ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The cleric, Muhammad Khalid Chishti, spoke with a self-righteous rage, leading Friday Prayer in this tense neighborhood and insisting that he would never back down in demanding a harsh punishment for a Christian girl accused of burning pages of a religious text.

“I can be chopped into pieces, but I will not bow,” Mr. Chishti said in a strong, emotional voice to a gathering of like-minded local residents. “My self-respect and my life is for the Koran. I will fight for it till my last breath.”

Here in Mehr Jaffer, a slum also known as Mehr Abadi, on the outskirts of this city, the Muslim majority lived peacefully beside a Christian minority for years, in a neighborhood where people focused on matters of sustenance, of getting through their days. Homes do not have natural gas for cooking, and the stink of sewage fills the air. Now this community finds itself in a global spotlight that has focused attention on Pakistan’s rigid blasphemy laws and its diminished ability to protect religious minorities.

Rimsha Masih, the girl at the center of this conflict, remained in jail on Friday. Ms. Masih had been imprisoned last month after Mr. Chishti charged that she burned pages of the Noorani Qaida, a religious book used to teach the Koran to children.