MADRASSAS IN PAKISTAN
There are over 30,000 religious schools, known as “madrassas” , in Pakistan, educating around 2.5 million students. Some schools are affiliated with political parties in Pakistan. Other are linked with the Taliban in Afghanistan and groups waging jihad in Kashmir. About 40 percent are operated by moderate sects and act as genuine religious charities. But many are operated by the hardline Deobandi sect. Such madrassas gave birth to the Taliban.
There were around 150 madrassas at the time Pakistan's independence in 1947 and 244 in 1956. The number rose after the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. By 1995 there almost 4,000 of them. By 2001, there were about 10,000 madrassas with around 1 million to 1.7 million students compared to 1.9 million students in regular primary schools. Today there are an estimated 32,000 madrassas with 2.5 million students, according to Azmat Abbas, author of “Madrassa Mirage: A Contemporary History of Islamic Schools in Pakistan”. Other estimates say there as many as 60,000 madrassas. [Source: NPR.org. January 10, 2019; Husain Haqqani, Foreign Policy, December 1, 2002]
Kathy Gannon of Associated Press wrote: “There are more than 22,000 registered madrassas in Pakistan, teaching more than 2 million children. But there are many more religious schools that are unregistered. They are typically started by a local cleric in a poor neighborhood, attracting students with a promise of a meal and free lodging. There is no central body of clerics that governs madrassas. Nor is there a central authority that can investigate or respond to allegations of abuse by clerics, unlike the Catholic Church, which has a clear hierarchy topped by the Vatican. [Source: Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, April 13, 2020]
The madrassas — also known as “madaris” and spelled a variety of ways including madrasas, madrasahs, medresas and madrassahs — have names like the Place of Islamic Knowledge and Help and Institute for Islamic Learning. By one count there are five different kinds of madrassa with varying levels of Muslim extremism. Some have been built with funds from Saudi Arabia and teach a brand of Islam that is more harsh and ascetic than the Islam traditionally practiced in the mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There is support by ordinary Pakistanis for the schools. In a survey by the U.S. State Department in 2000, 78 percent of Muslims said schools should provide more religious instruction for children.
Large madrassa have several thousand students as 12 acre campuses with mosques, a supermarket and separate dormitories and eating facilities for boys and girls. Some even attract large numbers of foreign students. Some schools are run by mullah who keep watch of the classrooms with closed circuit cameras. They have their own websites. Most are more modest. Some found in rural villages and cities have only 25 to 50 students, with a classroom that doubles as a dormitory and no furniture other than worn prayer mats.. Many teach an Islamic curriculum that would be regarded as extremist and many are strongly opposed to any kind of outside interference.
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: There are two systems of education in Pakistan: traditional and modern. The traditional system, which focuses on Islam, has experienced an exponential growth since the 1970s, influenced by the wave of Islamic fundamentalism from Iran. In the late 1990s, the traditional Islamic schools, called madrassas, came increasingly under the influence of the anti-West Taliban movement in Afghanistan. The traditional schools have multiplied tenfold. While only 4,350 madrassas are registered with the government, the actual number has been estimated at between 40,000 to 50,000. A revealing article by U.S. anti-terrorist expert Jessica Stern in Foreign Affairs (November-December 2000) has warned the world about the kind of "education" imparted by these "Schools of Hate" and their role in creating a "mindset" for jihad. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
Madrassas as a Positive Force
Even critics of the madrassa in Pakistan say they provide a useful social service in places state schools are poor or don’t exist and illiteracy rates are high. Many parents enroll their sons in Quranic schools, where there are often given free meals, a roof over her head. Many boys who start at state schools end up in madrassa because the books and tuition is free. Some schools allow girls.
Jonathan Power wrote in the New York Times: Many “are convinced that the schools are a breeding ground for fundamentalists and terrorists. ...How virulent are they?... I arrived unannounced at one of the largest madrasas in Lahore. I purposely chose a madrasa of the Deobandi school of Islamic belief, which is considered to be close to the ultra-fundamentalist Wahabism of Saudi Arabia. This madrasa, Jamera Ashnafia, has 1,200 boys, who spend two years at the age of 10 doing little else but learning the Quran by heart. Some later go on to government schools to learn from a wider curriculum, some return at the age of 16 or 18 to study Islamic theology up to university level. [Source: Jonathan Power, New York Times, December 7, 2005]
“Everything is free, the atmosphere is convivial and the quarters, grouped around a mosque, are roomy and airy. Inside the mosque, small groups of boys giggled and recited their way through the pages of the Quran. Financing is all raised inside Pakistan from donations, the madrasa's accountant told me. Accompanied by a university professor who read the Urdu notices pinned to various boards and walls, we could find not one word of an extremist pitch. One said simply, "Even a smile is charity." We left convinced, as one teacher told us, that the school has no truck with violence and even forbids teachers to use corporal punishment. "Even if a pupil decides to use his pen as a stick and poke someone, we are against it," he said. Maybe I was hoodwinked, but I don't think so. I checked out their reputation and it stands up well. But there is no doubt that militant madrasas abound in Pakistan.
“It is right that the government is now pushing for registration of the madrasas, watching more carefully the outside money (often Saudi) that finances some of them and expelling, as it did after the London bombings, some of its foreign students. But the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater. After all, in the centuries before imperial conquest, madrasas were the major source of Islamic learning. Our mortarboards, tassels, academic robes and rituals of the oral defense of a written thesis can all be traced back to them. By all means make them better and broader in what they teach, but to seek their abolition would only be one more blow to the self-esteem and urge for self-betterment of the very poor of this fraught but forward-looking country.
Madrassas Versus State Schools in Pakistan
Jonathan Power wrote in the New York Times: “What is not challenged is that the madrasas exist because of the country's appalling record on state education. In contrast to its neighbor, India, one administration after another has allowed the educational system the British built up to disintegrate. It has been saved by two developments. The first is the madrasas, which offer at least some education to the poor. And at the other pole, there is the astonishing success of the Beaconhouse school system, which began as a single playgroup” in 1975 “and, thanks to the drive of one exceptional woman, has mushroomed into a school system all over the country that extends from kindergarten to university, with some 60,000 students. I lectured for two days to nearly a thousand of its teachers, and I have rarely come across a group exuding such dedication. But this is private education catering almost exclusively to the children of the elite. [Source: Jonathan Power, New York Times, December 7, 2005]
Anna Kuchment wrote in Newsweek: “Pakistan has set out to revive that spirit of omnivorous learning. The government is too broke to provide free public schools for all students. That means as many as 800,000 Pakistani children must either attend a madrasa (religious school) or do without formal education. Many of the back-country Qur'an schools offer no math or science. Some don't even teach basic literacy. They are the kind of places where the Taliban was hatched. But the country needs every school it has. "Most madrasas do good works," says former president Pervez Musharraf. "They give an education, three meals a day and a place to sleep for many children who otherwise couldn't afford to go to school." Shutting them down is out of the question. [Source: Anna Kuchment, Newsweek, March 10, 2002]
“Instead, Musharraf plans to fix them. "We are telling these schools that if they teach modern science and math, and not only religion, then the government will recognize their certificates, and their students will therefore be entitled to very good jobs," the Interior minister, Moinuddin Haider, told Newsweek. "This is very good bait." Most Pakistanis agree. "Ask anyone in even the poorest and most remote villages, and they want their children to have an education that includes mathematics, computers, foreign languages and history," says Samina Ahmed, director of the International Crisis Group in Pakistan. "They want their children to be able to get a good job."
Types of Traditional Islamic Schools in Pakistan
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: Above the primary level are the maktab schools, attached to the mosques, where children are initiated in religious instruction emphasizing memorization of the verses in the holy Quran. Those who complete elementary education are awarded certificates depending on their proficiency in Nazira (Reading of Holy Quran), Hifz (Memorization of Holy Quran), and Tajweed-o-Qiraat (Techniques for the Recitation of Holy Quran). Those who complete the equivalent of secondary level education are awarded the Tahmani certificate. The examination leading to it includes Arabic language and literature, Islamic law and jurisprudence, and translation of some chapters of the Quran. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
The higher level of Islamic learning is imparted at the madrassas, whose graduates, called fazils, are qualified to be religious teachers in secondary schools as well for teaching religious subjects in the modern education system. They may be awarded Mauqoof Alaih, equivalent to a bachelor's degree, for their advanced knowledge of Arabic language and literature, history, logic, and the ability to translate passages from the Quran. Still more advanced education is given at dav-ul-uluma, which are university-level postgraduate institutions that award Daurai Hadeeth — regarded as being the equivalent of a master's degree — indicating the candidate's specialization in the meaning and interpretation of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad.
“At all levels of the traditional system of education, secular subjects such as math and science, essential for the functioning of modern societies, are not taken seriously, making the students, in the words of Maududi in his First Principles of the Islamic State (1960), "incapable of giving any lead to the people regarding modern political problems." Until the 1980s enrollment in these schools was limited because of the justified general perception that such an education did not help future employment prospects or pursuit of a profession. Therefore, there was an increasing trend until that point of time in favor of introducing "regular" subjects in the curriculum of the traditional schools.
Early History of Madrassas
Husain Haqqani wrote in Foreign Policy: Madrasas have been around since the 11th century, when the Seljuk Vizier Nizam ul-Mulk Hassan bin Ali Tusi founded a seminary in Baghdad to train experts in Islamic law. Islam had become the religion of a large community, stretching from North Africa to Central Asia. But apart from the Koran, which Muslims believe to be the word of God revealed through Prophet Mohammed, no definitive theological texts existed. The dominant Muslim sect, the Sunnis, did not have a clerical class, leaving groups of believers to follow whomever inspired them in religious matters. But Sunni Muslim rulers legitimated their rule through religion, depending primarily on an injunction in the Koran binding believers to obey the righteous ruler. Over time, it became important to seek religious conformity and to define dogma to ensure obedience of subjects and to protect rulers from rebellion. Nizam ul-Mulk’s madrasa was intended to create a class of ulema, muftis, and qazis (judges) who would administer the Muslim empire, legitimize its rulers as righteous, and define an unalterable version of Islam. [Source: Husain Haqqani, Foreign Policy, December 1, 2002]
“Abul Hassan al-Ashari, a ninth-century theologian, defined the dogma adopted for this new madrasa (and the tens of thousands that would follow) in several polemical texts, including The Detailed Explanation in Refutation of the People of Perdition and The Sparks: Refutation of Heretics and Innovators. This canon rejected any significant role for reason in religious matters and dictated that religion be the focus of a Muslim’s existence. The Madrasas adopted a core curriculum that divided knowledge between “revealed sciences” and “rational sciences.” The revealed sciences included study of the Koran, hadith, Koranic commentary, and Islamic jurisprudence. The rational sciences included Arabic language and grammar to help understand the Koran, logic, rhetoric, and philosophy.
“Largely unchanged and unchallenged, this approach to education dominated the Islamic world for centuries, until the advent of colonial rule, when Western education penetrated countries previously ruled by Muslims. Throughout the Middle East, as well as in British India and Dutch-ruled Indonesia, modernization marginalized Madrasas. Their graduates were no longer employable as judges or administrators as the Islamic legal system gave way to Western jurisprudence. Muslim societies became polarized between madrasa-educated mullahs and the economically prosperous, Western-educated individuals attending modern schools and colleges.
“But the poor remained faithful. The failings of the post-colonial elite in most Muslim countries paved the way for Islamic political movements such as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (the Muslim Brotherhood) in the Arab world, Jamaat-e-Islami (the Islamic Party) in South Asia, and the Nahdatul Ulema (the Movement for Religious Scholars) in Indonesia. These movements questioned the legitimacy of the Westernized elite, created reminders of Islam’s past glory, and played on hopes for an Islamic utopia. In most cases, the founders of Islamic political movements were religiously inclined politicians with a modern education. Madrasas provided the rank and file.”
History of Madrassas in Pakistan
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “In the 1980s President Zia-ul-Haq promoted the madrassas, partly out of his personal conviction that instruction in such schools would help the people to behave as genuine followers of the Islamic faith and partly because such institutions helped him to mobilize support of the religious hierarchy and religion-based political parties for his rule. Their support was also valuable to him in the recruitment of soldiers for the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
“The number of madrassas in the country grew rapidly, financed by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iran as well as by affluent Pakistan industrialists and businessmen both at home and abroad. Part of the estimated US$3.5 billion given by the United States and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan for assistance in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan was diverted to Islamic education on the assumption that it would fuel the spirit of jihad against the Soviet Union. During that period, the efforts of the government to broaden the curriculum of the madrassas failed because the religious heads refused to accept any suggestions for change on grounds that the government had no right to interfere in an education system fashioned twelve centuries ago by the Caliphate in Baghdad.
“During the U.S.-supported war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Pakistan played a crucial role not only as a conduit for U.S. arms to the Afghans but also in the military training Pakistan provided to the Afghans. In the 128 camps established for that purpose in Pakistan, mostly in the northwest, Zia's pro-Islamic government evoked the defense of Islam against the atheistic Soviets. Each camp had a large madrassa, where a heady mixture of the teachings of Islam and militancy was provided to the youth as the spirit of jihad. This led to the rise of the Taliban (literally, student) movement in Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the Taliban and their trainers in Pakistan were elated by what they interpreted as a victory of Islam over a superpower. The Taliban was not disbanded; instead, it established itself over the years as the government of most of Afghanistan. It developed itself as the center of a global jihad for the propagation of alleged Islamic values, including denying women an education and role outside the home. It also became the focal point of opposition to "decadent" Western — more particularly, American — influence, and offered the Saudi terrorist millionaire Osama bin Laden refuge and assistance in establishing his headquarters in Afghanistan.
“In the 1990s the madrassas in Pakistan changed drastically in their purpose and curriculum content. The experience of training the Taliban militants had influenced the clerics and teachers in the madrassas, whose numbers touched 8,000 by the year 2000. Robin Wright wrote in December 2000, "Most of the madrassas are a byproduct of a crumbling state. More than a million youths are now enrolled in madrassas because of Pakistan's deteriorating education system and the growing appeal of Islam." The impact of all this on terrorism in the region supported by Osama bin Laden led the U.S. government to ask Pakistan in 1999 and 2000 to clamp down on the terrorist groups and close a number of militant madrassas.
Students at Madrassas
Many madrassas are boarding schools, with the students generally living six to a room in a dormitory, hostel or mosque. Meals and other services are often provided by local people. Students attend classes from 7:00am until noon, with students sitting on straw mats with Qurans open in front of them. Some of the more conservative madrassas prohibit television and sports. Some have no associations with females.
On his experience as a madrassa student in the 1960s, Husain Haqqani wrote in Foreign Policy: “As a 9-year-old boy, I knelt on the bare floor of the neighborhood madrasa (religious school) in Karachi, Pakistan, repeating the Koranic verse, “Of all the communities raised among men you are the best, enjoining the good, forbidding the wrong, and believing in God.” Hafiz Gul-Mohamed, the Koran teacher, made each of the 13 boys in our class memorize the verse in its original Arabic. Some of us also memorized the translation in our own language, Urdu. “This is the word of God that defines the Muslim umma [community of believers],” he told us repeatedly. “It tells Muslims their mission in life.” He himself bore the title hafiz (the memorizer) because he could recite all 114 chapters and 6,346 verses of the Koran. [Source: Husain Haqqani, Foreign Policy, December 1, 2002]
“Most students in Gul-Mohamed’s class joined the madrasa to learn basic Islamic teachings and to be able to read the Koran. Only a handful of people in Pakistan spoke Arabic, but everyone wanted to learn to read the holy book. I completed my first reading of the Koran by age seven. I was enrolled part time at the madrasa to learn to read the Koran better and to understand the basic teachings of Islam.
Teachers at Islamic Schools in Pakistan in the 1960s
Recalling his teacher at an Islamic school in the 1960s, Husain Haqqani wrote in Foreign Policy:“Gul-Mohamed carried a cane, as all madrasa teachers do, but I don’t recall him ever using it. He liked my curiosity about religion and had been angry with me only once: I had come to his class straight from my English-language school, dressed in the school’s uniform — white shirt, red tie, and beige trousers. “Today you have dressed like a farangi [European]. Tomorrow you will start thinking and behaving like one,” he said. “And that will be the beginning of your journey to hell.” [Source: Husain Haqqani, Foreign Policy, December 1, 2002]
“Hafiz Gul-Mohamed read no newspapers and did not listen to the radio. He owned few books. “You don’t need too many books to learn Islam,” he once explained to me when I brought him his evening meal. “There is the straight path, which is described in the Koran and one or two commentaries, and there are numerous paths to confusion. I have the books I need to keep me on the straight path.” [Source: Husain Haqqani, Foreign Policy, December 1, 2002]
“He had never seen a movie and advised me never to see one either. The only time he had allowed himself to be photographed was to obtain a passport for the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the hajj. Television was about to be introduced in Pakistan, and Gul-Mohamed found that prospect quite disturbing. One hadith (or saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed) describes “song and dance by women lacking in virtue” coming to every home as one of the signs of apocalypse. Television, Gul-Mohamed believed, would fulfill that prophecy, as it would bring moving images of singing and dancing women into every home.
Students at More Islamic Madrassas
In the 1980s and 90s many talibs (students of religion) were orphans or young boys who had spent their whole lives in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. They knew nothing of Afghanistan and were easily influenced by Islamist dogma and anti-Western ideology.
At madrassas with ties to Muslim extremists students are educated in extremist views and jihad. In the 1990s, when they became teenagers many went off to Afghanistan to receive military training. Some ended up as rebels in Kashmir. Those that did that were paid a salary. A professor at Peshawar University told U.S. News and World Report, “Students can be encouraged to fight against infidels because they believe they will die a martyr.”
Describing a student at Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa in Peshawar in the early 2000s, Husain Haqqani wrote in Foreign Policy: “In a basement room with plasterless walls adorned by a clock inscribed with “God is Great” in Arabic, 9-year-old Mohammed Tahir rocked back and forth and recited the same verse of the Koran that had been instilled into my memory at the same age: “Of all the communities raised among men you are the best, enjoining the good, forbidding the wrong, and believing in God.” But when I asked him to explain how he understands the passage, Tahir’s interpretation was quite different from the quietist version taught to me. “The Muslim community of believers is the best in the eyes of God, and we must make it the same in the eyes of men by force,” he said. “We must fight the unbelievers and that includes those who carry Muslim names but have adopted the ways of unbelievers. When I grow up I intend to carry out jihad in every possible way.” Tahir does not believe that al Qaeda is responsible for September 11 because his teachers have told him that the attacks were a conspiracy by Jews against the Taliban. He also considers Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden great Muslims, “for challenging the might of the unbelievers.” [Source: Husain Haqqani, Foreign Policy, December 1, 2002]
“Classes at Haqqania are free, as are meals, which are quite basic. Tahir, the seventh of nine children, likes being at the madrasa because it provides him an education without costing his parents anything. He lives in a crowded dormitory of 40 to 50 students, sleeping on rugs and mattresses on the floor. He spends most of the day memorizing texts, squatting in front of a teacher who memorized them in a similar fashion as a child. “God has blessed me as I am learning His word and the teaching of His Prophet,” Tahir told me. “I could have been like others in the refugee camp, with no clothes and no food.”
“Tahir’s teacher carries a cane and can often be brutal. One madrasa in Pakistan has resorted to the practice of chaining students to pillars until they memorize the day’s lesson. But compared with life in a squalid refugee camp, the harshness of the madrasa probably is a blessing. Tahir’s day begins with the predawn prayer and a breakfast comprising bread and tea; it ends with the night prayer and a dinner of rice and mutton. And if Tahir does well at the madrasa and earns a diploma, he can expect to find a job as a preacher in a mosque.
Some schools keep students from their parents and act as surrogate families in a way not unlike a cult. Some Muslim schools brutalize and rigidly indoctrinate students. At one school in Multan in Punjab, 64 children were found shackled in chains and ropes during a police raid. The student said were routinely kept in chains to keep them from running away. The restraints were removed when parents visited.
Support of the Islamic Schools
Many of the older madrassas have roots in the Islamization of Pakistan by Zia ul Haq in the 1980s. Most of these were built in the 1980s and 1990s. Many received funding from Saudi Arabia. Some 3,000 madrasahs have been set up with zakat (Muslim tithe) money. A lot of money came from the Saudi ruling family.
The madrassas that gave birth to the Taliban were born in the Afghanistan-Soviet war in the 1980s and were run by barely literate mullahs, and financed with money from the CIA and Middle eastern countries and supported by Pakistan’s intelligence agency as a way of fighting Communism. With little money for education and training soldiers, the madrasahs filled a vacuum. They educated young men and prepared them to be fighters in bother Afghanistan and Kashmir..
Husain Haqqani wrote in Foreign Policy: “In the midst of this conflict, and the madrasa boom it spawned, the United States helped create an Islamic resistance to communism in Afghanistan, encouraging Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich states to fund the Afghan resistance and its supporters throughout the Muslim world. Pakistan’s military ruler at the time, Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, decided to establish Madrasas instead of modern schools in Afghan refugee camps, where 5 million displaced Afghans provided a natural supply of recruits for the resistance. The refugees needed schools; the resistance needed mujahideen. Madrasas would provide an education of sorts, but they would also serve as a center of indoctrination and motivation. [Source: Husain Haqqani, Foreign Policy, December 1, 2002]
“Madrasas have proliferated with zakat and financial assistance from the gulf states. (Some classrooms at Haqqania have a small inscription informing visitors that Saudi Arabia donated the building materials for the classroom.) Modern technology has also played a role, whether by creating international financing networks or new methods of spreading the message, such as through online Madrasas.
In the Pashtun areas of northwest Pakistan many of the madrassas are run by Jamiay-e-Ulema-Islami, which as an active militant wing Students of some Islamic schools in the tribal areas have set up roadblocks, demanding money from drivers, Those that don’t give them money are berated and threatened.
Curriculum at Islamic Schools
Students memorize the Quran in Arabic. In many cases they have no idea what the text means. Classes often consist of students repeating Quranic verses uttered by their teacher, bobbing to the rhythm of the verses, for hours each day. They are sometimes scolded when they ask the meaning and are told it is sin to read meaning into the Quran. Those who obediently memorize it are told that not only will they go to paradise but their families and 10 others will also go. Good students can memorize the entire Quran in about three years.
There are often no classes in science, computers, geography, history, current events, English or math. Some don’t even teach Urdu or local languages. Students at these schools can’t do the most basic arithmetic and don’t know a man has walked on the moon but they are familiar with jihad and can recite long passages from the Quran. Madrassas that do teach math, science and English often stop teaching these subjects after the 8th grade and then focus entirely on studying the Quran and the hadiths.
When one school leader was asked what they teach at his school, he told Atlantic Monthly. “Islam, not math or anything else, only Islam” A student at the same school said. “We only study those sciences — such as grammar, Arabic linguistics and jurisprudence — that help us understand Islam.” Another told the Washington Post, “Success is not only in computers. The best way of success is the Quran and following the sayings of the prophet. If Pakistan follows these two things, then we won’t be equal to the world, we’ll be leading it.”
Students follow the tenets of Islam in the way they act, eat and show respect towards others. They debate topics like “Islam through the sword or good character?” The curriculum at some schools was developed during the Mughal era (16th to 19th century). At the most extreme schools students are taught in clear unambiguous terms that women must cover themselves and thieves should be punished with amputations.
Students at some schools are taught how to use weapons and told if they are killed in battle they will go to heaven Their training resembles what soldiers go through at boot camp. One 11-year-old student told the Los Angeles Times, “I’ll be here a few more years to study Islam and then I’ll join the jihad. God willing, I’ll go wherever in the world I’m needed. I’m not afraid.”
Anti-Americanism and Jihadism at Islamic Schools
Students at many madrassas are taught that America is controlled by the Jews and the Jews in turn are controlled by Satan. They are told that the Jews and CIA were behind the September 11th attack. One student told the Los Angeles Times, “Everything you do is wrong. America’s wealth, its resources are in the hands of Jews and they are not using it for a noble cause.”
The leader of one school told his students, “What is happening in time of the Prophet is happening again these days. Nonbelievers are cruel to Muslims and create atrocities against them. America has been proved the greatest enemy to all Muslims. Whenever it has had the chance, it has acted against Islam...Americans go to nightclubs, engage in revelries and think that’s all right. Their women are brazen.” [Source: Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2001]
Many of the most extreme madrassas in the Peshawar area. Western aid workers, primarily women, who worked in camps around the Taliban madrassas were verbally and physically assaulted by the Muslim extremists.
Tim Craig wrote in the Washington Post: “26,000 madrassas are registered with an umbrella organization, Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Madaris. Some Interior Ministry officials think that 9,000 others may be unregistered. “One ministry official estimated that 2 to 3 percent of Pakistan’s madrassas can be linked to the radicalization of students.” In 2015 “the government has closed about 100 of these over suspected links to militancy. [Source: Tim Craig, Washington Post, December 16, 2015]
“Abdul Hameed Nayyar, a retired Pakistani physics professor who has extensively studied madrassas, said even moderate Islamic schools mix religion with politics and spend considerable time on topics such as jihad. “They teach this kind of anger, an anger that many perhaps keep under control but others are not able to keep control over, and that anger comes out in the form of jihad,” Nayyar said. Nayyar estimates that 5 percent of Pakistan’s madrassas “are very active in jihad.” An additional 20 percent to 25 percent, he said, stand ready to provide logistical support to groups engaged in armed conflict.
Jamia Ulumia Islami
Describing a large a large religious school in Karachi, Anna Kuchment wrote in Newsweek: “Squatting on a bare floor in the huge prayer hall, Rizwan Ahmed joins more than 250 young pupils in Qur'anic recitation. The 9-year-old son of a local trader, Ahmed is halfway through his primary religious education, which requires memorizing the holy book. "I will be a hafiz (person who memorizes the Qur'an) soon," the boy says proudly. [Source: Anna Kuchment, Newsweek, March 10, 2002]
“Ahmed is a day student at Jamia Ulumia Islami (the Institute for Islamic Learning), one of Pakistan's largest and most influential Islamic seminaries. Run by a trust established by Islamic scholar Maulana Yousuf Binnori, Jamia offers everything from elementary religious education beginning at the age of 4 to postgraduate courses in Islamic studies. Located in downtown Karachi, the sprawling red-brick structure with tall minarets houses about 2,500 students — many in free hostels — including hundreds from Bangladesh, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Central Asia. "Their number has decreased because of the restrictions imposed by [Pakistan's] military government," says a Jamia official. Even so, the school is so crowded that for some lectures, pupils spill over from the classrooms into the lobby.
“Boys and young men comprise almost the entire student body. A few young girls — mostly the daughters of staff members — are allowed in the elementary classes. Though the school's focus is on religious education, students also learn elementary physics, chemistry, mathematics and English. Boys in their teens wear white turbans and learn hadis (the sayings of Muhammad) and fiqah (Islamic law) as well. "We are not against science, but the students basically come here to receive religious education," says Dr. Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, dean of the school.
“The day begins at the crack of dawn with morning prayers, held in the mosque's main hall. A simple breakfast of bread and tea is served around 6, followed by academic lessons. At noontime, the students break for lunch and afternoon prayers for two hours. Though the school closes around 4, most students stay in the mosque for prayers until dusk. There are almost no extracurricular activities; even sports are prohibited. Television and radio are banned, though some students have tape recorders for listening to Qur'an recitation. Most spend their free time roaming the streets of Karachi.
“The school teaches the concept of jihad — holy war — as a special subject to prepare students to fight for the cause of Islam. "Jihad is compulsory for all Muslims," says Shamzai. He denies that his pupils receive any military training, but admits that students have taken time off from their studies to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Many of the Taliban leaders were graduates of the Jamia. "They would often consult their teachers on matters related to government and Islamic Sharia," says one staffer proudly. Thousands of Pakistani and foreign students from the Jamia participated in the Taliban's war against the Northern Alliance and the U.S.-led coalition. Indeed, Shamzai is widely respected throughout Pakistan for his support for the Taliban and other militant groups. He says he is not a member of any party but gave his "blessing" to the militant group Jaish-e-Muhammed when it was formed two years ago. That group has since been accused of the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.”
“During the war in Afghanistan, Shamzai led protest rallies against the U.S. attack on the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. "U.S. military action on Afghanistan was essentially an attack on Islam," he says. Though he claims to support the Pakistani government's action against terrorism, he rejects President Pervez Musharraf's move to curb militancy by cracking down on the education system. The government has made it compulsory for madrasas to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and to teach science and other subjects. "We will not accept the dictates of the government," says Shamzai. "One should not equate jihad with terrorism."
Haqqania Madrasa
Dural Uloon Haqqania Madrasa (“Center of Righteous Knowledge”) is perhaps the most infamous religious school in Pakistan. Located about two hours east of the Khyber Pass in the town of Akora Khattak in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province), it credited with educating 95 percent of the leaders of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and providing new recruits for groups lead by Osama bin Laden. [Source: Jeffrey Goldberg, June 25, 2000, New York Times Magazine]
Haqqania Madrasa has been called the “University if Jihad.” It put a special emphasis on teaching “jihad”. There is no military or weapons training done or class on how to make bombs at the school. Upon graduations, students are sent to camps in Afghanistan for that.
Haqqania Madrasa is spread out over eight acres and is home to around 2,800 students aged 5 to 21. Its facilities include mosques, classrooms and dormitories. Tuition and room and board is free. Many of the students are from poor families, Funds are donated by wealthy Pakistanis and conservative Muslims from countries around the Persian Gulf.
Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote in the New York Times Magazine, "There were no TVs, no radios that I could see. The students woke up before dawn, to pray in the madrasa's mosque. The dormitories were threadbare and filthy, and there was no cafeteria, per se: students line up at the kitchens with their plates and spoons and were fed rice and curries and naan."
Students at Haqqania Madrasa
Most of the students at Haqqania Madrasa are from Pakistan. There are are several Afghan students and dozens from former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and even some from Chechnya. Graduates often take Haqqania as their last name. The have been described as perfect jihad machines." They know little beyond their Islamic indoctrination and have no interest in books other than the Quran.
Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote in the New York Times Magazine,"The students range in age from 8 and 9 to 30, sometimes 35. The youngest boys spend much of their days seated cross-legged on the floors of airless classrooms, memorizing the Quran. This is a process that takes between six months and three years, and is made even more difficult than it sounds by the fact that Quran they study is in the original Arabic. These boys tend to know only Pashto, the language of the Pashtun ethnic group...In a typical class, the teachers sit on the floor with the boys, reading to them in Arabic, and the boys repeat what the teacher said. This can go one between four and eight hours a day." The young students are kept under lock and key in a three-story dormitory guarded by older students.
"What Westerners would think of as high-school-age and college-age students are enrolled in an eight-year course of study that focuses on interpretations of the Quran and the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed. These students also study Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic history...Very few of the students at the Haqqania madrasa study anything but Islamic subjects. There are no world history courses, or math courses, or computer rooms or science labs."
"In the classes I attended, even the high-level classes for the mufti course, the pattern was generally the same: a teacher, generally an ancient white-bearded mullah, would read straight from a text, and the students would listen."
Women, Jihad and Sex at Haqqania Madrasa
The male students at Haqqania Madrasa almost never see women. Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in the New York Times Magazine, “There are no female teachers, no female cafeteria workers; no female preference whatsoever at the madrasa." Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters do not come to visit." The major pastimes are cricket and volleyball. Young children enjoy playing a hide and seek game in which the they shout "Osama!" and pretend to shoot.
Goldberg wrote: "When they got used to me, most of the students expressed interest in talking about sex. Many of them were convinced that all Americans were bisexual, and that Westerners engage in sex with anything, anywhere, all the time. I was asked the dominant masturbation style of Americans, and whether American men were allowed by law to keep boyfriends and girlfriends at the same time." Goldberg said he and his photographer had "been asked for sex."
One 9-year-old student told Foreign Policy magazine: “The Muslim community of believers is the best in the eyes of God, and we must make it the same o the eyes of men by force. We must fight the unbelievers and that includes those that carry Muslim names and have adopted the ways of the un believers. When I grow up I intend to carry out jihad in every possible way.”
Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are regarded as great Muslims “for challenging the might of the un believers.” After visiting Haqqania, India-based writer William Dalrymple wrote in The New York Review of Books, that its director boasted that whenever the Taliban put out a call for fighters he would simply close down the school and send his students off to war. [Source: Jonathan Power, New York Times, December 7, 2005]
Child Sex Abuse in Pakistan's Madrassas
Kathy Gannon of Associated Press wrote: ““An investigation by The Associated Press found dozens of police reports, known here as First Information Reports, alleging sexual harassment, rape and physical abuse by Islamic clerics teaching in madrassas or religious schools throughout Pakistan, where many of the country’s poorest study. The AP also documented cases of abuse through interviews with law enforcement officials, abuse victims and their parents. [Source: Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, April 13, 2020]
“Police say the problem of sexual abuse of children by clerics is pervasive and the scores of police reports they have received are just the tip of the iceberg. Yet despite the dozens of reports, none have resulted in the conviction of a cleric. Religious clerics are a powerful group in Pakistan and they close ranks when allegations of abuse are brought against one of them. They have been able to hide the widespread abuse by accusing victims of blasphemy or defamation of Islam. Families in Pakistan are often coerced into “forgiving” clerics, said Deputy Police Superintendent Sadiq Baloch, speaking in his office in the country's northwest, toward the border with Afghanistan.
“Police officials say they have no idea how many children are abused by religious clerics in Pakistan. The officials said clerics often target young boys who have not yet reached puberty in part because of the restrictive nature of Pakistan's still mostly conservative society, where male interaction with girls and women is unacceptable. The clerics for the most part had access to and trust with boys, who are less likely to report a sexual assault.”
Victims of Child Sex Abuse in Pakistan's Madrassas
Reporting from Pakpattan in the Punjab, Kathy Gannon of Associated Press wrote: “Muhimman proudly writes his name slowly, carefully, one letter at a time, grinning broadly as he finishes. He’s just 11 years old and was a good student who had dreams of being a doctor. [Source: Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, April 13, 2020]
“School frightens him now. Earlier this year, a cleric at the religious school he faithfully attended in the southern Punjab town of Pakpattan took him into a washroom and tried to rape him. Muhimman's aunt, Shazia, who wanted only her first name used, said she believes the abuse of young children is endemic in Pakistan’s religious schools. She said she has known the cleric, Moeed Shah, since she was a little girl and describes him as an habitual abuser who used to ask little girls to pull up their shirts. “He has done wrong with boys and also with two or three girls,” Shazia said, recalling one girl the cleric brutalized so badly he broke her back.
“Overcome by shame and fear that the stigma of being sexually abused will follow a child into adulthood, families choose instead to drop the charges, he said. Most often, when a family forgives the cleric the investigation ends because the charges are dropped. “It is the hypocrisy of some of these mullahs, who wear the long beard and take on the cloak of piety only to do these horrible acts behind closed doors, while openly they criticize those who are clean shaven, who are liberal and open minded,” Baloch said. “In our society so many of these men, who say they are religious, are involved in these immoral activities.”
Eight-Year-Old Pakistan Madrassa Sex Abuse Victims
Kathy Gannon of Associated Press wrote: “Eight-year-old Yaous from Pakistan’s remote northern Kohistan region” was a victim of madrassa sex abuse. “Yaous’ father was a poor laborer who had no education and spoke only the local language of his area, yet he wanted to educate his son. He had heard of a religious school in Mansehra, several hundred kilometers (miles) south of his village, where other boys from the area had gone. Too poor to even own a phone, his father went for months without speaking to his son. Yaous is small for his eight years. His features are slight. In an interview with the AP, with his uncle interpreting, Yaous' tiny body shivered as he told of his ordeal. [Source: Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, April 13, 2020]
“It was near the end of December” in 2019 “ — a holiday at the madrassa. Most of the students had left. Only Yaous and a handful of students had stayed behind. His village was hours away, and the cost of transportation home was too much for his parents. The other students had gone to wash their clothes and Yaous said he was alone inside the mosque with Qari Shamsuddin, the cleric. The sexual assault was unexpected and brutal. The boy said Shamsuddin grabbed his hand, dragged him into a room and locked the door. “It was so cold. I didn’t understand why he was taking my warm clothes off,” Yaous said, his voice was barely a whisper.
“As Yaous remembered what happened, he buried his head deeper into his jacket. The cleric grabbed a stick, he said. It was small, maybe about 12 inches. The first few sharp slaps stung. “The pain made me scream and cry, but he wouldn’t stop,” Yaous said. The boy was held prisoner for two days, raped repeatedly until he was so sick the cleric feared he would die and took him to the hospital. At the hospital, Dr. Faisal Manan Salarzai said Yaous screamed each time he tried to approach him. Yaous was so small and frail looking, Salarzai called him the “baby.” “The baby was having a lot of bruises on his body — on his head, on his chest, on his legs, so many bruises on other parts of his body,” Salarzai said.
“Suspicious, Salarzai ordered Yaous moved to the isolation ward where he examined him, suspecting he had been sexually assaulted. The examination revealed brutal and repetitive assaults. But Solarzai said Yaous' uncle refused to believe his nephew was sexually assaulted, instead he said the boy had fallen down. “He said the uncle finally said: ‘If news spreads in our area that he has been sexually assaulted it will be very difficult for him to survive in our area.'” “He was not willing to talk about it or even think that he was sexually assaulted,” said Solarzai. But the evidence was overwhelming and the doctor contacted the police.
“The cleric was arrested and is now in jail. Police have matched his DNA samples to those found on Yaous. But despite the arrest, fellow clerics and worshippers at the Madrassa-e-Taleem-ul-Quran mosque located in a remote region of northwest Pakistan dispute the charges. They say Shamsuddin is innocent, the victim of anti-Islamic elements in the country. The clerics and worshippers also say the accusation is part of a conspiracy to discredit Pakistan’s religious leaders and challenge the supremacy of Islam, a rallying cry often used by right-wing religious clerics seeking to enrage mobs to assert their power. Yaous’ father, Abdul Qayyum, said he was ashamed he had not spoken to his son in more than three months before the attack happened. “I want this mullah hanged. Nothing else will do,” Qayyum said.
Girl Victim of Child Sex Abuse in Pakistan's Madrassas
Kathy Gannon of Associated Press wrote: “Young boys are not the only victims of sexual abuse by religious clerics. Many young girls like Misbah, who is from a deeply conservative south Punjab village of Basti Qasi, have also been targeted by religious leaders. Her father, Mohammad Iqbal, isn’t exactly sure how old Misbah is. He thinks she is 11 because in rural Pakistan many births are not registered or are registered much later, and it is just a guess when children are born. They share their small cinderblock structures with several goats and an extended family made up it seems of mostly children who play tag and run around the dirt compound. Misbah, who struggled for words, said she was raped in the mosque next door, where she had been studying the Quran for three years. [Source: Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, April 13, 2020]
“The assault happened one morning after she stayed behind to sweep the mosque. The other children had been sent home and the cleric, someone she trusted, asked Misbah to help. “I had just began to clean when he slammed shut the mosque door,” she said in her native Saraiki language. “I didn’t know why and then he suddenly grabbed me and pulled me into a nearby room. I was screaming and shouting and crying. She couldn't say how long the assault went on. All she could remember was screaming for her father to help her but he wouldn't stop, he wouldn't stop, she repeated.
“It was her uncle, Mohammed Tanvir, who rescued her. He had been on his way to college but stopped at the mosque to use the washroom. He noticed a pair of child’s shoes outside the door. “Then I heard screaming from inside, she was screaming for her father,” Tanvir said. He smashed the door down saw his niece sprawled and naked on the floor. “It looked as if she had fainted,” he said. Her blood-stained pants were in a corner. The cleric knelt at his feet. “‘Forgive me’ he kept saying to me,’” Tanvir recalled. The cleric was arrested but freed on bail.
Trying to Do Something About Sex Abuse in Pakistan's Madrassas
Kathy Gannon of Associated Press wrote: “The government has promised to modernize the curriculum and make the madrassas more accountable, but there is little oversight. In the wake of the attempted rape of Muhimman, the young boy who had proudly showed his writing skills, his aunt said there has been a concerted attempt to silence the family. “The village people say these are our spiritual leaders and the imams of our religious places, and refuse to kick him out,” Shazia said [Source: Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, April 13, 2020]
“After the attack on her nephew, she said, the villagers came to their home and pleaded with them to forgive the cleric, Moeed Shah, who had fled the area. “They all came to our home and they know we are poor and he is an imam and they said we should forgive him but we won’t,” Shazia said. She said her father, Muhimman’s grandfather, refused. Shah has yet to be arrested, even though the assault was filmed by several village boys who broke down the door to the washroom and frightened Shah away as he tired to rape Muhimman.
“Police say they are investigating and a charge has been filed, but Shah is a fugitive. Some of the neighbors near the mosque said police are not searching vigorously for him. They seemed angry but also resigned to the fact that he would not be jailed. Muhimman's aunt was inconsolable. “Such a beast should not be spared at all,” Shazia said.
Reform of Islamic Schools
The Pakistani government has encouraged religious schools to tone done their anti-West rhetoric and teach thing like math and computer skills to produce "balanced persons." Even without government pressure some madrassas had been taking such measures on their own, offering computer classes
In June 2002, the Musharraf government introduced legislation aimed at checking the extremism at the madrassas. Among other things it required the schools to register with the government, reveal their sources of funding, disclose the enrollment of foreign students and encourage the instruction if math, science and English.
The madrassas and Muslim extremists were resistant to the legislation, They organized street demonstrations and accused the Musharraf government of being lackeys to the Americans. In the end the government made compliance with the new rules “voluntary.” After giving in to demands of the Muslim extremists some critics said that all that was left were “cosmetic measures” aimed at appeasing the United States. Analysts said it was simply too risky politically for Musharraf to challenge Muslim extremists and appear to be bowing to pressure from the Americans.
After a Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar that killed 141 teachers and students in December 2014, Tim Craig wrote in the Washington Post “the government released a 20-point action plan, which included the “registrations and regulation of madrassas.” But even though much of the plan is now being implemented — helping to reduce the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan this year — the government remains conflicted over how aggressively it should, and can, confront the country’s powerful network of Islamic religious leaders and teachers. [Source: Tim Craig, Washington Post, December 16, 2015]
““With Islamic study a key characteristic of Pakistani society, government officials say they are struggling to differentiate legitimate faith-based teachings from those that spew intolerance or actively recruit militants. “Only a few madrassas can be dubbed as fomenting extremism, which nurture terrorism,” said one senior Interior Ministry official. “Muslims go to mosques and madrassas to pray and for religious education, and they send their children, too, but that doesn’t mean they are getting radicalized.”
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (tourism.gov.pk), Official Gateway to the Government of Pakistan (pakistan.gov.pk), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022