New Delhi: Pakistan’s on-again, off-again relationship with TikTok appears to be on the rocks again. Religious scholars from the Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia in Banuri town near Karachi have issued a fatwa declaring TikTok as “haram” or prohibited under Sharia law.
The move hasn’t gone down well with Pakistani influencers who have made a name for themselves and amassed millions of followers on TikTok. Criticising the religious scholars for their ‘biased priorities’ on societal issues, one user on X (formerly Twitter) wrote, “Jamia Binoria has time to declare TikTok haram but couldn’t find time to issue a fatwa against the culprits raping children in mosques, raping women, and honor killing them. They are just using religion for their own gain, nothing more.”
The scholars criticised TikTok for its permissive content and allowing the streaming of what they said were inappropriate videos of women, participating in sin motivated by fame and financial gain. The fatwa condemned the use of music, singing, and dancing in the app, calling out the content creators for spreading indecency and inappropriate humour in Pakistan.
Incidentally, the religious scholars had also issued a fatwa against the popular mobile game PUBG, claiming that its content insults Islam and turns players violent.
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The career-building platform
TikTok has had an uneasy relationship with Pakistan’s authorities. Between October 2020 and September 2021, Islamabad authorities temporarily banned TikTok at least four times over concerns of immoral content. Since its launch in 2019, TikTok in Pakistan has had roughly 20 million active monthly users, making up 10 per cent of the country’s population. The latest ban was lifted in November 2021 after the platform assured Pakistan’s telecom regulator that it would control “immoral and indecent” content.
TikTok is a powerful platform in Pakistan, having launched the careers of several influencers such as Jannat Mirza, who has nearly 24 million followers and claims to have received offers for roles in two major Pakistani TV serials. “I was in Japan at that time and they told me that I would have to come to [Pakistan] for the audition. I still regret it and I wish I was in Pakistan at that time,” she had said.
Transgender celebrity Mehak Malik has 10 million TikTok followers, and also gained immense fame on the platform through her lip-syncs of famous comedians and singing duets.
Former prime minister Imran Khan has also criticised TikTok in the past for promoting “obscenity and vulgarity.” But he too succumbed to its popularity and joined the platform in July. According to reports, he gained five million followers in just three days. His presence comes as no surprise—TikTok is emerging as the newest battleground for political warfare in Pakistan.
“It has silently become a forum for serious debate on some of the most contentious issues of our times,” writes Abdul Moiz Malik in Dawn. According to the report, only two parties, the PTI and the PML-N, have official TikTok accounts.
“With the spurt of political content on TikTok, the scrutiny surrounding the platform increased.” Tik Tok removed more than 14 million videos in Pakistan in 2023.