When Mufti Kifayatullah stood in South Waziristan and called for “Sharia law” in the merged districts, his demand might have sounded harmless to some. But when he went further and labeled slain terrorists as shaheed (martyr), the mask slipped. This was not the voice of a reformer, but of someone deliberately twisting religion and exploiting Pashtun identity to lend respectability to killers.
The truth is plain. Pakistan’s Constitution already secures Sharia as the foundation of law. Article 2 recognizes Islam as the state religion, and Article 227 makes every law answerable to the Qur’an and Sunnah. Institutions like the Federal Shariat Court and Council of Islamic Ideology exist precisely for this purpose. Even more decisive was the Paigham-e-Pakistan fatwa of 2018, endorsed by 1,800 scholars from across sects, which branded terrorism and suicide bombings as fasād-fil-ardh (mischief in the land). So when Kifayatullah claims he is calling for Sharia, the question arises: which Sharia? It is not the Islamic framework of Pakistan, but the distorted creed of the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan— the same Khawarij who murdered children in APS Peshawar, bombed mosques, and tore through jirgas.
To declare such men martyrs is not a slip of the tongue— it is treachery. In Islam, shahadat (Martyrdom) belongs only to those who defend life, faith, and homeland. It cannot be granted to those who massacre schoolchildren, policemen, and civilians. Pakistan’s 94,000 martyrs laid down their lives to protect the country from the very groups Kifayatullah now seeks to glorify. His words desecrate their memory and insult the tears of mothers who buried their sons and daughters.
But the story of betrayal is not his alone. The Pashtun National Jirga (PNJ) exposed its own duplicity by giving Kifayatullah a stage. When outrage followed, PNJ spokesman Barkat Afridi dismissed the remarks as “personal opinion.” Such excuses fool no one. Inviting a man who celebrates terrorists is not neutrality— it is endorsement. This is PNJ’s familiar game: empower radicals, then retreat behind claims of “free speech.”
The PTM adopted a similar posture. Umar Pashteen defended Kifayatullah, presenting him as a loyal Pakistani standing against India and an advocate of Sharia. But this argument collapses under scrutiny. What value is loyalty to Pakistan if it comes with the price of supporting those who butcher Pakistanis? What meaning has a demand for Sharia when the Constitution already enshrines it? The Sharia PTM champions is not divine law but TTP’s bloody dogma of suicide attacks and executions.
The lesson is sharp: terrorism cannot be repackaged as religion, and extremists cannot be recast as protectors of Pashtuns. Those who try are not defenders but destroyers. The future of Pashtuns will be secured not by Kifayatullah’s slogans or PNJ and PTM’s duplicity, but by stability, justice, and the sacrifices that rid their homeland of terror.
The TTP and its affiliates remain what they have always been: international terrorists, pawns of hostile intelligence services, and enemies of Islam. Their crimes are countless— more Pashtuns killed than any other group, villages reduced to rubble, and progress repeatedly sabotaged. Islam itself rejects them. The Paigham-e-Pakistan fatwa declared their ideology a Khawarij-style rebellion, forbidden by consensus of the ulema. Yet PNJ, PTM, and Mufti Kifayatullah give these butchers legitimacy by laundering their message in the language of rights and religion.
Such rhetoric thrives on manipulating genuine grievances. By invoking religion and nationalism, extremists pretend to champion justice while destroying the very people they claim to protect. The record is undeniable: wherever their ideology took hold, devastation followed. By contrast, Pakistan’s security forces— maligned by PTM and PNJ— sacrificed thousands of lives in operations like Rah-e-Nijat, Zarb-e-Azb, and Radd-ul-Fasaad. Without those sacrifices, Waziristan would still be a global hub of terror. Today, schools, hospitals, and markets are reopening, proving who truly defends the Pashtuns.
The duplicity of PNJ and PTM is impossible to miss. They provide platforms to extremists, amplify their voices, then claim neutrality when held accountable. But neutrality in the face of terror is not neutrality—it is complicity. The Paigham-e-Pakistan fatwa leaves no ambiguity: offering space or justification to terrorists itself constitutes fasād-fil-ardh. By this measure, PNJ and PTM are guilty of enabling what they claim to oppose.
The choice for Pashtuns could not be clearer. Either follow leaders who glorify killers and lead their communities back into bloodshed, or stand with those who build schools, roads, and hospitals on the ashes of war. True dignity for Pashtuns lies in peace, education, and development under Pakistan’s Constitution— not in recycled rhetoric from PNJ, PTM, or Kifayatullah.
To defend terrorists is to betray Pashtuns. To call them martyrs is to desecrate Islam. The martyrs of Pakistan— the soldiers who fell in battle, the policemen gunned down on duty, the children murdered in APS— are the ones whose memory demands respect. Their sacrifice is the foundation of today’s fragile peace.
The lesson is sharp: terrorism cannot be repackaged as religion, and extremists cannot be recast as protectors of Pashtuns. Those who try are not defenders but destroyers. The future of Pashtuns will be secured not by Kifayatullah’s slogans or PNJ and PTM’s duplicity, but by stability, justice, and the sacrifices that rid their homeland of terror.
