Muslim Nationalism, State Formation and Legal Representations of the Ahmadiyya Community in ...

412 Pages·2010·2.35 MB·English

Politics of Exclusion: Muslim Nationalism, State Formation and Legal
Representations of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan

by

Sadia Saeed

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Sociology)
in The University of Michigan
2010

Doctoral Committee:

Professor George P. Steinmetz, Chair
Professor Howard A. Kimeldorf
Associate Professor Fatma Muge Gocek
Associate Professor Genevieve Zubrzycki
Professor Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University
© Sadia Saeed 2010

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Dedication

This dissertation is dedicated to my parents with my deepest love, respect and gratitude
for the innumerable ways they have supported my work and choices.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to begin by acknowledging the immense support my parents have
given me every step of the way during my (near) decade in graduate school. I have
dedicated this dissertation to them. My ammi and baba have always believed in my
capabilities to accomplish not only this dissertation but much more in life and their words
of love and encouragement have continuously given me the strength and the will to give
my research my very best. My father‘s great enthusiasm for this project, his intellectual
input and his practical help and advice during the fieldwork of this project have been
formative to this project.
I would like to thank my dissertation advisor George Steinmetz for the many
engaged conversations about theory and methods, for always pushing me to take my
work to the next level and above all for teaching me to recognize and avoid sloppiness,
caricatures and short-cuts. It is to him that I owe my greatest intellectual debt.
I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members Fatma Muge
Gocek, Genevieve Zubrzycki, Mamadou Diouf and Howard Kimeldorff. Muge has
constantly reminded me to critically appraise my own subject position in relation to the
choices I have made in my intellectual endeavors. Her advice to delve fully into the lives,
motivations and experiences of the ―subjects‖ of my study before arriving at theoretical
conclusions has been pivotal to this project. In addition to the many and amazing ways
that she has provided intellectual feedback as well as impress on me the importance of
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making my work accessible to a larger audience, Genevieve has been a role model with
regard to balancing being a parent, teacher and scholar. Her dedication to all of these
varied pursuits has been a constant source of hope and inspiration for me. From Professor
Diouf, I have learnt the importance of critically considering ―general‖ theory and the
ways in which trajectories of global historical inequalities make their ways – often
silently – into the world of academic discourses. Professor Diouf has always being there
for me with advice in spite of his relocation to New York and his many responsibilities
and engagements. Last, even though he joined my dissertation committee very near the
end, Howard has been reading my work almost throughout. I would like to thank him for
always having his office doors open to me, for his warmth, kindness and continuous
support. I could not have wished for a better Chair of the Sociology Department! I would
also like to thank other professors at Michigan who have engaged with, read and
commented on my work, in particular Julia Adams, Peggy Somers, Jeff Paige, Robert
Jansen, Barbara Metcalf and Fernando Coronil.
My research would not have been possible without the help of a great number of
people who have spoken to me about my research, answered my questions and provided
me with invaluable resources for carrying out this project. First, I would like to thank all
the Ahmadis who have trusted me enough to speak candidly with me and for their
support as a community in carrying out my research. By giving me access to their homes,
their libraries and their community, they have enriched me. I would particularly like to
mention Mujeebur Rehman for the many hours of interviews that he has granted me.
Equally, I would like to thank all the individuals who have allowed me to question them
on the sensitive political and religious issues central to my project. I admire the
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candidness and integrity of all the people I have spoken to and hope that by bringing all
of their stories together in my narrative, we can undertake a collective reappraisal of our
present. It has been my privilege to know all of my interviewees.
This dissertation would not have been possible without the immense help and
patience I have received from the personnel at various archives and other research sites I
have visited. I would like to begin by thanking the staff at National Archives of Pakistan,
National Library of Pakistan and the National Documentation Center. The help I received
from them throughout the arduous process of digging old newspapers and archives and
photocopying and scanning them cannot be adequately expressed in words. I would also
like to thank the personnel at the Aalmi Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwwat’s head
offices in Multan, the Khilafat Library at Rabwah and the Ahmadiyya Community Center
in Islamabad for facilitating my research.
The research for this dissertation was funded by a number of sources. A
fellowship from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies allowed me to spend
considerable time in the British Library in U.K. I have also received various grants and
fellowships from various University of Michigan sources including the Department of
Sociology, Rackham Graduate School and the International Institute.
At Michigan, I was surrounded by a large group of friends and colleagues who
have made the experience of grad school infinitely more fulfilling and fun. My deepest
gratitude and appreciation go to my friends Jennifer Ailshire, Baris Buyukokutan, Dave
Dobbie, Besnik Pula, Salik Farooqi, Alex Gerber, Atef Said, Laura Hirshfield, Amie
Emens, Camilo Leslie, Mariana Craciun, Eric Eide, Avi Astor, Hiro Saito, Bashar
Tarabieh, Mike Bader and Byungho Lee. A group of friends unconnected to Michigan
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have lent their support from afar. The solitude of grad school in America would not have
been possible without my friends Anita Chaudhry, Iffat Sajjad, Sarah Shafiq and Shireen
Meer.
My family has always provided the utmost support to me and has ensured that I
stay sane throughout the process. Many thanks to my siblings Aliya and Adnan for their
encouragement but above all for always keeping it light, their humor and for bringing
things in perspective. My mother-in-law Maria-Magdolna provided uncompromising
support to me by devoting her time to being almost the sole caregiver to her
granddaughter while I undertook the most intensive writing of this dissertation. I could
not have wished for a more loving, caring and kinder mother-in-law.
My partner in life and my very best friend, my husband Zoltan Dezso has been
with me every step of the way of this dissertation, giving me unconditional love, support,
strength and patience. You have made it all immensely more meaningful. I cannot
imagine having done this, or undertaking anything else in life, without you right by my
side.
Finally, my daughter Alina, my biggest source of joy and my greatest love of all.
Your twinkling eyes and your sweetest smile have given me the motivation to take the
final huge leaps towards completing this dissertation. I want to make this world a better
place for you. Everything I write is for you.
Throughout the writing of this dissertation, the thousands of Pakistanis who have
been victims of religious intolerance, misguided laws and corruption have been silent
companions, reminding me of the gravity of the issues on which I have chosen to write. I
have tried my best to do justice to an issue that is an extremely sensitive one to the hearts
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and minds of most Pakistanis. If I have erred in my analysis, the fault lies entirely with
me and not with any of the people named above.

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Table of Contents

Dedication ………………………………………………………………………………. ii
Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………….. iii
List of Figures …………………………………………………………………………….x
List of Appendices ……………………………………………………………………… xi
List of Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………………xii
Glossary ………………………………………………………………………………...xiv
Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………xvi

Chapters

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...1
1.1. Religion, State Formation and the Ahmadiyya Community
in Modern Pakistan ………………………………………………………....3
1.2. Setting the Agenda: The ‗Ahmadi Question‘, National Identity
and the Pakistani State ……………………………………………………. .9
1.3. Theoretical Framework: Explaining Shifts in Nationalist Policy
Outcomes ………………………………………………………………….. 14
1.4. Methodology and Data Sources …………………………………………… 20
1.5. Outline of Chapters …………………………………………………………36

2. National Identity and the State Field in Modern Pakistan ………………….40
2.1. Explaining Shifts in Nationalist Policy Outcomes:
Existing Approaches ………………………………………………………..40
2.2. State Field, Nationalist Policy and Ethno-national Capital ……………….. 55
2.3. Conceptualizing the State Field in Pakistan ………………………………. 68
2.4. Explaining Shifts in Nationalist Policy Outcomes in Pakistan ………….... 92
2.5. Visual Representation of Theoretical Framework ……………………….. 107

3. The Ahmadiyya Movement: Origins, Beliefs & Controversies under
British Colonial rule ………………………………………………………... 111
3.1. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad: Beliefs and Controversies ………………………. 112
3.2. The Origins and Development of the Ahmadiyya Movement …………… 121
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3.3. Ahmadiyya Community and the Colonial State: Accommodation
and Negotiation ……………………………………………………………127
3.4. In Search of a Political Community: Ahmadis, Orthodox
Muslims and Resistance to Colonial Rule ………………………………...141
3.5. The March towards Independence: Ahmadiyya Community,
Pakistan Movement and the Partition of India ……………………………153
3.6. Conclusions ………………………………………………………………..161

4. Defining the Boundaries of „Muslim Citizenship‟: State Field,
Nationalism and the Socio-legal Construction of the Ahmadiyya
Community, 1947-1974 ……………………………………………………….162
4.1. Politics of Accommodation of Ahmadis in 1953 ………………………163
4.2. Between Accommodation and Exclusion, 1958-1973 …………………192
4.3. Politics of Exclusion: State field, Muslim Citizenship
and the National community in 1974 …………………………………..202

5. From Muslim Nationalism to „Islamic‟ Statehood: Examining the
Conjunctures between Statist Imperatives and
Socio-symbolic Struggles ……………………………………………………..232
5.1. The Redistribution of Statist Capital: 1977-1988 ……………………...236
5.2. Quest for Legitimacy: the Institutional-Discursive terrain of
Zia-Ul-Haq‘s program of Islamization…………………………………243
5.3. The Aftermath of the 1974 Amendment: Ahmadi Response
and the Counter-initiatives of the Religious Right ……………..….......249
5.4. Explaining the Emergence of 1984 Ordinance ………………………..257
5.5. Debating 1984 Ordinance: The Struggle for Ethno-national Capital ….269
5.6. Conclusions …………………………………………………………… 278

6. Towards a Sociology of Normative Legal Repertoires: The Criminalization
of Ahmadis inside Pakistan‟s Juridical Field in the Long 1980s…………...281
6.1. Theorizing the Juridical Field with Bourdieu …………………………285
6.2. Towards a Sociology of Normative Legal Repertories ……………………293
6.3. The Juridical Field and the Introduction of Legal Pluralism in Pakistan ... 302
6.4. The Ahmadi Question inside the Juridical Field in the 1980s …………….315
6.5. Conclusions: After Zaheeruddin …………………………………………..351

7. Conclusions ...………………………………………………………………….358

Appendices …………………………………………………………………………….368

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………..372
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