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Wafaqul Madaris asks seminaries to refuse govt grants
The Deobandi seminariesâ examination board âWafaq-ul-Madariss Al-Arabiaâ (WMA) directed seminaries under its control not to accept government grants otherwise their affiliation with the WMA would be cancelled.
| "Touch that government dough and you, too, will become a Prestigious Unaccredited Universityâ¢." Guess they can offer degrees by e-mail then... |
This decision was taken at a WMA executive council meeting in Multan on October16 at Jamia Khairul Madaris, presided over by Maulana Hanif Jhalendri, WMA president. Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman attended the meeting as a special guest. 200 religious scholars from all over the country attended. âThe Wafaq will follow this decision strictly because the government is providing conditional grants to seminaries and this money is provided by America and other Western countries to secularise seminaries,â Mr Jhalendri told Daily Times on Thursday. In the Punjab, more than a thousand seminaries receive government grants.
| Oh, no, Mr. Bill! Not... ummm... secular seminaries? Isn't that a contradition in terms? |
The WMA also decided to include English, Math, Science and Social Studies in the syllabus up to matric. There have been other changes in the higher classesâ syllabus, especially in Tafsher, Hadith and Fiqa subjects to remove Shia scholarâs views from the syllabus.
| Wouldn't want to have that sort of contamination. Don't know how they got in there in the first place... |
The WMA is considered the largest seminary examination board and 7,044 seminaries are affiliated with it, out of which 2,655 are in the Punjab, 2,457 in Sindh, 405 in the NWFP, 394 in Balochistan and 33 in Azad Kashmir. In the 2002-2003 session, 120,000 students appeared for various levels of examinations.
| That's a lot of Islamic automatons... |
The Education Ministry also earmarked $600 million for seminary reforms and only those that register with the ministry and adopt the government-recommended syllabus are given financial assistance, computers and modern laboratories. Mr Jhalendri said the WMA was already teaching English and Math etc and didnât need the government to tell it what to do so that the government could justify controlling seminaries with its money. He said once a seminary accepted a government grant, it would be constrained to accept government restrictions.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-10-24 |
