Daily Times

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) is a constitutional body that was created in 1961 to advise the government or an elected assembly whether a proposed or existing law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam or not, but its recommendations are not binding. The CII has been issuing rulings for decades, but its recommendations have not really been given much weight by government or parliament. However, whenever it suited the rulers, CII’s recommendations were accepted to some extent. For instance, in 1983 the CII ruled that political parties were contrary to the spirit of Islam, and that the presidential system was more suited to Pakistan than the parliamentary form, General Zia-ul-Haq barred all political parties from contesting elections in 1985, but did not formally introduce the presidential system. But to perpetuate his rule, he held a fake referendum and kept himself in power as president.

Political parties are still retained as the bedrock of Pakistan’s political system despite CII’s clear injunctions against it. Similarly, on other matters concerning finance and politics, the CII’s recommendations were mostly overlooked due to their impracticability or given a superficial treatment like renaming “interest” as “profit” etc.

However, even in social and family matters, the CII showed no significant impact except that in 1974, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto banned alcohol accepting its recommendations under fear of public agitation. Most other recommendations of CII on social and family matters were largely ignored. Significant among them is its ruling to lower marriageable age of male and female to 12 and nine years, and declaring laws prohibiting child marriages as un-Islamic, which was not accepted. CII’s recommendations that the existing law requiring a husband to get “written approval” from the first wife before his second marriage is un-Islamic was also not accepted. Similarly, CII’s other rulings on the efficacy of DNA tests, human cloning, and sex re-assignment surgery etc. have not been accepted by any government. CII also declared family planning as un-Islamic, to which the state has paid scant attention.

The latest ruling of CII made in rebuttal to Punjab Assembly’s Women Protection Act passed in February 2016 has created quite a furore across the country because of its controversial and anti-Islamic provisions. Its ruling has been termed as “ridiculous” by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and mocked by national media. The ruling allows “light beating” of women by their husbands, and prohibits women from working in a mixed gender environment, leaving little scope for women to work outside their households. All this has been done in sheer violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution as well as Pakistan’s international obligations for human rights and women empowerment. It is obvious that such recommendations cannot be given a legal effect by government because of their negative and regressive nature. The history and fate of CII’s rulings during 54 years of its existence raise serious questions on its desirability as a constitutional body. Despite their non-acceptance for various reasons, their rulings send wrong signals about the working of our polity at the international level.

The basic need under which the CII was created was one of interpretation of what is Islamic and what is not Islamic. Our superior judiciary has a brilliant record of interpreting laws and rules of all complex matters relating to finance, economics, accounts, taxation, science and technology that affect our social life. Islam as a faith being too close to our bosom cannot be exempted from interpretation by the same judiciary, particularly when Islam does not recognise any priest class having a monopoly on religious matters. Even today, all matters relating to the interpretation of Islamic sharia are entrusted to the specially constituted sharia courts against whose decisions the final verdict is given by the Supreme Court Appellate Shariat Bench. Thus in view of the extremely sensitive nature of questions touching matters of faith, the state has rightly left them to be adjudicated upon by the judiciary instead of any other body with pretentions of special knowledge on religious matters. The clergy should not be allowed to play ducks and drakes with civil society.

It appears that “Islamisation” for which the CII has been used as a tool has been promoted only for political purposes by every government in Pakistan since the founding of the state. Since family life has always been CII’s main focus, its axe has always fallen on women resulting in gender disparities, something that is not only anti-Islamic but also against the spirit of time. Instead of closing gender gaps in public sectors like health and education, and creating greater female labour force, it has put barriers on women participation in social life, and indirectly impeded economic growth and development. What a Pakistani society would look like when all female nursing staff is withdrawn from hospitals, females are prevented from attending universities for fear of mixing with males, and female judges are made to wear veils. Is it time that we should see no more of the CII intermeddling in our social and economic life?

The writer is a former member of provincial civil service