Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:17:05.458Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Street Power: Friday Prayers, Islamist Protests, and Islamization in Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Ahsan I. Butt
Ahsan I. Butt*
Affiliation:
George Mason University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Ahsan I. Butt, School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MSN 3F4, Fairfax, VA 22030. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article addresses Pakistani Islamists' street power — their ability to organize rallies, protests, and demonstrations. Building on research on religion and collective action, I first demonstrate how Friday prayers aid Islamist mobilization. Mosques on Friday serve as a filtering and coordination tool, as tactical “choke” points in urban neighborhoods, and as incitement through the imam's sermon. I then show how Islamist street power affects Islamization in Pakistan. I argue that Pakistan's foundational religious nationalism acts as an “opportunity structure,” and affords Islamists agenda-setting and veto power. The success of Islamist agitation depends on the issue contested, the type of regime targeted, and the era in which it is practiced. I use interviews, participant observation at Islamist rallies, an original dataset of all rallies and protests in Pakistan from 2005 to 2010 (n = 4123); and government and local newspaper reports from the 1940s onward to buttress my claims.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 1 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abbas, Hassan. 2005. Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror. New York: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Alavi, Hamza. 1988. “Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology.” In State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan, eds. Halliday, Fred, and Alavi, Hamza. London: Macmillan Education.Google Scholar
Bass, Gary J. 2013. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide. New York, NY: Knopf.Google Scholar
Bayat, Asef. 2007. “Radical Religion and the Habitus of the Dispossessed: Does Islamic Militancy Have an Urban Ecology?” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31:579–590.Google Scholar
Bennett-Jones, Owen. 2000. “Pakistan's Blasphemy Law U-Turn.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/751803.stm (Accessed on January 22, 2016)Google Scholar
Bennett-Jones, Owen. 2002. Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. New Haven, NY: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Binder, Leonard. 1961. Religion and Politics in Pakistan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul R. 1997. Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Smith, Alastair, Siverson, Randolph M., and Morrow, James D.. 2004. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, Fair, C. Christine, Rais, Rasul Bakhsh, and Shapiro, Jacob N.. 2012. BFRS Dataset of Political Violence in Pakistan.Google Scholar
Butt, Ahsan I. 2016. Secession and Security: Explaining State Strategies against Separatists. Book manuscript, George Mason University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, Howell, William G., and Lewis, David E.. 2008. “Toward a Broader Understanding of Presidential Power: A Reevaluation of the Two Presidencies Thesis.” Journal of Politics 70:1–16.Google Scholar
Chhibber, Pradeep, and Sekhon, Jasjeet S.. 2013. “Mobilizing Identities: Religious Practice and Political Action in India.” Unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Chisti, Ali K. 2013. “The Madrassa Networks of Sindh.” The Friday Times http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130712&page=5 (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Chulov, Martin, and Kingsley, Patrick. 2013. “Egypt prepares for backlash as Morsi allies reject new regime.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/04/egypt-morsi-allies-regime (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Chwe, Michael Suk-Young. 2001. Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stephen P. 2004. The Idea of Pakistan. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Dawn . 1953a. “Direct Action to be Launched from Today.” February 27.Google Scholar
Dawn. 1953b. “Press Communique Says: Government Will not be Coerced.” February 28.Google Scholar
Dawn. 1974a. “Bhutto Urges Opposition Not to Incite Emotions and Endanger Country.” June 4.Google Scholar
Dawn. 1974b. “Editorial: Need for Calm Reflection.” June 15.Google Scholar
Dawn. 2001a. “Karachi: Anti-US Protest Turns Violent.” http://www.dawn.com/news/1192/karachi-anti-us-protest-turns-violent (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Dawn . 2001b. “Mass Protests in Punjab against US Strikes.” http://www.dawn.com/news/1229/mass-protests-in-punjab-against-us-strikes (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Dawn . 2001c. “Karachi: Complete strike observed.” http://www.dawn.com/news/5560/karachi-complete-strike-observed (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Dawn . 2006. “Demos, Rallies Condemn Blasphemous Caricatures.” http://dawn.com/news/178146/demos-rallies-condemn-blasphemous-caricatures (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Dawn . 2010. “Religious Parties Threaten Protest in Blasphemy Case.” http://www.dawn.com/news/585070/religious-parties-threaten-protest (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Dawn . 2012a. “Rallies against Anti-Islam Video.” http://www.dawn.com/news/749467/rallies-against-anti-islam-video (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Dawn . 2012b. “Pakistan Govt Declares Holiday to Protest Anti-Islam Film.” http://www.dawn.com/news/750507/govt-to-join-protests-over-anti-islam-film (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Devji, Faisal. 2013. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fair, C. Christine. 2014. Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fair, C. Christine, and Ganguly, Sumit. 2008. Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Denardo, James. 1985. Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest and Rebellion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Roger V. 1995. Insurgent Identities: Class, Community, and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Roger V. 2003. “Why do Networks Matter? Rationalist and Structrualist Interpretations.” In Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action, eds. Diani, Mario and McAdam, Doug. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haqqani, Husain. 2005. Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Hardin, Russell. 1982. Collective Action. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hassner, Ron E. 2010. “War and the Religious Calendar.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1644110 (Accessed on January 22, 2016)Google Scholar
Hassner, Ron E. 2011. “Blasphemy and Violence.” International Studies Quarterly 55:23–45.Google Scholar
Heaney, Michael T., and Rojas, Fabio. 2006. “The Place of Framing: Multiple Audiences and Antiwar Protests near Fort Bragg.” Qualitative Sociology 29:485–505.Google Scholar
Iqtidar, Humeira. 2011. Secularizing Islamists? Jama'at-e-Islami and Jamaa'at-ud-Dawa in Urban Pakistan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Imtiaz, Saba. 2012. “Difa-e-Pakistan: Religious Right Delivers Punches at Rally.” The Express Tribune, February 13. http://tribune.com.pk/story/335663/difa-e-pakistan-religious-right-delivers-verbal-punches-at-rally/ (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Irfani, Suroosh. 2004. “Pakistan's Sectarian Violence: Between the ‘Arabist Shift’ and Indo-Persian Culture.” In Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia, ed. Satu P, Limaye. Honolulu, HI: Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies.Google Scholar
Jalal, Ayesha. 2010. Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis N., and Kocher, Matthew A.. 2007. “How ‘Free’ is Free Riding in Civil Wars? Violence, Insurgency, and the Collective Action Problem.” World Politics 59:177–216.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Charles H. 1992. “Repugnancy to Islam – Who Decides? Islam and Legal Reform in Pakistan.” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 41:769–787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieven, Anatol. 2011. Pakistan: A Hard Country. New York, NY: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Lohmann, Susanne. 1994. “The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989–91.” World Politics 47:42–101.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug. 1999. Revisiting the U.S. Civil Rights Movement: Toward a More Synthetic Understanding of the Origins of Contention. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Research on Social Organization Working Paper Series.Google Scholar
Mehdi, Rubya. 1994. The Islamization of the Law in Pakistan. Surrey: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Byron A. 2000. Geography and Social Movements: Comparing Anti-Nuclear Activism in the Boston Area. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Munson, Ziad. 2001. “Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.” The Sociological Quarterly 42:487–510.Google Scholar
Musharraf, Pervez. 2006. In the Line of Fire: A Memoir. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. 1994. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama'at-I Islami of Pakistan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. 2001. Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Parsa, Misagh. 1989. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Petersen, Roger D. 2001. Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2012. “The World's Muslims: Unity and Diversity.” http://www.pewforum.org/files/2012/08/the-worlds-muslims-full-report.pdf (Accessed on January 30, 2016).Google Scholar
Pollack, Mark A. 1997. “Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting in the European Community.” International Organization 51:99–134.Google Scholar
Polletta, Francesca. 1999. “‘Free Spaces’ in Collective Action.” Theory and Society 28:1–38.Google Scholar
Prior, Katherine. 1993. “Making History: The State's Intervention in Urban Religious Disputes in the North-Western Provinces in the Early Nineteenth Century.” Modern Asian Studies 27:179–203.Google Scholar
Report of the Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of 1953. Lahore: Government Printing Press. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_munirreport_1954/ (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Sayeed, Khalid B. 1957. “The Jama'at-i-Islami Movement in Pakistan.” Pacific Affairs 30: 59–68.Google Scholar
Scacco, Alexandra. 2013. “Anatomy of a Riot: Why Ordinary People Participate in Ethnic Violence” [unpublished manuscript]. New York, NY: New York University.Google Scholar
Schelling, Thomas. 1963. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schwedler, Jillian. 2012. “The Political Geography of Protest in Neoliberal Jordan.” Middle East Critique 21:259–270.Google Scholar
Shepsle, Kenneth A., and Weingast, Barry R.. 1987. “The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power.” American Political Science Review 81:85–104.Google Scholar
Staniland, Paul. 2010. “Cities on Fire: Social Mobilization, State Policy, and Urban Insurgency.” Comparative Political Studies 43:1623–1649.Google Scholar
Syed, Baqir S. 2012. “‘Film an attack on 1.5bn Muslims’: FO summons US envoy to convey protest.” http://www.dawn.com/news/751068/film-an-attack-on-1-5bn-muslims-fo-summons-us-envoy-to-convey-protest (Accessed on January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, David. 1983. “The Politics of Islam and Islamization in Pakistan.” In Islam in the Political Process, ed. Piscatori, James P. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tezcur, Gunes M., Azadarmaki, Taghi, and Bahar, Mehri. 2006. “Religious Participation among Muslims: Iranian Exceptionalism.” Middle East Critique 15:217–232.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard H., and Sunstein, Cass R.. 2008. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. New York, NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Verkaaik, Oskar. 2004. Migrants and Militants: Fun and Urban Violence in Pakistan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, Anita M. 1986. “The Historical Debate on Islam and the State in South Asia.” In Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan: The Application of Islamic Laws in a Modern State, ed. Weiss, Anita M. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Wickham, Carrie R. 2002. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wiktorowicz, Quintan. 2004. “Introduction: Islamic Activism and Social Movement Theory.” In Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, ed. Wiktorowicz, Quintan. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Wolford, Wendy. 2003. “Families, Fields, and Fighting for Land: The Spatial Dynamics of Contention in Rural Brazil.” Mobilization 8:157–172.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Butt supplementary material

Appendix

Download Butt supplementary material(File)
File 27.7 KB