Pakistan is perhaps is the only country in the world that could never see political stability since its establishment in 1947. In the beginning, there was only one prominent party and that was the Muslim league which later scattered with different names. The role of religious political parties, Jamat e Islami in the history of Pakistan cannot be expunged. This party was founded before 1947 in Pathankot India.
In Pakistan, Maulana Maududi who headed this religious political party made his headquarters in Mansoora, Lahore. Jamat e Islami was very popular among the people of Pakistan, especially the religious-minded educated people who inclined to Deoband school of thought.
Later, there was an addition of two important religious political parties in the scenario of Pakistan by the name of Jamiat Ulma e Islam under the leadership of Maulana Mufti Mehmood and Jamiat Ulma e Pakistan under the leadership of Maulana Shah Ahmed Naurani.
The election of 1971 was the incident when all these religious political parties took part in full power and secured a lot of seats in the national assembly with a good number. The election of 1971, were not accepted by these religious political parties as their leaders put allegation of rigging on PPP.
These religious political parties have deep roots in the masses. The religious parties along with some other political parties, including Tehreek e Istiklal of air marshal retired Asghar Khan started a very strong agitation against the PPP government and as a result, the PPP government threw away and martial law of general Zia UL Haq started.
Then, a surprising and painful thing happened only on political religious party Jamat e Islami became the part of martial law government but Jamiat Ulma e Pakistan and Jamiat Ulma e Islam continued their agitation against martial law government. As a result, the unity of the Islamic minded voters damaged. Later, due to different steps, taken by the martial law government and due to the mistakes of these religious political parties, sectarianism dominated over them and their vote bank minimized.
Later, another Islamic political party appeared on the scene with the name of Pakistani Awami Tehreek, headed by the renowned scholar doctor Muhammad Tahir Qadri. The entry of this party was like a revolutionary party.
The charisma and Dr. Tahir Qadri’s speech style became a great benefit which made it popular, especially among the people who come by the Brelavi school of thought. This party arranged a big gathering for many days in the blue area the heart of Islamabad against the PP government but all proved to be fruitless. Later, in the era of PML(N), Pakistan Awami Tehreek joined hands with PTI and arranged a “Dharna” which also ended with no results.
Today, unfortunately, the popularity of all above mentioned political parties has been lost for different painful reasons and in the national scenes, only three parties, PPP, PML(N) and PTI at the national level seem to be active. No political-religious party is in the present political scenario with majority.
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