Theoretical Framework: Islamization and an Inconsistent and Unstable Legal System in a Peripheral Capitalist State

It is difficult to understand the phenomenon of the Islamization of the law in Pakistan if we divorce it from political, economic and social processes. The inconsistency and instability in the law, which will be documented in the following chapters, is so obvious that it is difficult to consider the law simply as legal rules. In the last three decades it has been considered of great importance to relate legal systems to political, economic and social processes, especially with reference to developments in Third World countries (Dunn, 1971).