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Magazine
SOCIETY
Politics of learning
KAREN YAP LIH HUEY
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Efforts to reform the madrasas in Pakistan are proving expensive and time-consuming. But there are no real long-term alternatives to peace.
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Jamia Ashrafia, one of the largest madrasas in Punjab (Pakistan), used to get bus loads of foreign students, eager to pursue Islamic studies. “Europeans, Arabs, Africans, Americans, Asians … they were all here. Those we
re the good days. The madrasa was like an international centre of culture,” recalls Mdhaffar Suleiman Madinga, a Ugandan who works at the madrasa’s registrar office.
The foreign students at Jamia Ashrafia, however, started to leave soon after 9/11 and when President Pervez Musharraf became America’s ally in the fight against terror. Among others, he pledged to prevent any mosques or madrasas being used by terrorists.
Attempts to reform the madrasas and to bring them to the mainstream have been a slow and costly affair. The deadly raids on Lal Masjid and its madrasa in Islamabad by government troops in July to wrestle it away from militants became the focal point of Musharraf’s inability or unwillingness to reform radical madrasas, where clerics encourage militancy and intolerance.
It is a step-back from the madrasa’s glory days when it was known to impart quality education and prepare its students to blend into mainstream society and employment. Today, As a result of how most madrasas are run and what is taught in classes, those who graduate from madrasas do not have marketable skills. Others use this to their advantage: due to the students’ social and financial background — most are from poor families — they easily become foot soldiers for a cause they know little of.
“When a family earns Rs. 4,000 a month, has eight children to feed, naturally these children will end up in the madrasas. Everything is free there. And these youngsters are easy to mould. This is not about terrorism. These are frustrated and angry youngsters,” says Mehboob Ahmed Khan, Legal Officer, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Changed focus
An important aim of the reforms is to establish a system where students are prepared for entry into mainstream education and onto gainful employment, instead of being readied to serve only as religious preachers or teachers.
“One of the first things that I did was to get the madrasas registered, modernise the curriculum and bring them into the mainstream. It took us a long time, about a year to negotiate with them (religious leaders) and to give them confidence as there is a perception that all madrasas are breeding militants,” Muhammad Ijaz ul-Haq, Minister of Religious Affairs, says.
To date, about 95 per cent or 15,000 madrasas in Pakistan are registered with the government. About 1.6 million new students register to study in madrasas annually, equivalent to 2.5 per cent of the estimated 30 million school-going children in the country.
He said the majority of the 5,000 large madrasas have introduced modern subjects up to Class 11 to prepare seminary students for entrance exams through affiliated examination boards for private and public schools. In Pakistan, students intend on pursuing higher education in madrasas have to show a Grade 10 certificate on modern subjects as admission requirements.
It’s difficult to see such optimism reflected in the madrasas. The progressive Jamia Ashrafia introduced modern subjects — Mathematics and Science, Arts, Law, and Computers — to its students in 1998. It has a student body of seven to 10 lakh a year in its 11 branches in Lahore. Almost 10 years after the introduction of modern subjects, a mere 80 to 90 of its students have gone on for professional pursuits.
There are plans to set up an inter-madrasa board where all the parties — the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Education, scholars from modern education and Islamic studies and religious leaders from Ittehad Tanzimat-e-Madaris-e-Deenia (ITMD), an umbrella organisation of religious seminaries — are involved in constructing syllabus and then receives funding from the government. This move is to ensure that there are no illegal funds going to the madrasas.
Funding sources
Government figures showed last year that Pakistanis gave Rs. 4.5 billion in zakat while an additional Rs. 60-70 billion is given to philanthropy purposes in the country. “The State Bank of Pakistan is checking all the madrasas’ accounts. But we can’t control donations made to mosques. It’s an individual choice. We hope that by setting this inter-madrasa board, some of the money could be channelled properly,” Muhammad Ijaz says. So far, the government had tried to fund madrasas but religious leaders had labelled the funding as “American money” and perceive government effort as a Western ploy.
The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan makes matters worse. Radical madrasas are known to operate in the tribal areas in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, where militants take advantage of the porous border with Afghanistan and the tribal area’s exemption from Pakistani law.
Under General Zia ul-Haq, fundamentalists appeared and flourished in Pakistan. In the name of Islam, madrasas mushroomed. When Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 1970s, the recruitment of fighters came from the madrasas with the help of Pakistan and the Inter-Services Intelligence. “It’s an open secret that many madrasas in NWFP and Baluchistan are giving arms-training to their students on holy war on the infidels,” says Mehboob. “When a person has no resources, naturally, life will look bleak but if these people have a better place to live and have easy access to education and a better lifestyle, then their lives will be changed. Slowly, we could modernise them via equal job opportunities. And when there’s a change in law, then guns can be outlawed.”
The tribal areas certainly have to be regulated. The Frontier Criminal Regulations (FCR), for example, allows authorities to detain anyone without any legal representation. Despite persistent calls, there is no political will to abolish such laws.
The state of emergency, declared by Musharraf on November 3, 2007 on the pretext of flushing out militants from the country, has raised more doubts over the madrasa reforms.
But, Pakistanis are a resilient people and not all support radicalism. Amin Khan, a taxi driver, says he’s sending his four children to public schools and Islamic studies during the evenings. To him, the madrasas are not good enough. “I want my children to have good education. I want them to have good jobs later,” he says.
Perhaps the sentiment of the general public over the radical madrasas could best be described by Husain Afzal, a second-hand book seller. “Religion will always stay the way it is. Society can be modernised only through tolerance and accepting differences. Segregation is increasing but the majority of the Pakistanis naturally want peace. The number of people who want peace outnumbers those who don’t.”
'Madrasas shouldn't be closed'
PHOTO: AFP
Confrontation: Masked radical students outside the Lal Masjid.
Madrasas spawned during General Zia ul-Haq’s regime in the late 1970s when Shariah laws were promoted. Later, these seminaries became the recruitment centres of fighters for the anti-Russian invasion movement, aided by Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence.
In such an atmosphere, madrasas became a phenomenon of religious leaders, especially in the lawless North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan, where most clerics are known to promote militancy. Some of these madrasas are operating still due to money from Afghan drugs, easy access to arms (there’s a village known to make guns) and the dream of a global jihad.
Pervez Musharraf revealed a set of strategies to reform the madrasas in 2002, as part of his effort to eliminate terrorism originating from madrasas or mosques in Pakistan.
Muhammad Ijaz ul-Haq, Minister of Religious Affairs, on the reforms.
The madrasas refused to accept funding from the government, labelling it “American money”. What is your comment?
That is true. In 2002-2003, Musharraf, through the Ministry of Education, allocated Rs. 6 billion to the madrasas, of which Rs. 500 million was released. The madrasas under ITMD refused because they were not taken into confidence prior to the launch of the scheme and prior to the issuance of an ordnance that was made in a sense to control the madrasas. The religious leaders saw such funding as a move to interfere in the operation of the madrasas.
How are the reforms coming along?
The first thing that I did was to directly negotiate with the madrasas and then to streamline the madrasas and start the process of bringing them to the mainstream. The first was to get them registered, modernise the curriculum and bring them into mainstream through modernisation. It took us about a year to negotiate with them.
How many madrasas are registered now? How many students are studying in the madrasas?
To date, we have 15,000 madrasas registered with the government. That figure represents 95 per cent of the total madrasas in the country. They have 1.6 million students in total, which is 2.5 per cent of the total 30 million school children among Pakistan’s population of 160 million people. For madrasas that have boarding and lodging facilities, the government is spending approximately Rs. 1.2 billion on the students.
The madrasas are popularly perceived to breed militants. What is your ministry doing in terms of regulating these radical madrasas?
In February last year, when we noticed that Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad had militants, we called on religious leaders of ITMD to solve the problem. The militants at Lal Masjid refused to agree to the suggestions by ITMD. And in 160 years of madrasa history in Pakistan, for the first time, a madrasa and mosque (Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid) was delineated from their posts in ITMD.
Madrasas are a requirement in our country until we get total induction of Islamic studies into the private and public schools. You call it religious extremism — it’s not. It’s the mafia and the criminals. They threaten the locals.
What are you doing to check funds coming from overseas to the madrasas?
The State Bank of Pakistan checks the accounts. If the madrasa wants to build a mosque and the money is coming from Kuwait, for example, they have to go to the Foreign Office, Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Religious Affairs. I can tell you that all fundings from overseas have stopped.
Last year, we collected Rs. 4.5 billion worth of zakat. Another Rs. 60-70 billion a year is given for philanthropic purposes. More than 40 to 50 per cent of the money for philanthropy causes goes to the mosques and madrasas and that is something that cannot be checked. Most of the time, the money is given to the mosques after prayers on a personal level.
What are the challenges in handling the madrasas?
We have to give and take. You have to give but also extract the maximum from them (madrasas). You can’t close the madrasas. If you think the madrasas should be closed, then you’re mistaken. Bring them to the mainstream. Those who are harbouring extremism or militants, yes, we can close those.
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