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Religious Schools Resist Law to Curb Extremism
Mujheeb Rehmen knows nothing of computers, thinks Jews conspired with the CIA to destroy the World Trade Center and believes that "jihad is a part of life."
He learned it all in school.
A self-assured farmer's son with the beginnings of a wispy beard, Rehmen, 18, is a student at Darul Uloom Sarhad, a drab-looking religious school, or madrassa, on the edge of Peshawar's old city. He spends his days immersed in Koranic studies and sees no need, he said, for education as it is typically defined in the West.
"Success is not only in computers," said Rehmen, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a classroom while ceiling fans whirred overhead. "The best way of success is the Koran and following the sayings of the prophet. If Pakistan is able to follow these two things, then we won't be equal to the world, we'll be leading it."
As the outside world has come to realize since Sept. 11, thousands of such schools exist in Pakistan, many of them -- including Darul Uloom Sarhad -- linked to the austere and unforgiving brand of Islam that helped give rise to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
With encouragement from the United States and other countries, the government of President Pervez Musharraf unveiled a new law last month aimed at checking extremism in the virtually unregulated madrassas, many of which have received funds from conservative Muslims in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.
Among other things, the measure would require madrassas to register with the government, disclose funding sources and report the enrollment of foreign students. It also would encourage madrassas to voluntarily expand instruction in areas such as math, science and English. Madrassas that updated their course offerings would be rewarded with government funds for teachers and textbooks.
But the madrassas, it seems, have other ideas.
Far from welcoming the opportunity to upgrade their facilities and curricula, Islamic leaders have accused Musharraf of caving in to pressure from the Bush administration and have threatened to launch nationwide protests against the law, which is supposed to be implemented within six months.
After a meeting with clerical leaders ended in deadlock this month, government officials said they would put the measure on hold for several weeks to consider the clerics' objections.
"The negotiations failed, but this was a success for us," said Syed Yusuf Shah, deputy director of Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, a large ivory-colored complex on the main road between Islamabad, the capital, and Peshawar. One of Pakistan's biggest madrassas, the school was attended by several senior Taliban figures, including Mohammad Omar.
"The most important point for not accepting this ordinance is that the self-respect and the independence of these madrassas will be gone if we say okay to the government," Shah said. "These madrassas will die under government rule."
While Pakistani officials say they have no intention of diluting the measure, the government's apparent hesitancy reflects what some analysts say is Musharraf's reluctance to confront religious extremists who traditionally have been strong allies of the military. The army has long relied on madrassas as a source of holy warriors, or jihadis, in the struggle against Indian forces in the disputed region of Kashmir and, before that, Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan.
A study completed this month by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based nonprofit organization that specializes in conflict resolution, questioned Musharraf's seriousness in reining in the madrassas, describing his proposed reforms as little more than "cosmetic measures" aimed at appeasing the United States.
"A madrassa sector whose autonomy remains untouched and which is not forced to adopt reforms is unlikely to confront the military," the report said, noting the government's failure to impose mandatory curriculum standards. "On the contrary, the clergy remains a vocal supporter of a politically dominant military and of the military's India policy."
Government officials say they have already made progress in curbing extremism in madrassas, some of which have complied voluntarily with their request to formally register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Any delay in carrying out further reforms, they say, reflects a lack of resources rather than will.
"Enormous funds are required to have qualified teachers, salaries, books," said Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, the government's chief spokesman. "There's no doubt left in anyone's mind that this will be done. No civilian government could have taken this action. This is a misconception that the military is encouraging madrassas."
Foreign diplomats generally concur that Musharraf is sincere in his desire to modernize madrassas, but they say he has to move slowly in confronting the fiercely independent clerical establishment.
Because madrassas function outside government authority, there are no firm statistics on the number of such schools, although most estimates put the figure at around 10,000, with a student population of perhaps 1.5 million. The rapid growth of the madrassa system in recent years reflects, in many respects, the dismal state of Pakistan's public education system. Even critics of the system concede that madrassas perform a useful social function, providing free basic education, as well as room and board, to poor students who might otherwise not go to school.
Pakistani madrassas fall into five categories, reflecting various strains of thought among Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and many of them appear to have little to do with producing militants.
Mazhar Haq, for example, is a mechanical engineer who wears Western clothes, speaks English well and has taken training courses with Mitsubishi's automotive division in Japan. He recently visited a madrassa in Islamabad -- funded in part by donations from wealthy Saudis -- where his 10-year-old son, Mohammed, is spending the summer memorizing the Koran.
"It is not necessary that he should become a mullah," said Haq, 35. "Of course he will be a software engineer or doctor. But he should know about the Koran. There's a misperception in the West that these madrassas are creating extremists like Osama bin Laden. This is not the fact."
In the entrance hall of the madrassa, a poster advertised an upcoming student debate on the topic, "Islam through the sword or good character?"
Even before Sept. 11, some madrassas had begun to modernize. For example, Darul Uloom Haqqania has offered computer classes for several years and is about to make the Internet available to its students, said Shah, the deputy director.
Still, he added, "We want them just to learn the basics so they can operate. If they get more education in computers then they will leave their own path, which is to teach Islam."
Some are reluctant to go even that far. At Darul Uloom Sarhad, the madrassa near Peshawar's old city, instruction in basic subjects such as math, science and English stops in the eighth grade. After that, students focus entirely on studying the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad.
The students live six to a room in a hostel or a nearby mosque, where neighbors cook their meals as a form of charity. The students attend classes in airless classrooms from 7 a.m. until noon, sitting on tattered straw mats with their Korans propped open on wooden reading stands.
"Allah has sent us to this world to study Islam, to serve Islam and to pray five times a day," said Hamid Ullah, 20. A first-year student, he has just finished memorizing the Koran from cover to cover.
The school's director, Sahibzada Banori, said he sees no reason to tamper with the system. The government's new ordinance, he said, "creates restlessness in Muslim society, and this is harmful to the government and the nation. It provokes the religious institutions."
Banori said his teachers steer clear of politics and denied that his school or others like it promote hostility toward the West. "We are not giving any gun to their hand or any training," he said. "Islam is not aggressive."
At the same time, Banori voiced deep suspicion of the United States, suggesting, for example, that U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan solely for "economic interests" and that bin Laden had been falsely accused.
"Osama bin Laden, that is one person, and you are going to invade the whole country?" he said. "That is cruelty."
But Banori's suspicions of the United States go only so far. Escorting an American visitor on a tour of the school recently, Banori took him aside and asked for a small favor: advice on securing a U.S. visa for his son, a pharmacist.
"He wants to go to America for extra
education," he said.
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