Word: islamics
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...will be the same," she says. Karachi has just brought in a rabidly conservative mayor from the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest and most powerful religious party. The white-bearded, temperamental Naimatullah Khan, who was indirectly elected in August, said his first priority would be to impose Islamic Shari'a law on Pakistan's biggest city (pop. 14 million), although observers tend to regard that as unlikely to happen. Even without Mayor Khan at the helm, things have been uncomfortable for Attiya. Her work has attracted hate mail over the years; some accuse her of being a prostitute...
...These days, she is mostly worried about the future her girls will find in an increasingly religious milieu. "The first thing Islam does is remove women," she says. "Islam and the modern world cannot coexist." She was horrified when her daughters' prestigious private school ordered little Suhaee to cover her head with a white veil every Friday, and when 11-year-old Soonha?whose preferred attire is a T shirt and jeans?was punished for refusing to wear a maroon sash across her chest. "When my daughter wore a dupatta (veil), I saw tears in her eyes," says Attiya...
...permission to grow a beard and join the Tableeghi Jamaat. Nadeem had already done so. Motivated by their example, Aslam entered the movement, which emphasizes the importance of preaching and bringing others into the Muslim fold. "It is in my blood," he declares. He says his increased commitment to Islam makes him feel more at peace, more comfortable with the world: "Money and materialistic things can't give people a feeling of peace." And so father and sons take holidays from work and travel the length and breadth of the country, preaching God's word wherever the movement assigns them...
...Nadeem has rejected Islam's more military strains. As an 18-year-old university student, he was recruited for training as a mujahedin fighter in Afghanistan. He lasted two days, then returned home. He won't discuss the experience, other than to say: "Their intentions weren't good." In the past 10 years, six of his college friends trained to fight the jihad in Kashmir; all of them died. "They absolutely wasted their lives," he says. "It's all politics. These groups aren't interested in the system of God." He makes no secret of his contempt for hard-line...
...years, Attiya is struck by the number of jihad slogans scrawled on the roadside walls. They weren't there before, but Kashmiri militant groups now recruit fighters from all over Pakistan, even in the remotest areas. Sind province is known for its mellowness; Sufism, the most tolerant brand of Islam, flourishes in the numerous shrines. So it is jarring to see the invasion of graffiti along Sind's national highway, which cuts through vast fields of cotton, wheat and sugarcane, exhorting Muslims to kill Hindus and Westerners. VICTORY OR MARTYRDOM reads a sign by Lashkar-i-Tayyaba...