IN PAKISTAN’S FIRST DECADE of independence, the role of
Islam in the nation’s political system was a dominant theme of public
debate.’ During the following years, however, this issue receded in im-
portance and was generally overshadowed by other, non-Islamic, issues.
Ayub Khan (President 1958-1969) retained some of the indispensable
Islamic ideology legitimized by the Pakistan movement and the early
post-Partition years, but he was clearly a “modernist” in his interpreta-
tion of Islam as subject to the conditions of contemporary nationhood.Z
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s success in the 1970 elections appeared to be a
further extension of this trend. One writer noted “the secularization of
politics brought about by President Zulfikar Bhutto and his party’s as-
cendancy”.
Author(s): William L. Richter
Source: Asian Survey , Jun., 1979, Vol. 19, No. 6 (Jun., 1979), pp. 547-557
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2643894