Study of Religious Extremism in Pakistan: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Religious Speech Acts (Fatawa)

Abstract

Pakistan has been the victim of violent extremism, often attributed to religious factors. Religious extremism poses a serious challenge to the state. There are various connotations coined to debate the religious extremism like Islamization, Jihad, Sectarianism, Talibanization, and religious militancy in the country. Religious extremism is an extensively researched area by experts. However, the corpus of scholarship lacks to critically study the manifestation of narratives in religious discourse in the shape of speech acts instrumental to actualizing religious extremism occasionally. This research attempts to explain the mechanism of the narrative building through religious speech acts (fatawa). Fatawa, plural of the word fatwa, is a legal opinion and religious decree in Islamic Legal Jurisprudence issued by a religious leader in response to a query. It explains how speech acts (fatawa) construct social realities and can function as a major mechanism to actualize religious extremism. This research developed a theoretical-analytical framework guided by speech act theory and applied it with the help of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to study the selected cases of fatawa (Deobandi Fatawa, Paigham-e-Pakistan also known as National Fatwa and Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s Fatawa) in Pakistan. This research proposes a three-step ‘Discursive-pragmatic model’ to analyze selected fatawa in three steps, namely (1) Actor Description Analysis, (2) Action Attribution Analysis, and (3) Socio-Cognitive Imprint Analysis. The research finds that fatawa are used (abused) through the application of discursively formulated narratives by different stakeholders for the construction of social realities like identity formation (In-group and Out-group), Us (positive) and Them (negative), conditioning actions as securitization moves (extending to de-humanization); and imparting socio-cognitive imprints on the audience. This research explains how the application of words is instrumental in sacralizing social realities through religious speech acts (fatawa). This research concludes institution of fatawa needs to be mainstreamed and regularized to avoid its misuse in the hands of extremists.