Religious Beliefs and Spirituality in Pakistan

Religion is the simple reward and punishment system used by the founders of many different spiritual leaders to gain support and perhaps extract some form of benefit from their constituents. The Pakistani state is a Muslim dominated country with somewhere around 97% of its population being Muslims. The remaining 3% is shared by other religious denominations like the Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus and host of other religious minorities. Islam was first introduced when an army led by Muhammad bin Qasim attacked and conquered the north-western part of the Indus Valley back in the time of the Umayyad dynasty.

Given the large Muslim population, it can be construed that Islam is and will be the state religion. This would be a probable example of the non-existence of the separation of church and state since it would be a given that Muslims would also dominate the government, and thus promulgate policies favourable to Muslims and perhaps marginalize all other religious denominations. The Pakistani Constitution, which establishes Islam as the state religion, further enforces this, it would then follow that all other religious denominations have limited political rights. This can be observed in the fact that only Muslims may be able to hold the higher echelons of power, like the president or a judge in the Federal Shariat Court. On the other hand, the existence of a state religion does not presuppose that all Muslims are united and of one faith, for even within them there exist divisions and differences especially concerning doctrinal interpretation.