12 - Sentiments of the ‘Islamic Welfare State’

Summary

In the West the national machinery of commerce and politics turns out neatly compressed bales of humanity which have their use and high market value; but they are bound in iron hoops, labeled and separated off with scientific care and precision. Obviously God made man to be human; but this modern product has such marvelous square-cut finish, savouring of gigantic manufacture, that the Creator will find it difficult to recognize it as a thing of spirit and a creature made in His own divine image.

—Rabindranath Tagore

[O]ur goal is the establishment of an Islamic welfare state. This was, in fact, the main goal of our freedom movement…. It will be a welfare state where there are no poor and destitutes, where the rich care for the poor in accordance with Islamic values, where elders have affection for the younger people, and the young folk respect their elders, where children obey their parents, where teachers provide proper guidance to the younger generation and students respect their teachers, where mosques are crowded with devotees, where the institutions of zakat is purposeful and well-established, where the deserving and the needy get zakat regularly…. We will wage jihad against poverty, parochialism, and ignorance.

—Mohammad Zia ul Haq

The establishment of an ‘Islamic welfare state’ has been a persistent official rationale for laws, and ordinances, since the creation of Pakistan, especially under military regimes, as when General Zia ul Haq made the above claim. But it is not only military governments that promote the idea of an ‘Islamic welfare state.’ Political leaders have made similar claims. Imran Khan said, before he was in public office or had won any election, that the central mission of his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf is “to make Pakistan a truly Islamic welfare state.” Similarly, Shehbaz Sharif claimed, during the rule of his brother's Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz, “Pakistan will be transformed into an Islamic welfare state in the real sense as was envisioned by Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal.”

One could be misled by the popularity of the phrase ‘Islamic welfare state.’ What some proponents have in mind is a violent replacement of today's corrupt government of man with a utopia alternatively referred to as the ‘Islamic state.’