Bhutto's successor, dictator General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, went even further. He replaced Pakistan's South Asian identity (cultural, social, educational and its institutions) with Arabization and Wahhabism (the radical Saudi version of Sunni Islam). To achieve this quickly, he made Arabic studies mandatory and had television and radio newscasts produced in Arabic. He introduced an Islamic justice system by setting up a federal sharia court to try cases as per the Qur'an. He prescribed amputations for robbery and theft, and flogging and stoning death for adultery. He also banished liquor, cabarets, clubs and non-Islamic dress. Under his chadar aur char diwari (the veil and four walls) policy, women were required to discard their South Asian dress, including the highly popular sari, in favour of top-to-toe Arabic chadors, and had to stay behind four walls of the home. Blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was punishable by death.The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan only served to speed up the Arabization of Pakistan. Zia's Saudi friends as well as the CIA showered with him petro dollars to set up madrassas (Islamic religious seminaries) and mosques staffed by Arabic Imams to train die-hard mujahedeen to fight with and drive out the Soviets.
It was Gen. Zia's obsession to Arabize Pakistan that turned this culturally rich South Asian country into a virtual Islamic theocracy, allegedly a safe haven for global terror networks – from al-Qaeda to the Taliban, to the homegrown Tehrik-e-Taliban and sundry lashkars (militias) – plus the jihadist-churning factory with its network of more than 18,000 madrassas. Meanwhile, the country's entrenched ruling elites were gloating over Pakistan becoming “Fortress Islam”, complete with the Islamic nuclear bomb. Not surprisingly, ethnic cleansing, forced conversion and migration drastically reduced its non-Muslim minorities (Hindus and Sikhs) from 20% (1947) to barely 1% (present).
