IMRAN KHAN : Well, let us just say that a lot of lip service has been paid to Islam. Without any substance in it people have used Islam for political gains. It is more a slogan here. I am talking about the rulers, people who have been in power. No one has sincerely worked towards Islam, to instill Islamic values in this society. We have been so defensive about Islam, like this current government of General Musharraf ’s, under the slogan of “enlightened moderation.” It is basically a term to appease the American government. Their whole “Islam” is defined not by enlightened Islam as considered by the great scholars, but what the American government perceives to be enlightened Islam, which is basically a Muslim who is westernized. It has nothing to do with his liberal or moderate mindset about Islam but how he comes across as a westernized Muslim. And secondly he is a Muslim who accepts American hegemony. In Pakistan I have never in my life seen that a country whose only purpose for coming into being is Islam, to be in a situation as it is today. This whole thing about changing the curriculum of the country, under pressure from the Americans, that is another bizarre thing. We should be constantly reviewing our curriculum. It is common sense that we should be reviewing it. But education should be taken as a whole. Why are the madrasas— which are only a very small percentage of the education system—being targeted? What about this unfair system of education where there is one syllabus for the rich, westernized elite, the English medium syllabus, and the rest for the common man? And the common man, what does he receive in government education? It has completely collapsed.  

ISLAMICA : Where do you stand on madrasa reform? 

IMRAN KHAN : I stand for an overall reform of education. So why have they just taken the madrasas? Why not the overall education system which is in a state of decay in Pakistan? What I am saying is that all this is done under American pressure. So we are not even sovereign in the country, where now our every move is meant to please the Americans. This is the so-called doctrine of “enlightened moderation.” 

ISLAMICA : You talk about applying Islamic principles. Political accountability and transparency are among your strongest political messages. According to what standard of justice do you actually recommend such reforms be implemented: Islamic law, Pakistani law, or some combination of the two? 

IMRAN KHAN : Justice knows no laws. Justice is justice. It is a very straightforward thing, justice. Islamic justice and any other justice is the same. What is justice? Justice means that everyone stands equal in front of the law. What was it that propelled the Islamic civilization into the greatest one ever? The Rightly-Guided Caliphs in the state of Medina established complete justice. Everyone was equal before the law. Two of the four Caliphs actually went to a court of law, with Hazrat ‘Ali (may God be well pleased with him) losing a case against a Jewish subject. That was Muslim justice. Muslim justice was such that the Christians in Muslim states had greater protection and freedom of religion than they had in their own Christian Byzantine state. So a Muslim state should be based on a system of justice, above all. Number two: Welfare. A state should look after its underprivileged. The weak, the old, the orphans, the widows … which is what was started at the time of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs. And a state should be sovereign. Because when you accept the sovereignty of God, you do not accept any false gods. And look at the state of the Muslim world today … where they just bow and scrape in front of foreign powers. 

ISLAMICA : In your article “In Pakistan We Have Selective Islam” you talk about the importance of creating a dialogue between the westernized elite and the rejectionist extreme. Where and how do you see such a dialogue developing?