Abstract:

Shiʿis are not a marginal group in Pakistan. They comprise about 15–20 percent of a population of more than 210 million people, which means that they form the second-largest Shiʿi community in the world after Iran. Shiʿi objects of devotion in the form of banners, images, and flags dot urban residential quarters as well as the countryside. Their processions are highly visible in major cities such as Karachi, Lahore, or Islamabad. Shiʿis are also well represented in the political elite and the business community, thus continuing a legacy of Shiʿi princely states, Sufi leaders, and large landowners in the region. At the same time, however, Shiʿi activists complain bitterly about their marginal status in Pakistan, a state they helped create and that was supposed to embody an ecumenical Islamic spirit as a homeland for all Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. According to this narrative, Shiʿis have been targeted since the early decades of the state’s inception and have even been subjected to a deliberate and outright Shiʿi “genocide” since the 1980s, when sectarian tensions rose sharply in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. As a reaction, Shiʿis have mobilized politically and have also tried to present themselves as “pure” and acceptable orthodox Muslims. Yet this focus on sectarian violence glosses over the equally important internal tensions among Pakistan’s Shiʿis. Unlike in other countries with a sizable Shiʿi population, such as Iraq, Lebanon, or Iran, the religious scholars (ulama) cannot claim to be exclusively in charge of Shiʿi forms of piety in Pakistan. Instead, they compete for leadership with popular and often esoteric preachers as well as with (heterodox) Sufis who display certain Shiʿi leanings. This also means that Shiʿi interpretations that embrace the Iranian model of governance, known as “guardianship of the jurisprudent” (vilayat-i faqih), are fiercely contested by many Shiʿis who are skeptical of the clerics’ claims to represent the Hidden Imam during the time of his Occultation (ghayba).