SHIISM IN PAKISTAN This research traces the pol

This research traces the political and social history of the Shiite Muslims in Pakistan. For many centuries, the Shiites, as a minority Muslim sect, have maintained a distinct cultural and religious identity in the parts of India which are now in Pakistan, despite opposition from the dominant Sunni elite and schisms within their ranks. With some notable exceptions, the Shiites have been a negligible political influence. In modern Pakistan, serious communal strife has erupted between extreme Sunni and Shiite elements, which reflect political instability and centrifugal forces which have polarized Pakistani politics.

Origins of the Sunni-Shiite Schism in Islam

According to Blood (124), Muslims account for 97 percent of Pakistan's population of 140 million people, of which 77 percent are Sunnis and 20 percent Shiites or Shia, literally "partisans of Ali" (124). The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (570-632 AD), died without a male heir and failed to designate his successor after his death. Hourani says the followers of Ali ibn Abu Talib (Ali), Muhammad's cousin and son in law, "believed that [Ali] had been the sole legitimate and appointed successor of the Prophet or imam" (61). Ali refused to acknowledge the dominance of the Quaraysh tribe, served briefly as Caliph (656-661) and then was assassinated.

Thus began the long schism and fratricidal conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims which continues to the present day. The Shiites rejected the authority

e number of people" in Kashmir (47). The Shiites, while relatively small in numbers, exercised considerable influence at the courts of the Moghul Emperors during the 16th and early 17th centuries. According to Abbott, Sultan Babur, who ruled India from 1526 to 1530, and Humayun in the mid-16th century "outwardly adopted Shi'ism to gain Persian military support [which] . . . resulted in a steady stream of Shi'as from Persia to India and into court circles" (57). Sultan Akbar (r. 1556-1605) adopted a policy of religious tolerance toward Hindus and non-Sunni minorities (54). Lapidus says that "in the sixteenth century the influence of Shi'ism was also very strong. Golconda and Kashmir were ruled by Shi'i princes. The Mughals had Shi'i wives and many Shi'a held high offices" (460). After Akbar's death, a period of religious repression of Hindus and persecution of other non-Sunni Muslims set in and continued through the 18th century. According to Ruthven, the Nayshbandi (Sunni) sufis gave Indian Muslims a "rigid and conservative" stamp (281). Abbott says that, because of these developments, the Shiites were "rendered a group apart" from the mainstream of Indian Muslim thought (60). After the British took over in the early 19th cent

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