Combating sectarian violence has become a major security headache for a number of Muslim-majority states, including Pakistan.

As acclaimed Iranian-American scholar Vali Reza Nasr told a gathering in Karachi recently, sectarianism today is the most important dynamic in the Muslim world. Indeed, states like Iraq, Syria and Yemen are collapsing under the weight of protracted sectarian conflict.

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Unfortunately, the differences have gone beyond the realm of theological debate and now revolve around the distribution of power. Though perhaps not to the same degree as the Middle East’s hotspots, Pakistan has nevertheless also been significantly brutalised by sectarian warriors active in all regions of this country.

Many of these forces, mostly created and nurtured in Ziaul Haq’s Pakistan to counter the influence of a revolutionary and unambiguously Shia Iran, have today become uncontrollable and are on ‘autopilot’. As fears grew of the ‘export’ of the Iranian revolution to other Muslim states, certain sectarian and political elements sought to contain it by limiting Tehran’s influence — including by supporting sectarian militant groups.

In today’s Pakistan, such groups have joined a wider array of Islamist militant actors that threaten the very stability of the country.

The question to ponder for the state — both the civilian leadership and the military establishment — is that are the sectarian militants really uncontrollable? Does the state not possess the means by which to silence their guns, clamp down on hate speech and prosecute their leaders and foot soldiers?

The answer seems self-evident, for if the state wants to put its full might behind an objective, it can get results; the military operation under way in North Waziristan is the most recent example of this.

Perhaps what is needed at the highest levels of leadership is a realisation and admission that the state was wrong to look the other way when it came to sectarian death squads. It is simplistic to think that the communal fires now burning across the Middle East will not touch Pakistan. Due to cultural and religious links, events in that region exert considerable influence in this country.

Yet while sectarianism may have taken root in many Arab states, there is still relative communal harmony in Pakistan. But if sectarian killings continue in this country — and go unpunished — that coexistence may well transform into a darker reality. Finally, apart from the state, the ulema bear major responsibility for ensuring communal harmony, specifically by confronting clerical voices that fan hatred.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014