Jihad is an inescapable phenomenon in the Muslim world today. Indeed, it has been part of Muslim civilisation from time immemorial, though its meaning has evolved and changed over the centuries. When the Prophet Muhammad spoke of Jihad, he clearly stated that the great struggle ( Jihad-al Akbar ) was the struggle against one's own selfish ego and pride.

But in time generations of Muslim Ulama and radicals have reinvested this concept with a different, more radical meaning instead. This shift in meaning and intent was made explicit to me recently while I was in Karachi.

Standing outside the mazar (shrine) of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi, I was struck by the diversity of expression in Islam. The huge shrine, bedecked with brightly coloured lights and banners shone like an ice-cream cake set alight against the fading sun at dusk. Outside there was a bustling crowd made up of fakirs , Sufi medicants, beggars, cripples, mystics and hippies - plus the odd unemployed academic like myself.

People from all walks of life and different religious backgrounds had come to pray, sing and meditate at this popular site that has been a regular pilgrimage site for years. And the heterogeneity of the crowd was proof, if any was necessary, of the tolerance and open-mindedness of Islam in the Sindh.

Walking through the crowd I was accosted by beggar children and fortune tellers, traders and pilgrims. The stalls were crammed with Islamic pendants, holy books, tasbih s and prayer mats for sale.

Suddenly I stopped at one stall which stood out against the rest. Manning it were three young bearded youths with glasses who spoke perfect English. Unlike the other stall owners, these youths were dressed in clean shalwar khemis es and they were not smiling. A tape recorder was playing a recording of a speech that was being read out by an Ulama .

On the stall were rows of cassettes, posters and stickers. The slogans on them read: ' Jihad is the answer', ' Jihad the Final Solution' and other such sabre-rattling nonsense. Images of AK-47s, rocket launchers, dead bodies and burning flags of America, India and Israel were everywhere to be seen. Islamic Jihad has arrived in Karachi.

Gun and bullets

Not that any of this is new. Karachi has been a hotbed of sectarian conflict since the first wave of migration from India in 1947. As the Indian Muslim mohajir s (migrants) from India arrived and settled in this over-populated, dusty and garbage-filled city with no maps or town planning to speak of, Karachi has been a powder keg ready to explode.

And explode it did in the mid-1990s when the city became a battleground between Mohajir s and Sindhis, Sunni and Shia Muslims and practically every other sectarian fundamentalist grouping that could afford a gun and a magazine of bullets.

In 1995 around 20-25 people were being killed on a daily basis in the city - all of them Muslims, and in every case as a result of Muslim vs Muslim conflict. Every group claimed that theirs was a jihad in the name of Islam, and that their Muslim adversaries were really kafir s (unbelievers) who deserved to be killed.

The tolerance and diversity that has been a hallmark of Islam in the Sindh is rapidly being eroded thanks to the influx of Madrasah students and radical Ulama from the northern and eastern parts of Pakistan, and further afield from Afghanistan.

It appears that Karachi - the last confused and over-populated bastion against Islamic radicalism in Pakistan - is slipping into the abyss that has swallowed Afghanistan and other parts of the country.

Forced to kowtow

All of this boils down to power politics and the use (or rather abuse) of religion for political ends. Islamist parties in Pakistan such as the Jamaat-i Islami have managed to shift the discursive agenda closer to the site of Islamic discourse and have upped the stakes in the Islamisation race in the country.

By doing so, the Jamaat and other radical groups like the Sipah-e Sahabah have managed to bring Pakistan closer to an Islamic state, despite the fact that they do not command any significant political clout in the country. (Unlike PAS in Malaysia, these Islamist parties do not have any seats in Parliament. Nor do they control any cities or regions - God alone knows what might happen if they managed to gain as much power and control as PAS in Malaysia).

The parallels with Malaysia do not stop there. As in the case of Malaysia, the Islamist opposition has also managed to force every other non-Islamist party and government to kowtow to their demands by playing the Islamic card and accusing the government of being un-Islamic if they do not comply with their demands.

The Jamaat and other Islamist organisations managed to get Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (father of the ousted Benazir) to implement the first Islamic policies in the mid-1970s.

During the time of Zia'ul Haq, the Islamist parties managed to get even more done in the name of Islam - the Hudood ordinances were put in place by Zia and the Jamaat even worked hand in glove with the military establishment.

During the time of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the Islamists of Jamaat-i Islami and other organisations like the JUI played the dirty game of secular politics even more (despite their claims that they were non-political - something we hear from Islamist organisations closer to home as well).

The JUI, with its strong links to the ultra-conservative Deobandi school, finally helped Benazir Bhutto come to power for a second time in 1993. After their victory, the JUI was given the chance to create that monstrous organisation that nobody can control any more - the Taliban.

Jihad has now become part and parcel of daily political and cultural discourse in Pakistan, and nobody - not even the government - can put a stop to it. As the discourse of Islamic radicalism takes on a life of its own under the watchful eye of the conservative Ulama , progressive Muslim groups and liberals in Pakistan wonder aloud about what will happen to the country and whether it will go down the same path as Afghanistan.

Honeyed promises

For us in Malaysia, the Pakistan scenario is one to watch closely. For it shows precisely what happens when weakened and discredited (and invariably, corrupt and oppressive) governments play the game of political Islam in order to bolster their own support and credibility in the face of mounting opposition coming from groups that speak the language of religion instead.

By playing the Islamic card, Pakistani leaders like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia'ul Haq, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have all tried to court the support of the Islamists or domesticate their leaders at least. But their efforts have come to naught and in the end it was the Islamists who have emerged victorious.

The arrival of jihadi groups in Karachi, asking for donations and recruiting members for armed struggle in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya and other parts of the world is a sign of things to come.

While the corrupt elites of the country tried to isolate themselves in their walled cocoons in barricaded suburbs, the Islamists have won the battle for the hearts and minds of the underprivileged and uneducated.

And for the poor children of Karachi - as well as other parts of Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world for that matter - the honeyed promises of village Ulama who promise them heavenly rewards for killing the enemies of Islam seems more attractive than the broken promises of morally corrupt politicians who have used their terms in office only to rape the country's economy and line their own stained pockets.