Abstract
Since the 1970s, the military-madrasa-mullah complex in Pakistan has nurtured a relationship that has transformed Islam into a fundamentalist creed which has spawned a militant brand of Islam to fight its existential enemies. In the absence of competing ideologies and by confusing religiosity with religion, the Islamist radicals are emotionally tempted towards the ideological appeals of extremism. The political use of religion (Islam) in terms of jihad to fight the Soviets was a primary factor in militarising the Pakistani society. The jihadis, in an effort to take Islam back to its pristine glory, have transformed the rhetoric of jihad into actual violence through promotion of Islamic terror. With least commitment to the existing social order, these Islamists with their politics of extremism have defamed Islam in general and Pakistan in particular.
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