“The founder of the Taleban movement in Afghanistan, Mullah Mohammad Omar, says his forces are close to controlling the whole country, bringing his plan for enforcing Sharia law throughout Afghanistan closer to reality.” BBC News
“Pakistan has signed a peace deal with a Taleban group that will lead to the enforcement of the Islamic Sharia law in the restive Swat valley.” BBC News
Can you guess the dates tied to these two BBC article quotations? The first quote is from August 13, 1998, nearly a year after the ultra-conservative Sunni Pashtun group known as the Taliban began instating their fiercely oppressive Deobandi (with a hint of Saudi Wahhabism for flavor) brand of Sharia law. The second quote is from this week! On February 16th, 2009 The Pakistani government caved to Taliban demands for implementation of an entirely separate legal system for the Swat Valley, one bound to the tenets of Sharia law.
Major General Tarik Khan, commander of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, recently swore that, “If they (the insurgents) do not lay down their arms, we will kill them. There is no other way to bring this to a close.” It seems this fiery sentiment has dried up.
Of course nothing ever happens in a bubble, and there is a long-running conflict in the Swat Valley that helps explain some of this tension over secular Pakistani law and its Sharia counterpart. It’s time for a little history lesson. The area known as Malakand, which comprises Chitral, Swat and Dir, is a province of Pakistan in the northwestern part of the country. Originally a series of principalities, these small states were willingly annexed by Pakistan in 1969. Supposedly the locals of the region have wished for freedom from the complicated and corrupt British-born legal system of Pakistan since then. Before 1969 the people of Swat ruled themselves with a version of Sharia law descended from ancient tribal beliefs. This recent reinstitution of Sharia law, the will of the people according to Ameer Hussain Hoti, Chief Minister of the North Western Frontier Province, came on the heels of a long and bitter battle between Pakistani troops and local militias using the name Taliban (they do have members of that dethroned government in their midst). The return to Sharia law in Malakland was the final sticking point in a cease fire deal.
