What do language policy in Pakistan and the drive to Islamise the state have in common? In the wake of independence, Pakistan emerged as a state striving to create a nation and it looked both to language and religion in search of constructing its Islamic national identity. This paper looks at the darker side of the nation-building process in the country, with a specific focus on the role of language in the struggle to purify Pakistan of its un-Islamic elements and at the shifting nature on the discourse of Islamic nationhood in the country. In particular, it spotlights how politics and law function not only to determine what constitutes an Islamic language and blasphemous speech but, in doing so, also construct the Islamic nation and its 'Other'.

This paper provides a critical appraisal of the Supreme Court judgement in the long-running and infamous case against Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman, accused of blasphemy in 2009. While the judgement is hailed as a landmark ruling, this paper argues that apart from acquitting the accused, it changes little else in the political and legal landscape of the country. The judgement relies on colonial assumptions about the nature of religious conflict in order to defend the blasphemy laws of Pakistan. This approach of the court tacitly affirms the discourses on the Islamic identity of the state that justify the marginalisation of religious minorities. The judgement reinforces the death penalty for blasphemy even as it recognises the almost ubiquitous misuse and problematic nature of Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. The court defends both the existence and the perpetuity of blasphemy laws pre-eminently on religious grounds rather than the constitution. This magnifies the grievances of Muslims ahead of the objections and concerns religious minorities in Pakistan have long raised. The court fails to seriously engage with the question of how the constitutional rights and liberties of religious minorities can be preserved so long as the law continues to endure.

The point of departure in this chapter is Niall Ferguson's 2006 claim that 'as works of prophecy go' S.P. Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' thesis has been 'a real winner.' This claim is examined in the light both of the persistent scholarly verdict that the thesis is deeply flawed, and its continued public and academic usage since it first appeared in 1993 as an article in Foreign Affairs. Given that the thesis is deemed to misrepresent, rather than capture, the tensions existing between Islam and the West now and into the future, why has it persisted as long as it has?

The burden of Huntington's thesis is that future wars will be conducted by entire civilizations - though principally Islam and the West - and be driven largely by cultural differences at the fault-lines of contact between them. Huntington had proposed this as a model of international relations to replace the old Cold War paradigm that had ended with the break-up of the Soviet Union and the demise of Communism. His aim was to construct an equally simple model of global politics that could predict and explain the kind of conflict that would come to dominate international relations.

While Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' was denied paradigmatic status, this chapter considers aspects of his futurological model that he may have got right or partially right. This includes the key concepts of 'culture' and 'civilization', which he is credited with introducing to the study of international relations, and the 'helpfulness' of his thesis in accounting for the rise of populist far-right parties, particularly in Europe, and their growing electoral success. The early warning that Huntington provided of civilizational alienation between Muslims and Hindus on the subcontinent and the BJP's agenda of turning India into a Hindu state is also looked at in the context of a regional case study of a civilizational 'clash' ostensibly well underway.

That Huntington's thesis may also have derived a degree of reinforcement from the phenomenon of Islamist radicalization on the one hand, and the rise of Islamophobia on the other, is also explored. Reinforcement also comes in the form of Islamist narratives that conjure up an apocalyptic confrontation between Islam and the West, narratives that are constructed independently of Huntington's, but in terms of doomsday scenarios run parallel with his.

The chapter ends by reflecting on the place where the 'clash of civilizations' has arrived, and currently occupies in the study of international relations.

This chapter investigates some of the ways in which the framework of the nation-state complicates the implementation of the classical sharia in Pakistan. This investigation is important not just for unpacking the roots of the ambiguities around the religious identity of the Pakistani state, but also in understanding the conflicts over the source of sovereignty underlying the authority of the state itself‚ and the internal contradictions inherent in Pakistan's efforts to reconcile an Islamic definition of nationhood with the modern nation-state's structure.

The issue of blasphemy is a point of significant political contestation and a source of recurring social unrest in Pakistan. Divisions on the issue serve as a catalyst for mass demonstrations and the intimidation and assassination of political and community leaders and activists,¹ along with the ongoing persecution and marginalisation of religious minorities.² While there are specific laws, known as the blasphemy laws,³ which criminalise forms of expression and religious beliefs and behaviour, the trouble is that the boundary between the acceptable and the criminal remains unclear, often incoherent, and politicised.⁴ This confusion expands the room for miscarriages of justice ⁵ and the misuse of these laws towards nefarious designs and personal gain.⁶ Moreover, the blasphemy laws specifically target the beliefs and practices of religious minorities and vulnerable communities.⁷ This makes the mere existence of religious minorities potentially criminal,⁸ rendering them susceptible to vigilante and mob violence, and targets of collective punishment.

This article examines why the Indian Constitution is central to Muslim politics and political resistance. It examines the tensions and challenges the Indian Constitution and the political rise of Hindu nationalism present to the Muslim struggle for equality in India. The article underscores how the Indian Constitution's paradoxical stance on governing religion places religious minorities, particularly Muslims, in a challenging position amid evolving state and political ideologies, resulting in underrepresentation, political focus on identity and marginalisation, and difficulties in addressing inequalities and discrimination. A case study of the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (Ind) is employed to illustrate how constitutional paradoxes shaped advocacy efforts using the Constitution. However, these endeavours ultimately proved unsuccessful, shedding light on the challenges that lie ahead for advocates of Muslim rights.

Pakistan is a Sunni Muslim majority country and its historical and political development relate a compelling narrative of a struggle to define a stable and inclusive sense of Islamic nationhood. Indeed, Pakistan was hailed as an ambitious and unprecedented Islamic experiment.