Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan

Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JIP; Urdu: جماعت اسلامی پاکستان, romanized: Jamāt-e-Islāmī Pākistān) is a Pakistani Islamist political party. It is the Pakistani successor to Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in British India in 1941. JIP is a "vanguard party", whose members are intended to be leaders spreading party beliefs and influence. JIP members are sometimes called Rafīq (meaning comrade in Arabic). Supporters not thought qualified to be members may become "affiliates", and beneath them are "sympathisers". The party leader is called an "Ameer". Although it does not have a large popular following, the party is quite influential and considered one of the major Islamic movements in Pakistan, along with Deobandi and Barelvi (represented by Jamiat Ulema-e Islam political party and Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan party respectively).

Jamaat-e-Islami was founded in Islamia Park, Lahore, British India in 1941 by the Muslim theologian and socio-political philosopher, Abul A'la Maududi. At the time of the Indian independence movement, Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami actively worked to oppose the partition of India. In 1947, following the partition of India, the Jamaat split into two organisations, Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (the Indian wing). Other wings of Jamaat include Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir, founded in 1953, Jamaat-e-Islami Azad Kashmir founded in 1974, and most notably Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, founded in 1979, which remains the country's main opposition party.

Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan came under severe government repression in 1948, 1953, and 1963. During the early years of the regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Jamaat-e-Islami's position improved and it became seen as the "regime's ideological and political arm", with party members at times holding cabinet portfolios of information and broadcasting, production, and water, power and natural resources.

In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, JIP opposed the independence of Bangladesh. However, in 1979, it established Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami with Abbas Ali Khan as the first ameer. Since the early 1980s, it has also developed close links with Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir and acted as the vanguard of the armed insurgency in that province.