CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF ‘NARRATIVES’ IN RELIGIOUS RHETORIC (FATAWA) IN PAKISTAN: STRATEGIZING LOCAL SOLUTIONS AND POLICY OPTIONS FOR COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM

Abstract

Pakistan, being a Muslim-majority country, has been the victim of religious extremism for decades, and this problem exists at present as well, posing a big challenge to the state. Religious extremism is an extensively researched area by experts. Still, earlier studies have lacked in critically studying the manifestation of extremist narratives in religious discourse through speech acts (fatawa) by the extremists. This research explores the suspected relationship between fatawa (a religious decree in Islam issued by a religious scholar) and religious extremism and explains how religious speech acts (fatawa) construct social realities and function as a major mechanism for actualising distinct religious narratives. This research develops a methodological approach guided by critical discourse analysis (CDA) grounded in the scholarship of speech act theory to analyse the selected cases of fatawa in Pakistan. A three-step analysis model is applied to analyse selected fatawa in three steps: (1) Actor Description Analysis, (2) Action Attribution Analysis, and (3) Socio-Cognitive Imprint Analysis. The fatawa are used (abused) through the application of discursively formulated narratives by different stakeholders for the construction of social realities like identity formation (in-group vs out-group), ‘Us’ (positive), and ‘Them’ (negative), conditioning actions as securitisation moves (extending to de-humanisation); and imparting socio-cognitive imprints on the audience. This research explains the mechanism of sacralization through the use of words in fatawa. It concludes that the institution of fatawa should be mainstreamed and regularised to avoid misuse in the hands of extremists for the sake of enhanced community resilience as a policy option. Mainstreaming the fatawa (both their texts and issuing institutions) is destined to curb their misuse.