarship is not very critical of the relationship between religion and development. The increase in the number of scholarly literature on the relationship between religion and development can be attributed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,8,7],"tags":[13,15,56,55,54,53],"yoast_head":"\n