The government has taken a dim view of the threat made against the Chief Justice of Pakistan, in which a leader of the Tehrik Labbaik Pakistan, going so far as to offer a reward for his killing. The threat was issued over the bail given by a Supreme Court bench he headed to a non-Muslim accused of blasphemy. The CJP, who had drawn down the ire of many ulema for daring to quote Quran in his judgement, is a bit like Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who was assassinated not for committing blasphemy, but for suggesting changes to the blasphemy laws, in that he is not so much assured of supporting a blasphemer, as casting doubt on the finality of the Holy Prophet. The TLP was founded by the late Maulana Khadim Hussain Rizvi after a movement over the new nomination form for legislators. It is to be noted that both Maulana Rizvi and Sarwar Qadri, the police guard who assassinated Governor Taseer, belonged to the Barelvi school of thought, which had not previously been in the forefront of the anti-blasphemy movement. That had been considered something of the preserve of the Deobandi school from the time of Mufti Mahmood, the Deonandi scholar who spearheaded the movement, ultimately successful, to declare Qadianis non-Muslim.
It is worth noting that the Chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, Maulana Raghib Hussain Naeemi, himself of the Barelvi school, stated the orthodox position that only the government could declare anyone liable to be killed, or waajibul qatl. There are two questions that the statement raises. First, that assumes the state itself rules according to the Sharia. Second, the rule of law, stressed a strongly by Islam, only applies if the judicial arm is considered part of the state authority.
One of the purposes of the creation of Pakistan had been to avoid theory very weaponization of religion that is now being fought off. The problem the government faces is shown by the figure of the CJP himself. He presides over a system of law inherited from the Raj. There have been some grafts of the Sharia on it, but the legal system remains basically that given by the British. Reconciling this with the wishes of the people, which is to live their life according to the principles of Islam, is not easy, but it is not impossible.
