{"id":437,"date":"2009-02-18T12:10:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-18T12:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html"},"modified":"2009-02-18T12:10:47","modified_gmt":"2009-02-18T12:10:47","slug":"sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html","title":{"rendered":"Sharia Law in Pakistan: The Despair of Religious Totalitarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><\/p>\n<div>Pakistan has instituted Sharia law in the Swat Valley. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/2958316.stm\">As this BBC article explains<\/a>, the move has serious implications for the religious and personal freedom: \u00a0<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">&#8220;The head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasiab Khattak, says the move is pushing Pakistani society towards religious totalitarianism.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Other developments described in the article include:<\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>The planned creation of a Department of Vice and Virtue which recalls the worst excess of the Taliban.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Civil workers must pray five times a day<\/li>\n<li>Music sales will be curbed<\/li>\n<li>Cinemas\u00a0have been closed<\/li>\n<li>Women cannot be examined by male doctors<\/li>\n<li>Males cannot coach women athletes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Salman_Ahmad\">Salman Ahmad<\/a>, a Pakistani-American Muslim who is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.junoon.com\/home2.htm\">musician,\u00a0<\/a>a UN Goodwill Ambassador, as well as a friend of mine wrote me this\u00a0despairing\u00a0email about the affairs in his home country:<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\"><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">&#8220;Pakistan is experiencing a moment of truth. \u00a0A corrupt and incompetent political leadership\u00a0 is facing an enemy which has brainwashed itself to\u00a0kill and die\u00a0in the name of God. Pakistan is the battle ground and its poor people are caught in the crossfire. \u00a0If the Taliban wont kill them it&#8217;ll be the Pakistani army or the US drone attacks. \u00a0 Islamic law is just an excuse for gangsters, drug runners, murderers and fanatics to have a safe haven for themselves.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Salman made a remarkable documentary called: The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZIKQfGahBf4\">Rockstar and the Mullahs<\/a>\u00a0about the restriction of music in areas dominated by religious fundamentalism, so he is well aware of what is at stake . \u00a0Salman&#8217;s remarks also remind us that ultimately the people of Pakistan feel trapped and afflicted by all sides including America. \u00a0Let&#8217;s hope that the United States can have a smart new approach to Pakistan and Afghanistan that will result in those countries becoming modern Islamic Republics rather than revert to the religious barbarism of the 1990s. \u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan has instituted Sharia law in the Swat Valley. \u00a0As this BBC article explains, the move has serious implications for the religious and personal freedom: \u00a0 &#8220;The head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasiab Khattak, says the move is pushing Pakistani society towards religious totalitarianism.&#8221; Other developments described in the article include: The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,2,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-relations","category-muslims","category-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sharia Law in Pakistan: The Despair of Religious Totalitarianism - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sharia Law in Pakistan: The Despair of Religious Totalitarianism - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pakistan has instituted Sharia law in the Swat Valley. \u00a0As this BBC article explains, the move has serious implications for the religious and personal freedom: \u00a0 &#8220;The head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasiab Khattak, says the move is pushing Pakistani society towards religious totalitarianism.&#8221; 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Other developments described in the article include: The&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2009-02-18T12:10:47+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html","name":"Sharia Law in Pakistan: The Despair of Religious Totalitarianism - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-18T12:10:47+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-18T12:10:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/sharia-law-in-pakistan-the-des.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sharia Law in Pakistan: The Despair of Religious Totalitarianism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}