Asim Munir’s Silent Coup: Pakistan’s Army Chief Turns Military into a 7th-Century Jihad Force

Pakistan’s Army Chief General Asim Munir is rewriting the country’s military doctrine — and its Constitution — to fuse faith and force in unprecedented ways. A Hafiz-e-Quran (one who has memorised the Quran), Munir is recasting Pakistan’s army as the guardian of Islam, not the state.

Behind this ideological overhaul lies a quiet but sweeping constitutional coup, giving Munir absolute control of the armed forces and placing Pakistan’s democracy — and regional stability — in peril.

From Professional Force to Faith Army

For decades, Pakistan’s army functioned as a disciplined, if politically dominant, institution. Under Munir, that distinction is dissolving fast.

The military’s propaganda wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), now frames internal conflicts in religious terms, using labels such as Fitna al-Khawarij (the rebellion of heretics) and Fitna al-Hindustan (the Indian conspiracy).

By drawing on 7th-century Islamic vocabulary, Munir has recast Pakistan’s domestic insurgencies as holy wars — positioning the army as the protector of faith rather than the state.

“This is a reversion to theological warfare,” said a Rawalpindi-based observer. “The Pakistani soldier is now told he’s fighting not rebels — but enemies of Islam.”

This narrative also supports Pakistan’s self-image as the “fortress of the Muslim Ummah”, helping Islamabad attract ideological and financial support from the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia.

Munir’s Constitutional Power Grab

While Islamisation grips the military’s ideology, Munir has been consolidating power through lawfare.

Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment, approved by both Houses of Parliament, establishes a Unified Command structure across the three services. The amendment erases the traditional balance of power between the President, civilian government, and the military — effectively placing the entire defence apparatus under Munir’s command.

He will now transition from Army Chief to Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) — a new, permanent post carrying the lifelong title of Field Marshal, previously absent from Pakistan’s Constitution.

“The nation has declared Asim Munir a hero following the war with India,” Pakistan’s Deputy PM Ishaq Dar declared, as opposition parties protested the move.

A Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is also being set up — curbing the powers of the Supreme Court, long seen as the last institutional check on the army.

As one legal expert in Karachi wrote in Dawn, “What Zia-ul-Haq dreamt of and Pervez Musharraf failed to achieve, Asim Munir has constitutionalised.”

A Faith-Driven Commander

Unlike his Sandhurst-trained predecessors known for Western lifestyles, Munir projects himself as a pious, Quranic leader.

In a 2024 address, he accused India’s “Hindutva ideology” of spreading hatred globally. Earlier this year, he described the “fundamental divide between Hindus and Muslims” as Pakistan’s founding principle — rhetoric followed by a massacre in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, where Pakistan-backed terrorists killed 26 civilians after separating them by religion.

Munir’s dog-whistling of religious nationalism has turned faith into both policy and propaganda — a direct continuation of Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation but with far deeper institutional reach.

The 7th-Century Script: Fitna and Khawarij

The transformation is not just linguistic. It’s ideological engineering grounded in early Islamic history.

• Fitna, in Arabic, means internal discord — first used to describe the civil wars following the assassination of Caliph Uthman in 656 CE.

• Khawarij refers to the rebels who split from Caliph Ali’s forces, later assassinating him in 661 CE for what they saw as betrayal of divine justice.

By co-opting these terms, Munir equates modern rebels — from the TTP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Baloch nationalists — with heretics and traitors to Islam.

In August 2024, the ISPR formally branded the TTP as Fitna al-Khawarij. By May 2025, it extended this theology of enemies to label Baloch insurgents as Fitna al-Hindustan, blaming India for all internal dissent.

“Munir is fighting a war of myths,” said a former Pakistani diplomat. “He has turned political opposition and ethnic resistance into divine rebellion.”

Why Faith Suits Pakistan’s Power Equation

Munir’s strategy isn’t only spiritual — it’s strategic.

By invoking fitna and khawarij, he casts dissent as sin, criminalising opposition under religious pretext. The army becomes the “mujahid” — and its critics, “infidels.”

This framework helps Pakistan:

• Suppress insurgencies under the banner of Islamic unity.

• Appease Gulf patrons by posing as a defender of the faith.

• Deflect accountability, blaming India and “internal apostasy” for every crisis.

For Munir, faith is not a personal compass — it’s a political shield.

From Zia’s Legacy to a Nuclear Threat

If General Zia-ul-Haq laid the foundations of an Islamic state in the 1980s, Munir appears to be its completion architect.

Pakistan’s military has long weaponised jihad through proxies — from Kargil to Kandahar — but under Munir, the line between soldier and jihadi has blurred.

The danger is amplified by Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, estimated at 165 warheads, which now sits under an increasingly theocratic command.

The world has reason to worry: the father of current ISPR chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, once met Osama bin Laden and offered nuclear know-how to al-Qaeda.

Global and Regional Fallout

Munir’s power surge has unsettled both Afghanistan and the West. Kabul’s TOLO News recently reported that “Pakistan’s army empowerment plan casts a shadow on bilateral relations.” The Taliban, facing airstrikes in Khost and Paktika, blames Rawalpindi for derailing regional peace.

Meanwhile, Munir’s growing proximity to former US President Donald Trump signals that Washington, despite its concerns, continues to court Pakistan’s generals — not its civilians.

For India, the implications are severe. Munir’s Islamisation project strengthens Pakistan’s proxy warfare narrative and deepens its anti-India identity, while eroding any space for civilian dialogue or democratic restraint.

“Pakistan under Munir is a nuclear-armed theocracy in uniform,” said a retired Indian intelligence official. “He has taken Zia’s Islamisation and fused it with constitutional authority.”

The 7th-Century Vision in a Nuclear Age

General Asim Munir’s rise marks a historic rupture in Pakistan’s evolution — from a military state to an Islamic garrison.

The creation of a Field Marshal for life, the sanctification of internal wars as jihad, and the rewriting of constitutional power have transformed Pakistan’s army from a political actor into an ideological crusade.

The shift is not backward-looking — it’s regressive by design, rooting modern warfare in 7th-century theology.

And as Pakistan’s neighbours and allies look on, one thing is clear:
Asim Munir is not just leading the army — he’s redefining what Pakistan itself stands for.