From the outset, Pakistan has infused its nuclear ambitions with religious imagery. In 1965, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto asked Pakistanis to sacrifice and “eat leaves and grass,” if need be, to enable Pakistan to construct an atomic bomb, stating, “There’s a Hindu bomb, a Jewish bomb, and a Christian bomb. There must be an Islamic bomb.” This rhetoric established the tone, as Pakistani leaders presented the country’s nuclear program as an issue of national and Islamic pride.
The state commemorated the 1998 nuclear tests as a national holiday, Youm-e-Takbir [Day of Greatness], and justified the tests as the “divine sanctioning of a moral event,” invoking Takbir [praising God] specifically. Effectively, they present the bomb not simply as technology but as a gift from God.
Religious leaders view nuclear power as central to the Islamic cause.
Islamist clerics have bought into this reasoning. Religious leaders view nuclear power as central to the Islamic cause. For example, in 2008, Tahir Ashrafi, chairman of the All Pakistan Ulema Council, said that Muslim lands under occupation without an atomic bomb will have to rely on martyrdom instead. Alluding to jihad, he explained, “If the Muslims don’t have the atomic bomb, they should sacrifice themselves for the sake of God.” Taliban sympathizers use similar language. One Pakistani Talib explained that “suicide bombers are the atomic bomb of Muslims, because Muslims do not have the modern weapons.” Clerical and jihadi discourse links the religious sacrifice of martyrdom with Pakistan’s nuclear capability. These statements serve as both the religious legitimacy of the conflict at hand and further glorify militancy as representing a heritage of the “Islamic bomb.”
More widely, Pakistan’s clerical establishment tends to synthesize the country’s nuclear identity with religion. School texts and sermons equate the bomb with Pakistan’s fate, describing it as a divine promise of protection. Pakistani politicians invoke religious cues to add vigor for internal audiences. These cues create credibility by representing nuclear weapons as sacred commitments. Clerical rhetoric presents possession of nuclear weapons as an article of faith, with the bomb itself worshiped with Quranic zeal.
Terrorist groups take advantage of the religious framework for their own propaganda and legitimacy efforts. According to analysts, organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan increase credibility with the nuclear context. The groups recruit and legitimize their narratives by coopting Youm-e-Takbir for marches, in which they chant anti-India slogans pledging to liberate Kashmir as part of an “Islamic mission.” These demonstrations demonstrate the increasingly visible connection fronted by the militants and the state, both celebrating nuclear weapons.
By embracing the “Islamic bomb,” militants frame their insurgencies as God’s defense of the nation.
Some extremists go further in threatening the use of nuclear weapons as an Islamic obligation. Pakistan employs Islamic nomenclature for its missiles to integrate religious references and historical legends of conquest. Pakistan names its missiles after Haft, the Prophet Mohammad’s sword, and Ra’ad [Thunder], the Qu’ran’s thirteenth chapter. Later choices like Ababeel [a miraculous bird that offers divine protection] signal an evolving strategic posture through spiritual analogy. A nation-state’s policy may limit the use of a bomb to the state’s authority and control, but some groups, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar, use propaganda to suggest that Islamic values call for decisiveness.
By embracing the “Islamic bomb,” militants frame their insurgencies as God’s defense of the nation. They reference Quranic verses discussing divine justice or historical fighting to rationalize the bomb as not just a deterrent but also as a killing instrument established by the faith for final retribution. When they make this argument, nuclear weapons turn into representations of sacred power, which fuels both militant rhetoric and recruitment.
U.S. and Indian policymakers must recognize the true threat that Pakistan and other countries’ religious framing of conflicts pose while, at a minimum, they must invest in moderate clerics and civil society leaders to expose and neutralize not only militant networks, but the states that promote them.
