On April 16, 2025, journalist Taha Siddiqui posted a video of Asim Munir, Pakistan’s 11th Chief of Army Staff, speaking to a gathering of Pakistanis based abroad. With his chest puffed out, a proud smirk on his face and his head held high, arguably one of the most powerful men in Pakistan gloated about the core aspiration that every Pakistani Muslim should have – essentially, to believe that Pakistan is the ISIS which came before ISIS.
Speaking to the Pakistani diaspora, General Munir said they were the country’s ambassadors and must not forget that they belong to a “superior ideology and culture”. “You should definitely tell Pakistan’s story to your children. Our forefathers thought that we were different from the Hindus in every aspect of life. Our religions, our customs, traditions, thoughts and ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid.”
He further said, “We are not one nation. That is why our forefathers struggled to create this country. Our forefathers and we have sacrificed a lot for the creation of this country. We know how to defend it. My dear brothers, sisters, daughters and sons, please don’t forget this story of Pakistan. Don’t forget to narrate this story to your next generation so that their bond with Pakistan never weakens.”
Pertinently, he said that to date, there have been only two ‘states’ which were established on the basis of the Kalma. The first, he said, was Riyasat-e-Tayyaba and the second, he said, was also established by Allah after 1300 years – Pakistan.
To understand the significance of what Munir said and how, it essentially means that the eternal Pakistani aspiration is to be the ‘real’ ISIS, we need to understand what Riyasat-e-Tayyaba was. Riyasat-e-Tayyaba was basically the establishment of the concept of Ummah after it is claimed that Mohammad constituted the Charter of Medina. The charter basically formed the first Islamic nation – a collection of Muslim tribes which followed Mohammad.
The most significant part of the charter is the first two points, as translated by Michael Lecker in 2004.
- This is a prescript of Muhammad, the Prophet and Messenger of God (to operate) between the faithful and the followers of Islam (“Muslims”) from among the Quraish and the people of Madina and those who may be under them, may join them and take part in wars in their company.
- They shall constitute a separate political unit (Ummat) as distinguished from all the people (of the world.
While it is claimed that the charter also included Jews and established peaceful relations with their tribes, it is also theorised that the charter gave Mohammad the justification to later attack the jews, citing their opposition to his supremacy.
Be that as it may, what becomes clear is that Asim Munir was talking about Pakistan being only the second state, in the history of Islam, to have been established on the basis of puritan Islamic principles, just like Medina in 622 CE. From a cursory reading of the Ummah Document, it becomes evident that the principles which Pakistan wants to base its existence on are the following:
- All Muslims are one nation, governed by Sharia and ruled by a Caliph, and this would automatically exclude non-Muslims
- The strict adherence to and the spread of Islam
- A theological state to which all Muslims must bear allegiance, according to Islamic jurisprudence, since it has been established as Riyasat-e-Tayyaba
- As an extension, Pakistan would therefore have divine sanction to lead the Muslim world into war and/or peace for the ultimate protection and expansion of Islam.
Based on these principles, which Munir says (rightly so) that Pakistan was established on the basis of, it would not be far-fetched to conclude that Pakistan is ISIS 1.0 – that one true ISIS which came before ISIS.
ISIS espouses similar principles, harbours similar delusions and follows the exact same doctrine that Munir says Pakistan has followed and should continue to follow. ISIS claimed that it had the divine sanction to create a theological state based on Islamic jurisprudence, ruled by Sharia, which all Muslims should declare allegiance to. It further claimed that its explicit goal was the spread of Islam to the entire world, the supremacy of the Ummah and becoming the ideal state based on puritan Islamic values, just like the one ordained by Mohammad. It claimed that its Caliph was the descendant of Mohammad and therefore had the divine right to rule and lead the Muslims of the world.
The two-nation theory, embedded in Islam, is the foundation of Pakistan, and Munir was certainly not off the mark when he claimed that Muslims like himself (and an overwhelming majority) believe that Hindus and Muslims cannot coexist, given that Muslims are a nation unto themselves, given their unique theological moorings. That Pakistan was created basis of this foundational belief is not in dispute at all. At the same time, that ISIS (the cheap version of Pakistan) was also formed on the basis of this very ideology is also not in dispute. The fact that Pakistan, based on the very foundational principles of ISIS, came decades before what we know as the Islamic State of Iraq and Ash-Sham, beyond reasonable doubt, establishes Pakistan as the real ISIS – brute, based on puritan Islamic theology, proud of their barbaric ways, predisposed to persecuting non-believers, harbouring wet dreams of world domination and fancying themselves as the chosen ones who would convert Dar-ul-Harb into Dar-ul-Islam.
In fact, this is not an original idea at all. This is something late Tarek Fatah said often – “Pakistan is the original ‘Islamic State,’ much before ISIS”
With Pakistan being the original ISIS (and proud of it), one is forced to ask if it deserves to be a part of the free world. Post the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, the civilised world broadly came to a consensus that modern nation states would not be purely driven by religious expansionism and theology; rather, the Westphalian system of national sovereignty, where legitimate states were assumed to correspond to nations, defined as groups of people united by culture, geography, history and more.
These driving principles, broadly agreed upon by the free world, enabled modern nation states to interact with each other in an increasingly globalised world without harbouring (most of the time) dreams of theological and geographical expansionism, approaching global relationships with mutual respect for each nation’s independence and integrity.
Pakistan, however, has been a glowing exception to the civilised world agreeing on these basic principles. Asim Munir, in his speech, not only spoke of being the chosen people of Allah and proved how it was, indeed, the original ISIS, but he also substantiated Pakistan being an exception to the free world. In his speech, Munir spoke about Kashmir being the jugular vein of Pakistan, right after he spoke of how Pakistan (Muslims, basically) belong to “superior ideology and culture”. He also spoke of how Balochistan is Pakistan’s pride and that the “terrorists” who were trying to gain independence would be defeated”, Inshallah”.
Pakistan’s unhealthy obsession with Kashmir and its illegal occupation of parts of the state is steeped in religious expansionism and conquest, believing that since the state has a substantial Muslim population, Pakistan, the supposed Riyasat-e-Tayyaba, has a divine right to conquer it owing to their “superior culture and ideology” – the Ummah.
That Islam forms the foundation of Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir is evidenced by how ISIS 1.0 has consistently used the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in an attempt to strongarm India on the matter of Kashmir, and it has done so by invoking shared Islamic roots and theological brotherhood while doing so. In fact, the events of the October 1947 invasion itself evidence the strong Islamic foundation of Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir.
The first clashes were reported on the 3rd and 4th of October 1947. On the 22nd of October, after Pakistani Pashtun tribals infiltrated into J&K and attacked Muzaffarabad, the region fell quickly without much resistance. Many Muslim state forces mutinied and joined the invading Pakistani tribesmen. The path to Srinagar was clear, but instead of advancing towards the capital, the tribal forces resorted to loot and plunder. Apart from plundering the state armoury, they are also said to have resorted to arson and set markets on fire.
“They plundered the state armoury, set entire markets on fire and looted their goods,” Gohar Rahman, who was one of the Pakistanis that crossed over into J&K, told the BBC. “They shot everyone who couldn’t recite the kalma – the Arabic-language Muslim declaration of faith. Many non-Muslim women were enslaved, while many others jumped in the river to escape capture.” He further said, “Muslim women would sometimes offer us food, but the Pathans were reluctant to accept, thinking it may be poisoned. They would instead capture those people’s goats and sheep, slaughter them and roast the meat over fire.”
While the events of October led to the first Indo-Pakistan war and the accession of Kashmir to India, the horrific stories of rape, plunder and murder of those who could not recite the Kalma haunt Hindus to this date.
Pakistan is, therefore, one of the few theocratic states in the world which outright rejects modern principles and bases its state policy on ancient and barbaric religious supremacist and expansionist principles. While fancying itself as more Arab than the Arabs, it is so subsumed by its fantasies of Ummah and leading the world domination of Islam, that it even, on occasion, rejects the recent strides Saudi Arabia has made in modernising itself and shedding the archaic religious dogmas that potentially hold its society back.
While the converted Muslims of Pakistan may sound and appear comical, rejecting Saudi advancement as a betrayal of Islam, for India, the truth of its neighbourhood is a grim reminder of the dangers of being forced to coexist with barbarians and the horror that would befall the nation if it chooses to not acknowledge that the two-nation theory wasn’t a mere political slogan but the very basis of existence for Islamic nations like Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is not irrelevant. It is not an aberration of the past but a reality that we must come to terms with.
In 1876, Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of Aligarh Muslim University, said that Hindus and Muslims could never become one nation as their religion and way of life were quite distinct. Twelve years later, he said, “Now, suppose that the English community and the army were to leave India, taking with them all their cannons and their splendid weapons and all else, who then would be the rulers of India?… Is it possible that under these circumstances two nations—the Mohammedans and the Hindus—could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable. But until one nation has conquered the other and made it obedient, peace cannot reign in the land.”
While Khan spoke in the context of India specifically, the nature of Muslim separatism was not new and was certainly not an alien concept that anyone who was willing, to be honest, could not see for themselves. Karl Marx, the Father of Communism, stated in 1854, “The Koran and the Mussulman legislation emanating from it reduce the geography and ethnography of the various people to the simple and convenient distinction of two nations and of two countries; those of the Faithful and of the Infidels. The Infidel is “Harby,” i.e. the enemy. Islamism proscribes the nation of the Infidels, constituting a state of permanent hostility between the Mussulman and the unbeliever.”
It was only in 1940 that Jinnah formally announced the demand for a separate Muslim nation. At the 1940 Muslim League conference in Lahore, Jinnah said: “Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature… It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes… To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.”
Essentially, while Jinnah only made the formal demand in 1940, the verbalisation of Muslim separatism had taken place much before that, almost 70 years ago, by the founder of AMU.
Unless the reality of the two-nation theory is not acknowledged and accepted, Bharat as a modern nation-state would always be caught off-guard, like it was in 1946, into carving out pieces of itself to satiate the insatiable appetite of the believers to cast Kafirs into hell-fire and turn Bharat into a Muslim nation.
While Pakistan and Bangladesh view India as a Hindu collectivity and repeatedly persecute Hindus on the basis of the two-nation theory and the Ummah, often branding them as ‘agents’ of the Hindu collectivity, there are those from within India as well who in letter and spirit, believe in the ideals espoused by Pakistan and Bangladesh.
This theory is proved by the fact that over 70 years after the partition of India, while our lawmakers believe that we have managed to achieve a nation where general brotherhood between Hindus and Muslims exists as a norm, we saw the rise of organisations like the Popular Front of India (PFI) which vowed to turn India into an Islamic state, convert Hindus and even commit genocide of the Kafirs in their holy war. One must ask the question that if the partition of India on the basis of religion was time and geography-specific, why does India, with one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, see the rise of Muslim separatism repeatedly and why does, to this day, Pakistan and Bangladesh who got their theological states, ‘untainted’ by Hindus, over 70 years ago, still harbour dreams of turning Dar-ul-Harb into Dar-ul-Islam – something that Asim Munir articulated so honestly, so eloquently and so vehemently.
