With the Pakistan government approving a US$100 million program to reform about 8,000 religious schools, or madrassas, by introducing subjects taught at normal schools, the spotlight once again falls on the seminaries, and twin accusations that they turn out radical Islamic students and draw funds from charities associated with terrorism.
| "Mere accusations! Pure calumny, by people who're jealous of the perfection of our Islamic system..." |
Pakistan’s executive committee of the National Economic Council approved the funding "to bridge the gap between formal and madrassa education", according to Finance Minister Shuakat Aziz. Aziz said that formal education would be introduced in 8,000 private seminaries and that the government would provide them with grants, salaries for teachers, the cost of text books, teacher training and equipment. Under the new madrassa program, formal subjects including English, mathematics, social studies and general science would be introduced from primary to secondary levels, while English, economics, Pakistani studies and computer science would be introduced at high school level, Aziz said. Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has for some time campaigned for the reform of the religious schools. But the campaign largely failed after madrassa leaders and Islamist organizations went ballistic rejected government legislation requiring the schools to register and broaden their curricula beyond rote Koranic learning.
Once you've memorized the Koran you're ready to tote a gun and die for Qazi Sami Fazl Allah. What do you need that other stuff for? |
Under the madrassa reform program, a special committee will be constituted, headed by a government functionary, which will oversee and look after education, financial matters and policies. The program was drafted on the advice of the United States government, which has also advised other Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia. According to a senior official in Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, US authorities are concerned that private Islamic charities finance the madrassas, where, according to them, radical Wahhabi theology is taught promoting militancy and jihadi sentiment among Muslim youth. Certainly, many of the Taliban who took control of Afghanistan in 1996 had emerged from Pakistan’s madrassas. In an attempt to break this nexus, the US government initially targeted the charities, and a number of prominent ones were banned, including the al-Rasheed Trust of Pakistan, the al-Akhtar Trust (Pakistan) and the al-Haramain Foundation, a world-wide Islamic body based in Saudi Arabia.
| Another of those unheralded major campaigns in the war on terror... |
When these bans did not prove effective in bringing the madrassas under control, after detailed discussions with the leadership of different Muslim countries, US authorities decided that it would be better for the local government’s role in the Islamic institutes to be made stronger. Under this idea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are the first two countries to take concrete steps in this direction. Change will not come without still resistance, though. The Islamic institutes believe that in the entire Muslim history, they have always remained free from government intervention and have functioned independently. Muslim charities, the main component of Islamic economics, have been the financial source for the institutions, never government funding. The institutions argue that it is this financial and political freedom that has allowed them to keep Islam’s jurisprudence free from the whims of political rulers.
| And subject to the whims of whatever holy man happened to be on top... |
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