Extremism rarely begins with a bomb. Long before violence reaches a checkpoint, a marketplace or a place of worship, an intellectual boundary has usually been crossed. Political disagreement is turned into religious excommunication, institutional criticism becomes rejection of the state itself, and those who think differently are gradually transformed from opponents into enemies and eventually into supposedly legitimate targets.

This progression is particularly important for Pakistan, where terrorism is not merely a contest of arms. It is also a contest over ideas: who possesses religious legitimacy, who may define jihad, whether a constitutional state can be declared un-Islamic by private groups, and whether individuals have the authority to pronounce entire institutions or those serving within them, outside the fold of Islam.

At the centre of much contemporary extremist reasoning lies the concept of divine sovereignty. The proposition itself is fundamental to Islamic belief: ultimate sovereignty belongs to Allah. The distortion begins when this principle is converted into an argument that every modern representative institution is inherently an act of rebellion against divine authority.

The reasoning then becomes dangerously circular. Parliament legislates; therefore, it is claimed, parliament has assumed a function belonging exclusively to God. Democracy is consequently declared un-Islamic or even an expression of shirk. From there, legislators, judges, public servants, security personnel and sometimes ordinary citizens participating in elections become vulnerable to sweeping religious condemnation.

This is precisely where a true principle can be manipulated to produce a false conclusion.

Hazrat Ali’s celebrated description of the Khawarij slogan remains intellectually relevant: a word of truth through which falsehood is intended. The point is not to mechanically transpose a 7th century political conflict onto every contemporary disagreement. It is to recognise a recurring methodological error taking a religious text or principle, removing it from its wider jurisprudential and ethical context, and using it to legitimise a predetermined political conclusion.

Islam undoubtedly establishes principles of governance. Justice, consultation, accountability, equality, protection of rights and responsible exercise of authority are deeply........

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