Zia ul-Haq and Islamisation
General Zia ul-Haq overthrows Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, has him hanged, and rules for eleven years, introducing Islamic laws and backing the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
- The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics — Ayesha Jalal, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2014)
- Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military — Husain Haqqani, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2005)
- Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia — Ahmed Rashid, Viking (2008)
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who led Pakistan after 1971, was a charismatic populist who gave the country its 1973 constitution, nationalised industries and promised roti, kapra aur makaan, “bread, clothes and shelter”. But he was also authoritarian, and after disputed elections in 1977 mass protests led by religious parties paralysed the country. On 5 July 1977 the army chief, General Zia ul-Haq, seized power. Bhutto was convicted of conspiracy to murder in a trial widely seen as unfair and hanged on 4 April 1979.
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
- The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics — Ayesha Jalal, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2014)
Zia set out to make Pakistan’s laws Islamic. The 1979 Hudood Ordinances introduced punishments for adultery, theft and drinking, and under them women who reported rape could be prosecuted for adultery if they could not prove it. Blasphemy laws were tightened, with a penalty of death for insulting the Prophet added in 1986. Religious education and a state-run collection of zakat expanded, and a Federal Shariat Court was created.
- Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military — Husain Haqqani, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2005)
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Zia became a key Cold War ally. With American and Saudi money, Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, armed the Afghan mujahideen, while some three million Afghan refugees came to Pakistan. Guns, heroin and militant networks spread through the country.
- Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia — Ahmed Rashid, Viking (2008)
- Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military — Husain Haqqani, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2005)
Zia died when his plane crashed near Bahawalpur on 17 August 1988; the cause has never been established. Bhutto’s daughter Benazir won the election that followed.
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
Zia fulfilled Pakistan's founding purpose by making its laws Islamic, stood up to Soviet expansion in Afghanistan and restored order after Bhutto's divisive rule.
- Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military — Husain Haqqani, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2005)
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
A military dictator used religion to legitimise himself, judicially murdered an elected prime minister, flogged journalists, passed laws that punished rape victims and endangered minorities, and fed the militancy that would later turn on Pakistan itself.
- The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics — Ayesha Jalal, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2014)
- Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military — Husain Haqqani, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2005)
Why it matters today
Much of today's Pakistan bears Zia's imprint: the blasphemy laws, the Hudood laws on sex and alcohol (partly reformed in 2006), the spread of madrasas and armed sectarian groups, and the "Kalashnikov culture" left by the Afghan war. Supporters remember a pious leader; critics, including many women and liberals, remember the darkest years of their lives.