… While waiting for my turn, I heard the people around me talking about threats to Islam and how bad the Pakistani rulers were. Most people in the waiting area of the hospital had common opinions. They saw the world in black and white.

For the last 10 years, I visit Pakistan every few months. During each visit, I see that more and more of my friends and relatives have grown beards in a race to become ‘good Muslims’. Children are named after Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The number of mosques and visits to mosques has increased tremendously in the past two decades. Young people are joining preaching tours of the Tabligi Jamat. There is a fear that Islam is in danger. Most ordinary people believe in a past that is glorified in school textbooks as well as in the media. People dream of an ideal Islamic society where all their problems will be resolved. Nevertheless, everyone appears to have his or her own interpretation of such Islamic society.

Religious zeal has been rising in Pakistan since the 1980s when the country was under a US-backed military dictatorship …

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