Beyond the Law: Living Blasphemy in Pakistan

"Muhammad Bilal’s excellent book is both pressingly relevant and original. The manuscript brilliantly reveals how religious violence in the case of blasphemy accusations and killings is just one aspect of more generalized socio-cultural and political violence in Pakistan. It analyses, too, the cultural nature of the legal system, showing how the legislating of law alone makes little difference to people’s social understandings of religious ethics and politics. In short, this book convincingly argues first how blasphemy exists (only) in the eye of the beholder, and then how the very ‘eyes’ of those beholders are socialized by a range of political forces that both generate and reflect complex cultural frameworks."

—Christopher Houston, Professor of Anthropology, Macquarie University, Australia

The book embarks on a journey into the intricate landscape of blasphemy in Pakistan amid a rising tide of blasphemy accusations, public lynchings, and contentious blasphemy laws. Challenging conventional perspectives, this book delves beyond legal and religious confines, offering an ethnography of the mundane as a secular reading and a grand existential scheme to highlight how blasphemy laws and religious prisms often fail to capture the essence of the blasphemy dilemma in Pakistan. The author offers an insightful re-evaluation of the blasphemy issue, addressing its multifaceted definition, the motivations driving intentional blasphemous acts and frivolous accusations, the authority to punish alleged offenders, the paradox of religious violence, and the emergence of mediated expressions and virtual negotiation of blasphemy. Through meticulous grassroots analysis of ordinary Pakistanis’ perspectives, the book offers pragmatic policy solutions for blasphemy issues, presenting unorthodox insights into Pakistan, its diverse populace, and the ever-evolving sensibilities of Islam and societal dynamics in both local and global contexts.

Muhammad Bilal is Professor of Anthropology and Chairperson of the Department of Anthropology at Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pakistan.