Examples of the revival of the Islamic state

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There are several countries engaged in attempting to bring Islam, the religion followed by the majority of their populations, into governance. Last week, I discussed in this space why Pakistan, created as a Muslim state by its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was not meant to be a religious state. 

It was created as a nation state in which British India's large Muslim population could comfortably practise their ways and culture. Jinnah made it clear that Western style representative democracy would be the basis of governance.

There were several departures from this model when the military intervened and ruled over the state under four different governments – from 1958 to 2008. General Ayub Khan took over the reins of the government and became the first military leader.

In 2008, General Pervez Musharraf, the fourth military ruler who staged a coup in 1999 and threw out the elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, agreed to bring back civil rule and held elections in the country. What followed Musharraf's departure in 2008 was the arrival of competitive democracy, with political parties working to gain power. The military governed Pakistan for 32 years of the country's existence as an independent state for 78 years.

At this time in the Muslim world, there are several states with majority Muslim populations that are figuring out how to bring Islam into governance. Today I will examine two cases, close to the two ends of the Muslim world – Turkey in the west and Bangladesh in the east.

First, the Bangladesh case.

Bangladesh was carved out of the parent state of Pakistan in 1971. Ethnicity was the reason why it chose separation rather than continuing to remain as parent Pakistan's "eastern wing". Bengalis, who went on to become Bangladeshis, were not opting out to become an Islamic state. The attempt to do that came half a century later. Mujib Mashal and Saif Hasnat wrote a story published by The New York Times on April 2 under the title, "As Bangladesh reinvents itself, Islamist extremists make a push".

They wrote: "As Bangladesh tries to rebuild its democracy and chart a new a new future for its 175 million people, the streak of Islamic extremism that has long lurked beneath the country's secular façade is bubbling to the surface. As the country was writing a new constitution, the Islamists made it clear that they were working to push Bangladesh in a more fundamentalist direction." That was not the aim of the student-led movement that forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina out of her office and out of the country. She continues to live in India.

Officials who were working on drafting the new constitution acknowledged that it was likely to drop secularism as a defining characteristic of Bangladesh, replacing it with pluralism and redrawing the country along more religious lines. Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest and most organised Islamic party, sees a big opportunity. The party that has significant business interests is playing a long-term game. It is unlikely to win an election expected before the end of the year 2025. Mia Golam Parwar, Jamaat-e-Islami's general secretary, said the party wanted an Islamic welfare state. According to him, the closest model, in its mix of religion and politics, is Turkey.

Turning now to the Turkish case.

Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, had moved the country towards the West. He was called "Ataturk" – Turkish for the "father of the nation" – to recognise the role he had played in beating back the efforts by Southeast European nations to take over Turkey. Greece, an old time Turkish rival, was one of the prominent aggressors. Once in power as the head of the state, Ataturk introduced policies and programme to modernise Turkey.

He did this to the extent that the writing of the Turkish language was changed from using the Arabic-based script to the one that followed Roman writing. This deprived the country's people of a good deal of their literature.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country's current president, is engaged in an attempt to take his country towards its traditional ways. In doing this, he has become an authoritarian ruler. The Western press was highly critical of some of his moves. I will take an editorial in The Washington Post published on March 25, 2025 as an example of how the West views the current situation in Turkey.

"In his more than two decades leading Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been accused of displaying illiberal tendencies, centralizing power and backsliding on democracy," wrote the newspaper. "Last week, he again turned towards outright authoritarianism. In a move that was stunning even for a president known to bristle at dissent. Erdogan had his chief political rival, Ekram Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, arrested and thrown into jail on what appeared to be trumped-up charges."

In spite of the heavy military and police presence in the streets of the country, people came out to protest the arrest of Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul which earlier had launched the political career of Erdogan. The current Turkish president had built his political career promising the political modernisation of the country he wished to lead. That did not happen. Imamoglu wrote a powerful article from his prison cell which was published by The Washington Post on March 31, 2025.

The article appeared under the title "Turkey has become a Republic of Fear". The mayor explained events in Turkey as having worldwide significant. "What is happening in Turkey and many parts of the world shows that democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental freedoms cannot survive in silence, nor be sacrificed for diplomatic convenience disguised as 'realpolitik'," he wrote

There was a war of words between Erdogan and the followers of the arrested mayor of Istanbul. "A great country like Turkey has a very small, very underdeveloped, very inadequate main opposition party," said the president. "It has become clear that you cannot trust them to run even a snack shop, let alone the state or the municipalities."

While the country's constitution bars him from running again unless Parliament calls for early elections before the expiry of his current term which will be 2028. It is widely expected that he is likely to go that route, one reason why he put his most likely opposition candidate in jail. However, it is unlikely that the forces of opposition that have grown in strength during the long tenure of President Erdogan would give up the effort to terminate his political career.