Pakistani society, with its multiple Muslim denominations and orientations and small non-Muslim communities, is seeing unprecedented levels of aggression towards religious and sectarian targets. Amidst the immediate shock-waves created by these (often) spectacular attacks, less attention is given to their longer-term ideational underpinnings and consequently, even less to potential ideational counter-forces. In a context where multiple discourses about what it means to be a ‘true’ Muslim, jostle for ascendency, and the dominant impulse tends towards denouncing all ‘others’ as abhorrent, this paper analyses contemporary Muslim discourses that advocate alternative, more embracing, conceptualisations of difference in a heterogeneous societal reality. I trace two prominent movements in Pakistan: the 'moderate' Sunni scholar, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and his Al-Mawrid school, and the successful Sufi music initiative, Coke Studio Pakistan. I examine how these actors interpret and seek to disrupt the dominant notion that ‘there can be only one Islam’. A different epistemological approach to religious understanding attempts to 'reason with' the religious and sectarian other. And a Sufi inspired 'love, peace, harmony' musical discourse hides complex layers of meaning.
