Muhammad Zikiria Sultan

Book: From Jinnah to Zia The author of this book, Chief Justice (Retd) Muhammad Munir, who is well known for the articulation of the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ (that is which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity) in his judgment, back in 1954, when the Governor General, Ghulam Muhammad dissolved the Constituent Assembly and appointed a new Council of Ministers (For further info you can read Molvi Tameezuddin vs. Federation of Pakistan). He has been widely criticized for validating the dissolution of Constituent Assembly. And it is believed that after the validation of the dissolution, Pakistan changed its course for the worse. In this book, the author starts with some history about the Independence of the British India, followed by the creation of Pakistan, and then about the mystery that Mr. Jinnah wanted a Secular state. He further prove this argument from different speeches and interviews of Mr. Jinnah. Moving forward, the author for the most part talks about the ‘Munir Report’, which was written by him and his fellow judge Mr. M.R. Kiyani, to inquire into the Punjab disturbances of 1953. The author at length, then follows his interviews with different Ulama and heads of different religious parties and criticizes them for the fact that they were against the creation of Pakistan and used to call it ‘Na-Pakistan (it was the most boring part of this book). Munir for the most part defends his argument and wants Pakistan to be a secular state. He talks very little about the (Molvi Tameezuddin vs. Federation of Pakistan) case and one could easily feel the regret in his writing about that judgment. Because of his judgment in those famous cases, Pakistan went on to bear several decades in Martial Law. According to some experts, it was because of such judgments from our judicial system, that Pakistan lost East Pakistan (Munir had very racial prejudice for bengals and one could easily smell it from his writing). This book was written in very power writing, and sequence. Some of its headings made no sense especially in the later parts. According to him, the Nizam e Mustafa’s Taxation system and other religious policies cannot be implemented as they are being applied incorrectly without any real context. The author stood against Zia’s policy to enforce Islam onto the people of Pakistan. The poor writing leaves one out of touch at the end. 2/5