While one does not know why Army has been pushing MMA so much, as most say, the latter is certainly playing an astute game. It has been in an unavowed alliance with Musharraf and probably also the Army but it projects itself as an opposition party to gain credibility. What it bodes for future is to be assessed because the Military-Mullah alliance is in working order.

In the record of MMA's achievements what stands out is its astute move of having the Hasba Bill passed through the Provincial Assembly. It poses a dilemma for the Musharraf regime: it is damned if it takes no strong action against the MMA Ministry. In that case, the MMA will go round claiming that it is a victim of non-Islamic forces that are in power. Its leaders call for popular support. The expectation is they will get a lot of votes in the local government elections next month as well as position themselves for a better showing in 2007 general election. The regime would also be damned if it does not take any strong action against MMA government. Musharraf's supporters abroad will blame it and may withhold some of the cooperation or make his acceptability partial for not having taken any firm action. Meantime, the MMA will claim victory and can be expected to go from strength to strength. That too will not please the friends of regime at home and abroad. Who can doubt that the MMA will project itself as a doughty fighter for Islam and many people are likely to believe it.

The Musharraf regime is anyhow skating on thin ice. Look at some of recent developments: (i) the US already views Islamabad's cooperation over Taliban to be partial. True, Pakistan does what America tells it to do without reservations. But, on its own part, it does not move strongly against Taliban. Taliban have regrouped in Pakistan and seem to have a whole network of support. (ii) Indians are threatening to delay the peace process because infiltration of terrorists in the Indian-controlled Kashmir has not stopped completely; they claim the infrastructure of training and despatch of Jihadis are intact. (iii) London bombers have turned out to have been Britons of Pakistani origin some of whom came recently to Pakistan and seem to have got some indoctrination and training here; the British experts seem to think that their wanted mastermind might be either in Pakistan or may have a strong Pakistani connection. (iv) India has just claimed that the six terrorists who stormed Ayodhya's makeshift temple were Pakistanis and were in all likelihood members of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. That also seems to point to a network of Pakistani terror-promoting organisations. (v) Does no outsider know of the relationship between President Pervez Musharraf with those who are in fact Taliban's godfathers? (vi) A Pakistani news magazine has given a low down on terrorist camps and on what is being described as infrastructure of promoting terror.

Drawing of conclusions from these facts is not difficult. It is true Pakistan is teeming with Islamicists who sympathise with the likes of Taliban, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda or others of the kind. There is a definite advance in these ideas' acceptability in recent years as a result of what the US and the UK are doing in the Middle East. There are also genuine Jihadist-producing organisations, most grounded in Deoband School's orthodoxy, enumerated in the particular article from the magazine. Too many now preach Jihad against a sinful west. That is the real problem: implications need to be seen of the fact that Pakistan is one of the leading places where ideas of a vague international Islamic revolution were first floated.

Originally, the authentic Sunni Hanafi orthodoxy, represented by Deoband school, produced an organisation in pre-independence India that believed that its goal was liberation from Imperialism; Islam was compatible with secular Indian nationalism; and the more noted Ulema of Deoband openly stood for the victory of secular Indian nationalism that was expected to be realised in a democratic India. Today the Ulema of the same School in Pakistan have new political ambitions of ruling their country alone. They have floated various front organisations. Most have their own militias. They find no difficulty in sympathising with the beliefs that Taliban had displayed in action in Afghanistan. Indeed actions of Taliban in Afghanistan were fully approved by most religious leaders of Pakistan belonging to Deobandi school as well as Jamaate Islami.

The point is that bulk of opinion in Pakistan seems to favour this particular interpretation of Islam. For the first time in history a large body of Ulema has demanded a uniquely Islamic state that would enforce what the Hasba Bill seeks to achieve. The model is that of the Medieval Caliphate, the leader who by definition would be the top religious leader, autocratic ruler, top economic decision maker. His would also be the ultimate voice over matters of culture.

One makes the point that this interpretation of Islam is new. Before 2oth Century Islam was seen as being complete everywhere including historical India. No one needed any uniquely Islamic kind of statecraft, supposedly implicit in the Quran and Sunnah. All kinds of Kingdoms have existed in the Muslim world and they were good, bad and indifferent. But they were all accepted as being fully compatible with Islam. Ideas of democracy had not been heard of in Muslim countries; even today democracy is a foreign import that many Muslim leaders do not permit.

It is obvious that, as the Hasba Bill displays its true nature, this uniquely Islamic state would establish on a grand scale an autocracy that would take away all the fundamental human rights enunciated in the Pakistan Constitution and the UN Human Rights Charters. They would do as Medieval Caliphs did: pass whimsical orders as their political expediency dictated. That has been happening throughout Islamic history. The Muslim leaders, wherever they were ruling, were ruling as absolutist monarchs and in practice were secular without being democratic. This shows that the idea of re-establishing the Taliban-like Caliphate is retrograde and the people will not accept a Pakistani Mullah Umar.

Fact of the matter is that in the Twentyfirst Century Pakistanis want all the human rights that have been promulgated in the UN Human Rights Charters or in the Constitution of Pakistan today. Aware Pakistanis will go on opposing pseudo religiosity of scheming politicians. The aware citizenry may be a minority today. But they include all manner of social elites and the intellectual community, also known as opinion makers. It is the business of this community to ensure that the dark night of medievalism does not descend on Pakistan.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.