Why Pakistan? Why the Islamic-influenced legal system injustice? And My Research Process
When high school began, my parents, like many others, started asking the milestone question of where I wanted to go to college? What did I see myself pursuing in the future? These questions would yield life changing answers, as they pertain to what I will ultimately do in life. So, after thinking long and hard and taking a diverse set of classes, I've concluded (at least temporarily) that I am interested in law and criminal justice. As I dove deeper into both of these subjects, I grew a strong passion for understanding government and laws through my AP U.S. Government Class. I learned about all of the different branches of our democratic government, and how the ideals of basic human rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness were applied to the creation of all laws. The knowledge I gained inspired my interest of law and its influences, which is why I picked and directed my research towards Pakistan and Islam's influence on it's legal system. After understanding more about my own government, I developed a desire to learn how other legal systems operate and what impacts their decisions.
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In order to write my paper, I needed a main topic and thesis that I could centralize my research and opinions around, so that my paper could be cohesive and comprehensible. I began this process by navigating many news websites and apps that update daily, from here I was able to chose a news story that particularly caught my interest, and as viewed throughout my essay and website, my subject pertains to Islam and it's influence on the legal system of Pakistan. The news story I stumbled upon dealt with a woman, who was imprisoned and was just now released for committing blasphemy (an offense in the religion of Islam). This story intrigued me, as I was interested in why and how a government was able to persecute someone for an act that wouldn't have been a crime in the U.S.A.. Later, the task was given to generate a research question, but I found it slightly difficult to create one that was broad enough for me to write a whole paper on, but after many attempts I successfully formulated one and had to invent a working hypothesis out of it. At first, I wrote a thesis that stated Pakistan's legal system strongly emulates Islamic values due to the extensive Muslim population and their firm beliefs in Islam. After much research and digging into the topic, I discovered that my expectations were not in fact the total reason for the correlation of government and Islam, therefore, I adapted and broadened my thesis to demonstrate that the legal system reflects fundamental Isalmic values because of the deeply rooted ties to Islam, resulting in some systematic injustice throughout Pakistan. Although the long process of creating the paper was eased because of the prior advised note taking strategies, I ran into some stumps along the road. One being the creation of my research topic, I had to submit my question over 3 times for approval, although frustrating, I was glad I had found an inclusive topic that I could find evidence to support. Another obstacle I encountered occurred during the research step of the process, as I had trouble finding credible sources within the restricted update time of the last six months. I would find a viable source with the exact evidence I would need to make a claim, but then I would look at the time it was updated and it would be a year ago. Therefore, this restriction challenged me to find recent and credible sources, but I believe overall that it added to the ethos of my paper, strengthening my thesis and essay. There are no recent updates or developments on The Islamic Republic of Pakistan's legal system and its relations to Islam or the Asia Bibi blasphemy case. A true separation between Church and State will not be done over night, because the governments deep ties to the religion will take generations to unravel in order to create a secular legal system.