today. In the intervening decades, Pakistan’s leaders, instead of resolving the role of Islam, sought to use it to their own ends. Generals urged their troops into war with the battle cry of jihad. Politicians appealed to religious sentiment to win votes. Powerful interests cynically used Islamic laws to silence critics, quash dissent or, literally, get away with murder. Under a provision known as qisas and diyat (an eye for an eye), a killer can escape justice if he pays ‘blood money’ to the family of his victim – a useful loophole in cases of honour killings, or even killing American spies.
