"Just as in Egypt, the rise of Islam as a political force and a social trend in Pakistan was not the result of one moment, or even the work of one person—it was a slow build that came in waves and ebbed and flowed. It was sometimes bolstered by weak leaders who used the Islamists to shore up their own legitimacy, like Sadat in Egypt, or even secular, socialist Bhutto, who first introduced the ban on alcohol and instituted Friday as the weekly holiday instead of Sunday. In both Egypt and Pakistan, leaders used religion as a balm after the national trauma of a military defeat. For Pakistan it was the 1971 loss of East Pakistan, today’s Bangladesh. And just as in Egypt before the assassination of Sadat, the relentless work of Islamists in Pakistan had not yet delivered a sea change—they toiled on the margins, and they converted people to their cause one by one. Even when Zia spoke, in the spring of 1978, about his mission to purify the country, Pakistani society was far from being gripped by Islamic fervor. For this to happen it required the incredibly powerful, violent, and moneyed convergence of a number of people and events: Mawdudi’s groundwork over decades, Zia’s rise to power and brutal rule, but also the generous support of Saudi Arabia."