Rehmatul-lil-Alameen Authority

According to the ordinance issued by the President of Pakistan Arif Alvi, the Rahmatul Lil Aalameen Authority will consist of a chairman and six members. The chairman of the authority will be appointed by the prime minister.[6][7] The advisory board of the committee will meet at least once a quarterly basis.[8]

Authority will take steps for justice and welfare state. The authority will conduct research on the Prophetic biography and hadiths to build the character of the youth. In addition, the authority will consult with relevant experts to make the biography of the Prophet a part of the curriculum.[9][10] It will also be tasked with explaining Islam to the world.[11] Its formation was announced while the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, was addressing the Ashra-e-Rehmat-ul-Lil-Aalamin (PBUH) conference in Islamabad.[11] The ordinance to set up the authority was promulgated by President Arif Alvi on 14 October 2021.[12][6]

According to Umair Javed, the purported purpose of the new authority is to get Pakistan out of a selectively portrayed cultural breakdown and moral crisis afflicting all aspects of social life.[15] Javed says Pakistan is far from drifting and is going through regressive conservative revivalism in television segments of religious televangelism to television drama.[3] Javed says that for decades, Pakistan has been in the midst of a large-scale Barelvi and Deobandi revival, with much more violence around the blasphemy law, and associated suppression of minority rights; Quranic study circles and spiritual movements like as Dawat-i-Islami, Tablighi Jamaat and Al Huda are proliferating among the middle class and associated consumption of religious commodities is increasing.[3]

According to Zahid Hussain the new authority established through ordinance by Prime Minister Imran Khan is an extension of Gen Zia’s legacy of deploying religiosity to achieve political gains, with the cover of resetting the system in the name of Islamic faith, the moves are to undermine the freedoms of expression, democratic processes in the country and encourage authoritarianism.[16]

According to the Friday Times, the appointed Chairman Ejaz Akram holds and promotes controversial views against ethnic civil rights groups like the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and that Akram is critical of the concept of democracy.[17] Hussain says Akram advocates conspiracy theories (espousing that 9/11 was a false flag operation by the US), advocates regional expansionism by Pakistan and his concept of rule by elites of elites fascist.[16] Friday Times says Akram subscribes to conspiracy theories to downplay the COVID-19 pandemic.[17] Akram has written that “Belief in deep secularism, the idea of a republic, nationalism, capitalism, feminism, absolute freedom of speech, are all false consciousness that must be abandoned for things that work for us”.[17][18]

Zahid Hussain says Imran Khan's PTI government has already caused huge damage to education in Pakistan by introducing the Single National Curriculum which would reinforce a closed mindset and additional measures to ‘Islamise’ the system, which will lead to a further decline in educational standards.[16]

• Council of Islamic Ideology