Even at my age, every now and then I get surprised. Recently, I had dinner with a former colleague and a friend who I always thought of as the serious Islamist sort. During the time we worked together, I always avoided religious or political discussions. However, now that we have moved on and away professionally, during dinner we talked a little bit about the recent changes in government in Pakistan. I suggested that, in spite of former President Zardari’s faults, the one thing that nobody could accuse him of was being vindictive, and that even though Zardari had spent much of his youth and most of his married life in jail, he never went after the people that had put him there. Frankly, the response I got was something I did not expect at all. For the next 10 minutes, I received a total harangue in defence of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) starting with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB), on to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (BB) and Asif Zardari. Interestingly, my friend’s major defence of ZAB was something that most ‘liberals’ hold against the elder Bhutto. What my friend said and repeated more than once was that ZAB was the first Pakistani leader who gave Pakistan a real ‘Islamic’ constitution, declared the Ahmedis to be non-Muslims and banned alcohol. About BB, my friend kept repeating that she was a great “Muslim Lady”, devout and entirely pro-Islam. We never really got to discuss ZAB and his socialist policies or BB and her cultural or economic policies but a couple of important things did come out of the discussion. My friend, a gentleman with a flowing beard, is a long-standing member of the Tableeghi Jamaat but I found out he also belongs to the Hanafi Maslak (Sunni followers of Imam Abu Hanifa). He clearly demonstrated his dislike for the more extreme Islamic denominations. Interestingly, he strongly defended Zardari who belongs to the Shia minority among the Muslims. And most interestingly he was entirely contemptuous of the purportedly pro-Islam policies of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Now, I could blame my friend’s forceful opinions on the high cholesterol content food we were consuming in large amounts, especially the brain masala, but what he said supports points of view that I have held over the last many years. Most of my opinions about such things have been published in previous issues of this newspaper. More than 90 percent of Pakistanis are Muslim and, of them, roughly 75 percent are Sunnis. Of the Sunnis, a majority subscribe to the Hanafi-Barelvi point of view. Most Hanafi-Barelvis are extremely ‘tolerant’ of the Shia, and many of them follow Sufi tariqas (systems). I knew this growing up in Pakistan during the fifties and the sixties but that idea was reinforced more recently. When I started working in Pakistan about a decade ago, to understand post-‘Islamisation’ Pakistan, I would often discuss religious issues with my junior staff. In one such discussion, I asked a young doctor from Multan as to what or who he thought the Hanafi-Barelvis were. His response was entirely amusing. He said, “Are the Hanafi-Barelvis not Shia?” And that brings me to the fact that most Pakistani Muslims, if asked, will have a tough time explaining the difference between Shia and Sunni religious beliefs. Extremists on both sides will go on and on but most of us in the vast ‘middle’ will probably get lost after a few sentences. My considered opinion is that ‘sectarianism’ among Muslims is political and not religious in origin. The few of us that have spent time and effort reading about the early history of the Muslims will be forced to admit that the Shia-Sunni divide started as a ‘political’ and not a doctrinal difference and, in time, it took on religious dimensions. As far as Pakistan is concerned, before petro-dollar Islam invaded Pakistan during the first Afghan war a little more than 30 years ago, sectarianism was limited and sporadic, and had minimal violent content. Coming back to the dinner conversation I mentioned above, in that conversation, I find the basic solution not only to the rising tide of sectarianism in Pakistan but also to the general problem of religious extremism. Many of the ‘liberal’ sorts in Pakistan will probably find my friend hard to accept as a political ally but the fact is that if once we take ‘religion’ off the table as a political variable, most liberals and conservative Muslims have much in common. Once we accept that, then only can we fight religious extremism effectively. It is important to understand that ‘believing’ Muslims as well as modern liberals believe in the concept of a ‘safety net’ that assures that all citizens are provided basic necessities by the government. This includes what ZAB called “roti, kapra aur makaan” (food, clothing and shelter). Freedom of religious practice as well as equality for all under the law is also something that both Islam and liberalism accept as a basic human right. My ‘liberal’ friends are fixated on the concept of ‘secularism’. Secularism is not anti-religion. The constitution of the US is often cited as a prime example of secularism, especially the first amendment and its ‘establishment clause’. The importance of that is debated but most constitutional scholars agree that the idea was to protect religion, all religion, from government interference. What we need in Pakistan is for the government to accept Islam as the basis of ‘moral law’ but get out of the business of supporting any particular sectarian point of view. Religion is here to stay. And liberalism is also going to be around. If political liberals and conservative Muslims realise that they have more in common than they have differences, perhaps we in Pakistan can confront the evil of religious extremism effectively. Once religious extremism is contained, all Pakistanis can practice what they believe in without fear. The writer has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com