All over the world, there is now a rising tide of radical ‘Islamist’ movements, which, especially since 9/11, have turned militant. Since then, terrorist attacks against civilian populations both in the West and within Muslim countries themselves have become almost daily occurrences. Several countries have been directly or indirectly affected by Islamist militancy. In Bangladesh, Islamist militants killed 156 people in the 1990s, and the country experienced at least 48 smallscale attacks that killed over 120 people between 2015 and 2016. The July 2016 attack at the Holey Artisan Café in Dhaka killed approximately 20 foreigners, while an abortive attack six days later killed two. These and other similar incidents confirmed the presence of external militant outfits in the country and the severity of the challenge. Based on an exhaustive review of the relevant literature and two stints of fieldwork in Bangladesh involving 71 in-depth interviews of highly credentialled individuals, this project seek to investigate not only the causes of radicalization but also how radicalization has unfolded since 2009. This thesis looks at both local and global factors that have served to provoke young Bangladeshis, many of whom are from relatively well-educated backgrounds, to become religiously belligerent and eventually to turn into terrorists. Ideology, it is argued, plays a pivotal role in the radicalization process and justifies violence. Most importantly, ideology proffers solutions to the micro and macro causes of commonly identifiable youth disaffection. This study mainly focuses on the Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s exploitation of religious beliefs and their construction of a mobilising, apocalyptic narrative that strikes a chord with the young, middle-class Muslims. Both organisations target them for recruitment. The thesis ends by proffering what is called a Pyramid Root Cause model,’ which attempts to tie all the causative variables of radicalization into a connected explanation of what has been happening in Bangladesh over the last decade.

Is Pakistan the ‘Islamic’ Republic it claims to be? How has it sought to resolve its Islamic identity? What role have its constitutions played in addressing this contested and contentious problem? What issues have different ‘Islamic’ constitutional innovations produced? What issues need be considered in order to resolve the problem of reconciling the role and place of Islam in the state? This thesis addresses these related questions and provokes the reader to reconsider the conventional wisdom held about Islamisation as a means to render Pakistan suitably Islamic.

This thesis charts new territory by mapping the origins and evolution of constitutional ideas pertaining to Islam. It demonstrates that Islamic constitutional reforms were geared to address pertinent political problems in Pakistan and respond to new challenges, ideologies and historical contingencies. It historicises the process that has led to the belief that Islamisation, as it is understood today, is the preeminent and exclusive method of creating an Islamic political order in Pakistan.

This thesis demonstrates that the important and contentious issues pertaining to Islam possess a close constitutional connection. It investigates the question of why Islamic provisions in Pakistan’s constitutional texts assume the shape they do. It demonstrates that the idea of an Islamic Pakistan has been an evolving concept driven as much by politics as it is by historical contingencies. It explains that the nature of the legal and sovereign imaginaries of the nation-state itself is a key to understanding Pakistan’s inner ambiguities and the country’s struggle to resolve its Islamic identity. It argues that answers to the question of what it is that makes a political and legal order Islamic remains unclear and suggests that perhaps more insoluble and intractable issues need to be considered when constituting religion within the framework of the nation-state. This thesis also proffers insights into potential opportunities and pitfalls which constitution-makers may encounter in relation to the constitutionalising of Islam

Finally, this thesis is a Thesis by Publication and its five substantive chapters are in the form of self-contained papers – four of which have been accepted for publication and the fifth chapter is at present under review.