If religious guidelines were to be followed in spirit, Pakistan’s would have been a developed economy by now. When the King decided to elevate the status of Hazrat Yousuf (AS), Hazrat Yousuf (AS) desired to have authority over the treasures of the land as he was a good keeper and had knowledge.

According to religious scholars, socio-economic justice was considered to be at the centre of a healthy society which is why Hazrat Yousuf (AS) opted to be at the helm of the land’s treasures. This is Islam’s message communicated by all Prophets alike with heavy emphasis on knowledge, character, and socio-economic justice even as the Deen culminated some 14 centuries ago. Emphasis is on substance and not on form.

While the crux of Deen’s message remains lost, religious extremism is on the rise, especially up north. The danger is that if left unaddressed, it might spread throughout the country. With extremism on the rise, not many foreign investors will want to enter. Foreign direct investment will be adversely affected and so will exports be as well as imports.

Since dress codes will be strictly enforced, the readymade garments’ industry will lose whatever little international competitiveness it enjoys at the moment.

It might be declared contrary to sharia to make this and that type of garments even for exports. Ready made garments comprise a major chunk of total textile exports that, in turn, are still a major contributor to total exports.

With such a rand of `Sharia’ enforced on garments, Pakistan’s exports will suffer a setback.

Imports too will suffer for more than one reason. A whole lot of foreign brands of consumer goods might be declared ‘unIslamic’ and, therefore, unfit for local consumption and imports. As foreign direct investment, exports, and imports are all likely to decline under this scenario, Pakistan’s openness will decrease and it will be headed towards being a closed economy in this day and age that requires greater international integration with the rest of the world to as great an extent as possible.

All of the above might have an adverse impact on the value of the rupee and then on the country’s debt burden. The extremists might then also contemplate an economy without modern banking leading to a bigger financial crisis. For many zealots, sharia is about going back to pre-industrial times. That is, fewer goods, less money, fewer wants, and thereby a sense of “well-being.” This is despite the fact that Islam urges people to explore, learn, grow, and develop.

It is because of the zealots that the followers of a faith with premium on knowledge acquisition are backward and deprived compared to the people of other faiths Others have explored, learnt, and developed and their quest to learn the secrets of the universe and to find the truth remains endless..

Another impact of religious extremism will be on the socio-economic front. One of their first steps will be to confine women to homes and shut down their places of learning even though Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) made no distinction between men and women when he exhorted people to acquire knowledge even if they have to travel to China for the purpose. “Iqra” is not just for men.

It is for all regardless of gender. So, the education front will face a severe setback with half the population denied it. As the education sector will prepare to wind up or wind down, healthcare too will be denied to women for the most part due to strictly imposed gender-discrimination. Lady health visitors are already being targeted in northern areas. The polio vaccination campaign has suffered a setback.

As education and healthcare will be adversely affected, productivity on the job will suffer causing a negative impact on the economy. Many industrial sectors especially electronics, fisheries, export processing zone, garments, and even agriculture require female workforce in large numbers. These women are bread-earners for their families. What would happen to them?

And while many segments of the formal legal economy are illegitimate as per extremists’ brand of sharia, illegal economy such as smuggling and narcotics’ production and trafficking may not be as is evident just across Pakistan’s western border. As parts of legal economy will be disabled, illegal economy might then rise as a substitute and as a support for the `new’ political economy.

This threat of religious extremism is not too farfetched against the backdrop of how clerics are influencing preventive and curative healthcare as well as entertainment in Northern areas and how parts of none other than Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad have been taken hostage by just one madressah with the government watching ineffectively for weeks now.

There is a political economy behind the rise and spread of extremism and people are all too familiar with it. It is no wonder that a group of women protesting against this extremist tide were roughed up in Lahore last week. Extremism is not Islam but a caricature that Muslims must resist with full force of knowledge and action.