Introduction

The relationship between religion and the state constitutes one of the most enduring and analytically productive problems in the comparative study of political development andfew cases illustrate its complexity as vividly as Pakistan. Since its emergence in 1947, Pakistan has occupied a singular position in the modern history of the Muslim world: it was the first andremains the only, twentieth-century state to have been founded explicitly and self-consciously upon an Islamic identity, rather than having Islam introduced retrospectively into an already-existing secular or colonial-successor polity. This foundational fact has meant that questions which, in most other postcolonial states, could be deferred, managed incrementally, or resolved through ordinary legislative bargaining have instead confronted Pakistan as constitutive dilemmas of statehood itself. What is the relationship between divine law and positive legislation? Who possesses the authority to interpret Sharia for purposes of governance? Can a modern bureaucratic state, organized around Westphalian sovereignty and parliamentary procedure, simultaneously claim to derive its legitimacy from revelation? These questions have never been settled in Pakistan; rather, they have been renegotiated, reformulated andperiodically reopened across seven decades of constitutional politics, military intervention andsocial mobilization. Understanding this unresolved relationship is essential not only for comprehending Pakistan's own political trajectory but also for engaging more broadly with theoretical debates about religion, modernity andthe state in the Muslim world. For much of the twentieth century, mainstream political science operated under the assumption, inherited from classical modernization and secularization theory, that religion would gradually recede from the public sphere as states modernized, bureaucratized andintegrated into a global system of nominally secular sovereignty. Pakistan's trajectory complicates this assumption in instructive ways. Rather than witnessing a linear retreat of religion from public life, Pakistan has experienced a cumulative deepening of religion's constitutional and legal presence, punctuated by moments of acceleration under both civilian and military governments. This pattern invites a reconsideration of secularization theory's applicability to Muslim-majority polities and, more specifically, calls for closer attention to the intellectual and institutional mechanisms through which religious doctrine is translated into the machinery of the modern state.It is at this intersection of doctrine and institution that the present study locates its central concern. Although the founding leadership of the Pakistan Movement held markedly divergent views on the appropriate boundary between religion and statecraft, the historical record demonstrates that Islam did not remain a static or merely symbolic reference point. On the contrary, it gradually consolidated its position as a primary source of state legitimacy, driving successive waves of Islamization across the legal, political andsocial domains. This process was neither monolithic nor uncontested. Competing ideological currents, most notably the Barelvi, Deobandi andJamaat-e-Islami traditions, each articulated distinct visions of what an "Islamic" state should look like, drawing on different jurisprudential lineages, different relationships to Sufi practice and popular religiosity anddifferent assessments of the legitimacy of the postcolonial state apparatus itself. Their interactions, alliances andrivalries have left an indelible mark on Pakistan's political development, producing a religio-political landscape considerably more heterogeneous than accounts centered on a single "Islamist" current would suggest.Among these currents, the intellectual legacy of Abul A'la Maududi occupies a place of particular significance, both for its internal theoretical coherence and for its unusually direct institutional afterlife. Maududi's doctrine of divine sovereignty, hakimiyyat-i ilahi, offered one of the twentieth century's most systematic attempts to reconcile the vocabulary of modern statehood, sovereignty, constitution, legislation, citizenship, with an uncompromising claim that ultimate legislative authority belongs to God alone. In Maududi's formulation, human beings andby extension the modern state, are not sovereign legislators but vicegerents (khulafa) entrusted with implementing a law whose source lies outside the political community itself. This was not merely a theological proposition; it was, from its inception, conceived as a blueprint for institutional design, one that Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami he founded pursued with considerable persistence through constitutional advocacy, judicial activism andalliance politics, even as the party's own electoral fortunes remained modest. It is this gap between limited electoral success and outsized ideational influence that makes Maududi's case theoretically productive: it suggests that the diffusion of political Islam into state structures need not proceed primarily through the ballot box andthat scholars of religion and politics should attend as closely to intellectual and institutional channels of influence as to electoral ones. This study therefore examines the historical evolution of religion–state relations in Pakistan, with particular emphasis on Maududi's intellectual contribution and its institutional ramifications for the Pakistani state. It proceeds from the premise that the Pakistani case cannot be adequately understood through a binary opposition between "secular" and "Islamic" governance, nor through frameworks that treat political Islam as an aberration from, rather than a variant of, modern statehood. Instead, the study situates Maududi's thought within the broader theoretical literature on political Islam and religion–state relations, treating divine sovereignty not as an anti-modern relic but as a distinctive and internally coherent normative project for organizing modern political authority. This framing follows a growing body of scholarship that has moved away from earlier tendencies to treat Islamist political theory primarily as an object of security analysis or as a symptom of social dislocation andtoward treating it as a legitimate subject of comparative political theory in its own right.

Study Area and Methodology

The geographical focus of this study is Pakistan and the research adopts a historical and documentary approach, drawing upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Data have been collected through the examination of library resources, official government documents, the Constitution of Pakistan, judicial decisions related to the implementation and interpretation of Islamic law, the writings of Abul A‘la Maududi, state records and relevant scholarly literature.The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in major approaches to religion–state relations and theories of political Islam. Within this framework, Maududi’s concept of divine sovereignty serves as the principal intellectual independent variable, while the institutional and legal transformations of the Pakistani state constitute the arena in which these ideas have been manifested and operationalized. To examine this relationship, the study employs process tracing as its primary methodological tool. This approach facilitates the identification of the mechanisms through which theoretical ideas are translated into legal and political institutions across different historical periods. Moreover, it enables the investigation of causal linkages among the production of political thought, the mobilization of social forces and institutional change.In addition, thematic analysis has been utilized to examine the content of relevant texts. Particular attention has been devoted to Maududi’s major works, especially The Islamic Law and Constitution, Political Theory of Islam andKhilafat and Monarchy, alongside the Constitution of Pakistan, the Objectives Resolution of 1949, constitutional amendments and official documents relating to Islamization policies. Key themesincluding divine sovereignty, the vicegerency of humankind (Khilafat al-Insan), the Islamic state, Sharia, political legitimacy and the Islamization of the legal orderhave been identified and systematically analyzed in relation to their reflection within Pakistan’s political and constitutional structures.The unit of analysis in this research is the Pakistani state as a politico-legal institution, whereas the units of observation consist of historical documents, legal texts, theoretical writings and political developments associated with the process of Islamization. The temporal scope of the study extends from the emergence of the idea of Pakistan during the 1930s to contemporary political developments, thereby allowing for an examination of both continuity and transformation in religion–state relations over an extended historical period.To enhance the validity and reliability of the findings, the study employs a strategy of data triangulation. Accordingly, evidence derived from primary sourcesincluding legal texts, Maududi’s writings and official state documentshas been systematically compared and cross-validated with findings from secondary sources such as scholarly books, peer-reviewed journal articles and academic research studies. This procedure contributes to the robustness of the analysis and strengthens the credibility of the study’s conclusions.

Results and Discussion

A historical-institutional reading of Pakistan’s political development suggests that religion–state relations cannot be reduced either to elite preferences or to pressure from religious actors. Rather, they have been shaped by the interaction of three enduring forces: the Islamic identity of the state, the imperatives of modern statehood and the discourse of political Islam. The coexistence of these competing logics has produced a hybrid political order in which neither secular statehood nor Islamic governance has achieved complete predominance.The findings indicate that Abul A‘la Maududi’s influence was exercised primarily through ideational and institutional diffusion rather than direct political control. Core concepts of his political thoughtincluding divine sovereignty, the subordination of legislation to Sharia and the conception of Islam as a comprehensive socio-political ordergradually migrated from intellectual debate into Pakistan’s constitutional and legal framework. This process unfolded incrementally between the 1940s and the 1980s, with the Objectives Resolution of 1949 serving as a critical moment in the constitutionalization of Islamic legitimacy.The study further demonstrates that Islamization was driven less by societal consensus than by strategic alliances between state authorities and religious actors. This dynamic became particularly pronounced under General Zia-ul-Haq, when Islamic symbolism and institutions were mobilized to reinforce political legitimacy. In this respect, the military coup of 1977 constituted a critical juncture that fundamentally reshaped the trajectory of religion–state relations in Pakistan.Islamization also extended beyond constitutional reform and legal restructuring. Through institutions such as the Federal Shariat Court, the Council of Islamic Ideology, the Zakat and Ushr system and the expansion of religious seminaries, the state sought to embed Islamic principles within the machinery of governance. Yet the outcomes of this project remained uneven. While several Islamic institutions became enduring components of Pakistan’s legal order, broader ambitions concerning social and economic transformation were only partially realized.Perhaps the most significant finding concerns the relationship between political Islam and modern statehood. Contrary to assumptions that regard the two as inherently incompatible, Pakistan illustrates a pattern of institutional accommodation. Its political system combines democratic procedures, modern legal structures, constitutional norms and religious sources of legitimacy, producing a form of governance that is neither conventionally secular nor fully theocratic. The Pakistani case therefore challenges linear assumptions about secularization as the inevitable pathway of state formation in Muslim societies.At the same time, the incorporation of religion into state structures has generated contradictory consequences. Islam has functioned as a powerful source of national cohesion across a socially diverse society, yet state involvement in defining religious identity has also intensified sectarian contestation. The Ahmadiyya issue and recurring sectarian disputes demonstrate how religious differences acquire political and legal significance once incorporated into the framework of state legitimacy.Finally, the study argues that Maududi’s historical significance should not be measured by the electoral performance of Jamaat-e-Islami. His intellectual influence has consistently exceeded the political reach of the movement itself. Maududi’s enduring legacy lies in his ability to articulate a conceptual framework through which the relationship between Islam and the modern state could be reimagined. Even when Jamaat-e-Islami occupied only a marginal position within formal politics, many of his ideas continued to shape the discourse of state institutions and political elites