The Council of Islamic Ideology’s Islamizing Perspectives by Dr. Muhammad Akbar Khan, Assistant Professor IIU, Islamabad

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has turned to become one of the leading organizations which had invited a lot of criticism from almost all quarters of life especially in the print media in the last few years due to its bizarre treatment of Islam – odd suggestions, strange comments, and hard to rationalize verdicts. The council has started issuing verdicts after verdicts more than ever before usually in matters having either very little scope or no scope at all in the perspective of Islamizing the legal system of Pakistan.

The issue such as beating of wife lighter or harsher, these days, is being discussed often humorously in almost every office, street, home, and social gatherings. But, in the male dominated society like ours, where women are not given the required social space and status, beating of wives would continue whether the council issues a fatwa against it or not unless the masses are equipped with education.

The issues like allowing second marriage without the permission of the first wife and endorsement of underage marriages has dragged a lot of criticism from various segments of society for the CII. Similarly, the council has also suggested the adoption of the gold and silver as medium of currency and so on and so forth. Instead of spreading further confusion about Islam in a state where the masses are already less educated and more under the pressure of poverty, load-shedding, and inflation.  Why the CII is not playing its role in promoting the message of love and peace among the people which is the real spirit of Islam?  

There are also other issues of great public importance that need to be addressed by the Council - the issue such as bringing reforms in legal education. Any reform whatsoever brought through these efforts will have a large impact on the administration of justice for future.

But unfortunately no single word is ever uttered by any office bearer of the council about this matter of importance. This movement for the reforms in the legal education of Pakistan could have been taken as an opportunity to bring uniformity and coherence in the syllabus of the law schools in the country.

Previously such items have always been part of the agendas of the meetings in the council and finally a scheme of the study was also proposed by the council for LLB degree in 1998. The then committee on legal education recommended that the basic courses on Islamic law and jurisprudence should be made compulsory in the national curriculum for the law schools.

The current stakeholders in the council should pay attention to these issues and try to bring harmony in the legal education of the country and make it useful for the justice system. Pakistan has inherited its legal system from Britain hence it is a common law country however the importance and significance of Islamic law cannot be denied as it is one of the basic sources of the country’s legal system today. 

The council should get a grip and focus on the larger picture of the society and try to achieve the goal of Islamizing the judicial system of the country. In this context adding courses of Islamic law and jurisprudence in the curriculum of all law school will be a great achievement in these challenging times.

The council may pay attention to this and matters like that from now onward. However, practically it can become feasible only when the high-ups in such institutions are people of high caliber, unbiased and without any political background i.e. specialists in the field.  Thus, it is suggested that the legal education is the foundation of the whole judicial activities which needs proper attention from all quarters of the country especially from the CII.