Why, how, and under what conditions do religious television shows transform orthodox structures of Islamic authority? Through a multi-dimensional analysis grounded in a study of religious show production, doctrinal negotiations, emerging religious figures, and viewer reception, Religious Television and Pious Authority in Pakistan offers a novel framework for understanding the reconfiguration of religious knowledge and authority in contemporary Muslim societies. Focusing on Pakistan’s post-9/11 media ecosystem, Taha Kazi works with diverse primary source data gathered through extensive ethnographic research in Karachi, making her analysis empirically rich. Using the nation’s religious television landscape as her site of study, Kazi employs a sophisticated approach that includes participant observation of television production, interviews with religious scholars and television personalities, and in-depth conversations with viewers across socioeconomic strata. In doing so, Kazi has distinguished herself as a leading scholar of religious broadcasting culture in South Asia. 

Kazi’s methodological technique to studying Islamic television in Pakistan is thoughtful and well-structured. Instead of limiting her research to a particular locality or directionality, as is often the case with anthropological studies, she employs a broader media/audience analysis that encompasses diverse perspectives on Islam’s public presence in contemporary Pakistan. Through careful ethnography, Kazi reveals how satellite television channels—rather than conventional madrasas or mosques—have become the main platforms for negotiating doctrinal legitimacy, moral leadership, and public piety. The book’s fundamental argument is that the commercialization of religious media has spawned a new class of commercially produced muftis whose authority originates from convincing screen presence rather than traditional clerical training. By analysing programming techniques across the key denominations, Kazi shows how televised Islam mediates between Pakistan’s contending sectarian identities while simultaneously fostering both religious homogenistion and sectarian polarisation.

Through detailed ethnographic research, Kazi examines how religious television has fundamentally altered the structures of religious knowledge production and dissemination in contemporary Pakistan. Her primary claim is that the nation’s pluralistic religious television environment disrupts traditional religious authority by challenging the madrasa’s historical monopoly over religious knowledge transmission. Building on Talal Asad’s (2009) concept of Islam as a “discursive tradition,” she explains how televangelists like Aamir Liaquat Husain reconstruct classical fiqh (‘jurisprudence’) through market-driven interests to urban middle-class values. The book contrasts with Saba Mahmood’s (2011) piety-centered ethnography by demonstrating how financial imperatives divide united Islamic doctrine into competing “sectarian brands,” with hosts altering doctrinal views to maximise audience.

Outside of her own previous work (Kazi 2016, 2018), television broadcasting in Pakistan had previously received limited academic attention, especially in the context of its relationship to the cultural politics of Islam (Bilal 2018; Vasudevan et al. 2019). Valuable for the detailed insight they have brought to the religious dynamics present in Pakistan’s television, these studies have not placed religious television in a comparative perspective that considers traditional and emerging forms of religious authority. Kazi’s research broadens the scope significantly. By examining both television production and reception, Kazi helps us think about the relationship between institutional arrangements, doctrinal identities, and interpretive approaches.

The book consists of seven impressive empirical chapters that detail how religious television transforms structures of religious knowledge and authority. The first chapter provides a history of such broadcasting in the country, from the administrations of Ayub Khan (1958-1969) to Pervez Musharraf (2001-2008), looking at the implications these authority figures have on public discourse. For instance, Kazi explains how the history of Pakistani religious broadcasting culminated in General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation strategy (1977–1988), which transformed state-owned PTV into a vehicle for political-religious propaganda. Zia institutionalised Quranic recitations, mandated clerical appearances, and restricted entertainment deemed un-Islamic, including dance sequences and mixed-gender encounters, while promoting Deobandi interpretations that fitted with his association with the Jamā’at-i-Islamī. What is interesting to observe is how Kazi contextualises the infamous Skylab incident of 1979 as a defining moment in Pakistani television history, when PTV’s apocalyptic coverage of NASA’s falling satellite heightened religious sentiment in ways that benefited General Zia’s Islamisation agenda.

The next chapter focuses on the production dynamics of religious television, examining how editorial control operates through mechanisms like topic selection, scholar curation, contractual obligations, and broadcast decisions. It provides a deeply helpful insight into the production dynamics of religious television, particularly a popular show called Aalim Online (‘Islamic Scholar Online’). Kazi details how editorial control operates through mechanisms like topic selection, scholar curation, contractual obligations, and broadcast decisions. Despite the many production and political constraints placed on them, Kazi approaches the subject of how religious scholars navigate this arena thoughtfully, considering the overall power structure. She suggests that these are complex negotiations between religious authenticity and commercial imperatives rather than simple censorship. She demonstrates how the multifaceted programming considered religious television originated not for theological reasons but rather from business calculations aimed at maximising audience and advertising income. The overall picture that emerges is one of a multifaceted production network that pulls together interrelated activities to create religious content that serves several goals, including state campaigns against extremism while sustaining viewer interest. In this context, religious scholars must navigate financial imperatives that may collide with their doctrinal sensibilities, creating a position where researchers must differentiate themselves without directly criticising competitors in order to maintain their celebrity capital. This section of the book is particularly important for highlighting the intricate relationships of interdependence characterising religious show production, where multiple stakeholders,– including channel owners, religious hosts, international sponsors, and production teams– negotiate competing interests.

In Chapter 3 Kazi examines how different Islamic schools, namely the Shiʿa Ithna Ashari, Sunni Barelwi, Sunni Deobandi, and Sunni Ahl-i Hadīth religious groups, handle the limits of television’s pluralistic framework. Rather than regurgitating arguments about sectarian conflicts, she aims to present a nuanced analysis of how these different scholars approach television shows. She tells us that while Deobandi scholars often avoid television due to concerns about prohibited images, prominent figures like Muftī Rafi Uthmani occasionally appear on TV during Ramadan, suggesting pragmatic compromises despite doctrinal reservations. A valuable example highlights this tension: the battle of fatāwā (‘battle of Islamic edict’) between Deobandi and Barelwi scholars over television’s Islamic permissibility reveals how religious authority is being reconstructed through technical interpretations rather than textual exegesis alone.

Chapter 4 investigates how religious television disrupts the madrasa’s historical grip over religious knowledge transmission by offering viewers convenient alternatives to formal religious education. Television scholars are typically viewed as more ‘moderate’ and accessible compared to madrasa-based scholars, utilising rationalist approaches to religious interpretation that appeal to middle and upper-class Pakistani viewers. Critical to Kazi’s overall argument is the formation of new religious leaders, discussed in Chapter 5. She provides insightful analysis of self-styled scholars like Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and television hosts like Aamir Liaquat Husain, who derive authority exclusively from television appearances rather than formal religious credentials. What is quite interesting to observe is how traditional scholars attempt to delegitimise these new authorities by emphasising the concept of mustanid ‘ālim (‘authentic religious scholar’). This reflects broader contradictions between existing and emergent systems of religious knowledge transmission. Kazi contextualises this resistance within broader concerns about maintaining institutional religious authority rather than theological differences.

Chapters 6 and 7 shift the focus to audience reception, studying how ordinary Pakistanis acquire new criteria for appraising religious authority and participate in critical discourse about religious subjects. Chapter 6 looks at viewer responses to religious television, and the remaining chapter lays out how ordinary Pakistanis develop new criteria for assessing religious authority. Kazi works to unpack how diverse Karachi viewers demonstrate the means by which tolerance, relatability, and celebrity status increasingly overcome traditional indicators of religious expertise. Many viewers voiced fear about religious pluralism on television, mirroring broader concerns about the potential of pluralism to disrupt established ideals of ‘pure’ Islam. These reactions reflect types of Muslim religiosity that involve ongoing negotiation between established piety norms and ordinary realities.

In the final chapter, Kazi delves into how such programming promotes a strategic conveniency when it comes to interpretations of Islamic laws. Many viewers, particularly women, selectively embrace lenient decisions to rationalise non-adoption of traditional behaviors, believing some aspects of piety ‘superficial.’ Kazi’s descriptions suggest that these viewers bring specific sensibilities to their engagement: they are concerned about questions of gender equity if not equality, and there is an interest in exploring the potential for alternative readings while retaining a link to tradition, however it may be defined.

Through careful examination of commercialisation’s structural impacts, audience agency’s contradictory nature and methodological innovation, Kazi establishes new analytical frameworks for studying religious media. By reframing mediated Islam as simultaneously democratising and fragmenting, Kazi offers scholars a more sophisticated lens through which to understand the complex relationship between media, religion, and society in contemporary Pakistan. Undoubtedly, the ways in which Pakistanis engage with religious ideas on television, the institutional forms within which they do so, the class-based concerns that different programs speak to, and the implications of changes within religious authority are hugely important domains of research. In this impressive academic endeavor, Kazi studies the intersections of media, religion, and authority, making a critical contribution across disciplines, especially religious studies, media studies, and anthropology. Through its investigation of how religious television transforms structures of religious knowledge in strategic and relational ways, Kazi argues for the need to consider both technological impacts and socio-political contexts in examining religious transformation.

Above all, her scholarship makes an exciting and timely contribution to our understanding of contemporary Pakistani religious life, where traditional boundaries of legitimate Islamic reasoning are increasingly challenged by new media formats and emerging forms of religious authority. Relatedly, it would have been interesting to get a clearer perspective on how the constitution of such religious authority is defined. Likewise, in the era of social media platforms, an examination considering how such platforms and their “internet muftis” interact with religious knowledge production on television media would be a ripe area for future research. Nevertheless, the book provides a detailed insight into the complex negotiations between religious authenticity and commercial imperatives in this new media environment. Kazi alerts us to these concerns in her lucid and engaging book, and in doing so provides a solid base for future scholarship.

References:
Asad, Talal. 2009. “The idea of an anthropology of Islam.” Qui parle 17 (2):1-30
Bilal, Muhammad. 2018. “Television Entertainment.” Anthropos (H. 2):423-436
Kazi, Taha. 2016. “The changing dynamics of religious authority on Pakistani religious television.” Culture and religion 17 (4):468-485
Kazi, Taha. 2018. “Religious television and contesting piety in Karachi, Pakistan.” American Anthropologist 120 (3):523-534
Mahmood, Saba. 2011. Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject: Princeton University Press
Vasudevan, Ravi, Rosie Thomas, S. V. Srinivas, Kartik Nair, Debashree Mukherjee, Lotte Hoek, and Salma Siddique. 2019. “Televisual Pakistan.” BioScope 10 (2):105-110. doi: 10.1177/0974927620903203

© Bloomsbury Pakistan 2025