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 Reforming Pakistan’s ‘Dens of Terror’Posted on Jan 22, 2007
(Page 2) How did Ahmed convince a bunch of set-in-their-ways mullahs to leave their madrassas and villages for two weeks to come to hear lectures trumpeting the virtues of America and Western civilization? “Because of my background, people don’t refuse when I ask them to come,” he said. Personal connections and family influence go a long way in Baluchistan’s tribal society: Contemporaries of Ahmed’s deceased father respect him for that reason, and younger generations look to their elders for guidance. Plus, Ahmed’s madrassa, the political party JUI and all of the mullahs who attended the workshop belong to the Deobandi sect, the same school of thought that Mullah Omar, the Taliban and most people residing in Pakistan’s border areas subscribe to. And in Pakistan, sectarian affiliations are nearly as important as tribal ones. So Ahmed, armed with these natural advantages, invited just the kinds of people that conservative teachers from Sunni madrassas don’t typically interact with: women (especially ones who favor hot pink), Shiites (whom many Deobandis consider infidels) and even a blond, blue-eyed American (yours truly).
Nonetheless, Ahmed isn’t organizing these workshops alone. (December’s was the third in the last six months.) Someone has to pay, and that’s where the Washington, D.C.-based International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD) comes in. The ICRD has a record of faith-based conflict resolution in places like Sudan and Iran. In Pakistan, its strategy is to take small groups of mullahs, immerse them in seminars like the one on Adam Smith and then sit back and let these new ideas germinate. While the American, British and Pakistani governments have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to reform Pakistan’s madrassa system at a macro-level, the ICRD has opted for a more cost-effective—and perhaps fruitful—alternative.
Islamabad’s most recent effort at handling the daunting task of madrassa reform proposes a trade-off: Any madrassa that registers with the Ministry of Religious Affairs is given the status of a university, which means that its degrees are recognized as equivalent to those handed out at a secular school. Technically, registration is designed to oblige the madrassas to teach “modern” subjects like science, computers, English and math. Yet at least two major problems have cropped up: One, government officials think that checking “registered” beside the name of a madrassa indicates that it’s on the path to reform; and, two, many of the madrassas have ignored their end of the deal. Another impediment to progress, some think, is the person in charge of the government’s program, Ejaz ul-Haq. Haq is Pakistan’s minister of religious affairs and the son of the late Pakistani president and longtime military dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq. With funding and support from the CIA and Saudi Arabia, Gen. Zia oversaw the boom of madrassas in Pakistan during the 1980s. Not only is it ironic that the son is now tasked with controlling a phenomenon unleashed by his father, but many question whether the younger Haq has the will to succeed in the effort. I asked one of Ejaz ul-Haq’s predecessors whether the government’s lethargy is due to an institutional lack of interest or a personal one. “I think it’s both,” said Mehmood Ghazi, who was minister of religious affairs from early 2000 until August 2001. “But definitely on the part of Ejaz ul-Haq. Frankly speaking, I don’t know what his priorities are. But he has not taken as much interest in madrassas as would be expected from the son of Gen. Zia ul-Haq.” More than 14,000 registered madrassas are spread across Pakistan. I have visited several dozen, and although Haq boasted to me that “we have them on their back foot” and that “we can get everything we want from the registration process,” I have seen little impact from four years of government programs. What Dr. Abdul Razzaq Sikander of the Binori Town madrassa in Karachi told me was typical: “We have been doing this for hundreds of years and we are teaching the religion that we believe to be the true religion.” On the issue of introducing non-Islamic subjects into the curriculum, Sikander replied: “In the West, someone studying to become a doctor doesn’t have to take an engineering class. Why should our specialists have to take other courses [like science or math or English]?” The approach pursued by Ahmed and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy doesn’t focus on quantifiable goals like the “number of madrassas registered” or the “number of computers per madrassa.” Instead, they aim to effect a change in the overall approach inside the madrassas regarding how Islam is taught and how the outside world is portrayed. By keeping the numbers of participants small, Ahmed and the international center try to create an environment where attendees are relaxed and willing to admit mistakes. On the third day of the workshop, a burly, lumberjack-esque mullah from a village an hour from the Afghan border raised his hand. “How have we left the guiding principles of Islam and created all these problems for ourselves?” he asked. One of the seminar instructors had just explained that Wal-Mart regularly outperforms the entire national economy of Pakistan. It created a stir in the room. One store chain? Versus our whole country? “Is there a way out of this hole?” the lumberjack wanted to know. His humility smashed my prior characterization of madrassa teachers as arrogant and uncompromising. These workshops may be conducted on a small scale for now, but with all of these teachers returning to their madrassas, each of them with several hundred students, the impact could be tremendous. Abbas Hussein, a specialist in training teachers, presided over the second half of the workshop. He introduced myriad methods and techniques for teachers to engage their students. One of the goals of the workshops, said Rashid Bokhari, the ICRD representative in Pakistan, is to “shift the focus from teacher-centered learning to student-centered learning.” According to Hussein, a man in his 50s whose brilliance would be intimidating if it weren’t for his disarming Pee Wee Herman-style laugh, the biggest deficiency in madrassa education is the lack of interactive learning. “Usually, all these teachers do is yak, yak, yak,” he told me. Without interaction or debate, “everyone—students and teachers—suffers from ‘arthritis of the categories.’ ” Age-old concepts, or “categories,” are passed down from teacher to student, untouched by contemplation or reflection. Students then pass them down to their students, and so on. To question a concept is perceived as an affront to the teacher. “This [educational barrier] is a mental disease of the age we live in,” said Hussein.
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By paluka, January 25, 2007 at 1:40 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
RE: Levi Civita
You’re an idiot. If you think you can solve war with war, why don’t you go to war with yourself and leave the rest of us out of it? When you’ve won and lost, you will find that you are still at war.
This article is talking about one side of the only real solution to world ‘terror’, the other side being us changing our leadership’s selfish and aggressive foreign policies, by peaceful means. Let’s go to it.
Report thisBy irfan, January 25, 2007 at 7:50 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Islam is religon of peace. Islam teaches love and peace. Madrassa is name of relgious school where student get islamic education. In all madrassa education of islam is given. Madrassas not provide then any education to fight with others. madrassa is nt producing Jihadists.
In the linguistic sense, the Arabic word “jihad” means struggling or striving and applies to any effort exerted by anyone. In this sense, a student struggles and strives to get an education and pass course work; an employee strives to fulfill his/her job and maintain good relations with his/her employer; a politician strives to maintain or increase his (1) popularity with his constituents and so on. The term strive or struggle may be used for/by Muslims as well as non-Muslims; for example, Allah, the One and Only True God says in the Qur’an:
“We have enjoined on people kindness to parents; but if they STRIVE (JAHADAKA) to make you ascribe partners with Me that of which you have no knowledge, then obey them not...” (29:8; also see 31:15)
In the West, “jihad” is generally translated as “holy war,” a usage the media has popularized. According to Islamic teachings, it is UNHOLY to instigate or start war; however, some wars are inevitable and justifiable. If we translate the words “holy war” back into Arabic, we find “harbun muqaddasatu,” or for “the holy war,” “al-harbu al-muqaddasatu.” WE CHALLENGE any researcher or scholar to find the meaning of “jihad” as holy war in the Qur’an or authentic Hadith collections or in early Islamic literature.
. STRIVING FOR RIGHTEOUS DEEDS:
Allah declares in the Qur’an:
“As for those who STRIVE (JAHADU) in Us (the cause of Allah), We surely guide them to Our paths, and lo! Allah is with the good doers.” (29:69)
DID ISLAM SPREAD BY FORCE, SWORDS OR GUNS?
The unequivocal and emphatic answer is NO! The Qur’an declares:
“Let there be no compulsion (or coercion) in the religion (Islam). The right direction is distinctly clear from error.” (2:256
Islam does not teach, nor do Muslims desire, conversion of any people for fear, greed, marriage or any other form of coercion.
In conclusion, jihad in Islam is STRIVING IN THE WAY OF ALLAH by pen, tongue, hand, media and, if inevitable, with arms. However, jihad in Islam does not include striving for individual or national power, dominance, glory, wealth, prestige or pride.
A few muslims r individually doing jehad due to opression of foreigne forces.
In afganistan talban were made due to opression of war lords to innocent afgan peoples. Any Afgan war lord can kidnap any woman earlier. So talban fought againest corrupt evil warlords and brought peace and justice in afganistn, So people can leave their shops alone full f goods in it.
bush have killed more than 650000 iraqi in iraq in so called war of terror.
Report thisnow in somalia talban were made due to opression od evil doers warlords in country.who deprived nation from peace and justice for a long time.
President bush now invaded on them by suggesion of his neocons advisers who enemy of all muslims in world. But islam teaches love and peace to all mankind
By PatrickHenry, January 24, 2007 at 3:30 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
There are a few charter schools in this country which could bear further scrunity.
Report thisBy Ga, January 24, 2007 at 11:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Since the word madrassa means school, not all “madrassas” in Muslim popolated countries are for “jihad.”
If there are any problems with schools it is with “fundamental religious schools.” And that includes fundamental Christian and Jewish schools as well.
Any school that preaches one doctrine, one faith, one way of live, is by definition, going to produce crazy people who look upon all others as “evil.”
Report thisBy Jackie T. Gabel, January 23, 2007 at 7:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
RE: “jihad universities””...American, British and Pakistani governments have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to reform Pakistan’s madrassa system at a macro-level...support from the CIA and Saudi Arabia...”
>>>>>> the expression al CIA-duh doesn’t come from nowhere
“reform” is one way of cloaking your operation, education in general is a time-honored method for recruiting assets.
e.g. Spreading Saudi Fundamentalism in U.S. Network of Wahhabi Mosques, Schools, Web Sites Probed by FBI By Susan Schmidt, Washington Post Staff Writer; Thursday, October 2, 2003; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31402-2003Oc t1?language=printer.
This can all be quite confusing. Alphabet spooks spend a lot of time investigating terrorist recruiters, just as seen before 9/11, only to have their investigations blocked by moles with another agenda: let the patsies play out their roles, until the operation unfolds, then round them up and charge them...if they’re still alive — you see these agencies looking ever more incompetent and wonder why. These are not intelligence “failures.” These are intelligence “successes.”
London’s Brixton and Finsbury mosques aren’t for nothing being referred to as MI-5/MI-6 Patsy Schools.
e.g. FULL TRANSCRIPT: The July 29, 2005 edition of British FOX News Channel’s Day Side
programme:
MIKE JERRICK [FOX NEWS]: John Loftus is a terrorism expert and a former prosecutor for the Justice Department. John, good to see you again. So real quickly here, have you heard anything about this Osman Hussain who was just picked up in Rome? You know that name at all?
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah, all these guys should be going back to an organization called Al-Muhajiroun, which means The Emigrants. It was the recruiting arm of Al-Qaeda in London; they specialized in recruiting kids whose families had emigrated to Britain but who had British passports. And they would use them for terrorist work.
JERRICK: So a couple of them now have Somali connections?
LOFTUS: Yeah, it was not unusual. Somalia, Eritrea, the first group of course were primarily Pakistani. But what they had in common was they were all emigrant groups in Britain, recruited by this Al-Muhajiroun group. They were headed by the, Captain Hook, the imam in London the Finsbury Mosque, without the arm. He was the head of that organization. Now his assistant was a guy named Aswat, Haroon Rashid Aswat.
JERRICK: Aswat, who they picked up.
LOFTUS: Right, Aswat is believed to be the mastermind of all the bombings in London.
JERRICK: On 7/7 and 7/21, this is the guy we think.
LOFTUS: This is the guy, and what’s really embarrassing is that the entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government,
MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him.
continued here http://www.kosovo.net/news/archive/2005/August_06/2.html
Report thisBy levi civita, January 23, 2007 at 4:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Give me a break!
Making a mullah mild mannered changes the facts on the ground?
The mullah’s army has no gun-ships and no 1000-pounders. His land is being occupied by public-funded Militaries from half-way across the globe on behalf of Exxon and such like.
The mullahs’ people are supposed to lay down, preferably face-down, and allow the invaders to build their pipelines from which they will get nothing but chemical pollution and disease like the people of the Niger delta!
A bleeding-heart liberal here does more killing in a day by not raising his or her voice, fearing Homeland Security, than a gaggle of madrassa’s will do in a decade.
Report this