It is not every day that I get a letter from the Death Cell, Central
Jail, Rawalpindi in Pakistan. As any Pakistani would be, I was aware
that Central Jail was where the country's most popular democratic
leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was executed more than two decades ago.

The letter was dated April 15 and addressed to me and to a Pakistani
colleague here in Washington. Written in a clear and neat hand, the
sender's name made me sit up: Mohammad Younas Sheikh, who teaches at
the homeopathic medical college in Islamabad. He is one of perhaps
dozens of educators accused by their students of a crime that doesn't
exist in many countries: blasphemy. Sheikh has been convicted and
awaits execution, which is mandatory under the blasphemy law. Many
other Pakistanis, particularly minorities, also have been charged.
These cases offer an alarming glimpse into the machinery of state
under Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Washington's
partner in the "war on terror."

Sheikh's problems began in October 2000 when he made some innocuous
remarks about the origins of Islam. Muslims believe that the Koran
came to the prophet Muhammad as a revelation when he was 40. In
response to a student's question, Sheikh said that before he was 40,
Muhammad was neither a prophet nor a Muslim, as there was no Islam.
For those Muslims who believe his prophethood was divinely
preordained, this was blasphemous. The students took the matter to
some local mullahs, who in their role as religious leaders registered
a case with the police. Matters then moved rapidly and, as in such
cases, with a certain inexorability.

But Sheikh was not ridiculing or rejecting the prophet. On the
contrary, like many Muslims grappling with issues of modernity, he
raised questions of interpretation. Although partly educated in
Ireland, Sheikh was born and raised in Pakistan and is a devout
Muslim who has said that one of the books that most inspires him is
the Koran. He is the founder of the Enlightenment, a society of
like-minded Pakistanis who discuss Islam in a modern context. His
father is recognized as having memorized the Koran.

In his letter, Sheikh called the blasphemy law "wide open to abuse,
through and by the miscreant mullahs for political, repressive and
vindictive purposes. . . ." The law's abuse is part of "a rising wave
of aggressive ignorance, incivility and intolerance as well as the
medieval theocratic darkness," he wrote. I must say I agree.

His trial was held in closed session, inside the Central Jail. "Even
my solicitors were harassed with a fatwa of apostasy and they were
threatened with the lives of their children," he wrote. He asked us
to bring the case to the notice of Musharraf so that the president
could "repeal this notorious and fascist blasphemy law."

By writing this, I do indeed hope to focus attention on the law. In
the meantime, I am aware that by raising the issue I become a bit
player in the drama.

Several Pakistani friends have warned me to say nothing about this
out of concern for my safety. Anyone who questions the blasphemy
law's power may be seen as challenging Islam -- and therefore suspect
under the very law he or she questions. But as a Sunni Muslim from a
mainstream, orthodox family, I feel compelled to speak, in part
because of the emphasis that Islam places on peace and compassion.
And as a former governmental administrator in my native country, I
know how intimidating majority views can be for religious minorities.
About 95 percent of Pakistan's 145 million people are Muslims.

In the 1970s and '80s, when I was a district officer in charge of law
and order in two Pakistani provinces, a reform of the nation's legal
and administrative system was long overdue. Those who turned to the
law for recourse found themselves involved in exhausting and
expensive cases that could last decades. Individuals had few rights,
and the system favored the rich and powerful. There was a disastrous
mismatch between aspects of the remnants of British colonial law and
the contemporary needs of society.

Then, as now, there are four distinct sets of laws that sometimes
overlap: British colonial law, which by and large was the basis in
1947 for Pakistan's penal code and criminal procedure code; Islamic
sharia law; tribal law, which applies to certain areas of the
country; and state law, which is codified by each state's local
ruler. The application of the law has never been fully resolved.

Amid this confusion, Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, as president, added
new laws to the penal code, including 295-B in 1982, which made
desecrating the Koran or making a derogatory remark about it
punishable by life imprisonment -- though, in yet a further nod
toward confusion, judges sometimes reduce the term. Two years ago,
for instance, Naseem Ghani and Mohammed Shafiq were sentenced to
seven years for allegedly burning a Koran.

In 1984 came the 295-C clause, usually referred to as the blasphemy
law. It rather sweepingly stipulates that "derogatory remarks, etc.,
in respect of the Holy Prophet . . . either spoken or written, or by
visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or
insinuation, directly or indirectly . . . shall be punished with
death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."
Six years later, the stakes were raised when the Federal Sharia
Court, where cases having to do with Islamic issues tend to be heard,
ruled, "The penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet . . . is death
and nothing else."

In the application of the blasphemy law, intolerance has fed on
intolerance. So far, none of the convicted has been executed, in part
because scheduling an execution can take years. But lynch mobs have
killed several of the accused.

Over the years I began to see the blasphemy law used more and more
for cases of political vendetta, land disputes or political rivalry.
The law became a way to challenge someone's identity, a powerful tool
to intimidate anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim.

The targets of this law have largely been minorities, such as members
of the Ahmadi sect (who consider themselves Muslims) and Christians,
though the latest anecdotal evidence suggests that the pendulum is
now swinging toward Muslims. In the past decade or so, perhaps 2,000
Ahmadis have been charged under the blasphemy law, according to that
community. The Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims by Prime Minister
Bhutto in 1974. Ten years later, they were denied the right to
practice their faith.

The Pakistani government says it does not have exact figures for the
number of people charged under the blasphemy law. But the State
Department report, "International Religious Freedom 2001," offers
some clues. Over the past three or four years, 55 to 60 Christians a
year have been charged. That figure probably hasn't changed much
since the law was enacted. And as evidence of that possible shift in
who is targeted, the report says that three-quarters of those on
trial for blasphemy in 2001 were Muslims.

Bail is usually denied for those charged with blasphemy. Trials are
expensive and can last for years. Worse: They can take years to
begin.For example, Riaz Ahmad, his son and two nephews, all Ahmadis,
have been imprisoned since their arrest in November 1993. They were
detained on the vague allegation that they had "said something
derogatory." Local people in Piplan, Mianwali District, say that
rivalry over Ahmad's position as village headman is the real
motivation for the complaint against him. Their trial has yet to
begin.

Anwar Masih, a Christian from Samundri in Punjab, has been in
detention since February 1993 when a Muslim shopkeeper alleged that
Masih insulted the prophet during an argument over money.

Roman Catholic Bishop John Joseph, a Pakistani human rights
campaigner, had been leading a campaign against the blasphemy law and
said he felt he was getting nowhere when he took his own life on May
6, 1998. He had failed to find a lawyer willing to take the case of
convicted blasphemer Ayub Massih, a Christian.Massih's family had
applied to a government program that gives housing plots to landless
people. The local landlords, who brought the allegations against him,
resented this because landless Christians work in their fields in
exchange for a place to live. By getting a plot of land Massih would
have escaped his bondage.

"Most of these cases," concludes Amnesty International in its latest
report on Pakistan, "are motivated not by the blasphemous actions of
the accused, but by hostility toward members of minority communities,
compounded by personal enmity, professional jealousy or economic
rivalry."

The bishop's suicide put international pressure on Pakistan's rulers.
Benazir Bhutto, who was then prime minister, approved two amendments
to the penal code designed to reduce the abuses of Section 295. The
number of arrests has dropped, but the law remains intact. When
Musharraf seized power in October 1999, he talked about wanting to
move Pakistan toward progress and tolerance. He suggested mild
changes to the blasphemy law in April 2000, but withdrew them under
pressure from religious elements the following month. That is where
the matter rests.

Musharraf recently ratified his presidency for five more years with
his "landslide victory" in a widely questioned referendum. Both
commander in chief of the army and president, he is the most powerful
man in Pakistan. He can cause meaningful change. Islam expects the
ruler to show high moral authority, but no ruler has dared to
reexamine the blasphemy law in the light of Islamic law itself.
Musharraf should consider the Koranic verse that says, "There is no
compulsion in religion."

If he is to move his country toward the tolerant and modern Muslim
nation envisioned by Pakistan's founder, Musharraf must begin by
taking this important first step: reopening the case of Sheikh and
other alleged blasphemers who await death and showing the justice,
compassion and mercy that Islam requires.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and professor
of international relations at American University and the author,
most recently, of "Islam Today: A Short Introduction to the Muslim
World" (I.B. Tauris).