BACKGROUND: The Pakistani religious schools (madaris) have been in the international spotlight since 9/11. British investigators’ initial claim that two of the suspected July 7 London suicide bombers had attended madaris in Pakistan proved a real catalyst, thus forcing General Musharraf to threaten the religious schools to register themselves with the government by December 31 or face closure. While the move has given impetus to the country’s inefficient bureaucracy, the religious schools by and large reject the exercise “being carried out under foreign pressure”. Following the 1979 USSR invasion of Afghanistan, large sums of money were injected into Pakistani religious schools to educate Afghan children growing up in refugee camps and brainwash them against the non-Muslim Soviet occupation of their land. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. were major suppliers of money. In Pakistan, it is also widely believed that even the syllabus preaching Jihad, under fire these days, was prepared in the U.S. in the Cold War era, long before it was taught in Pakistani seminaries. Historically, the first ever madrasa was set up in the Prophet\'s (PBUH) mosque in Madina shortly after his migration to the city from his hometown Mecca, where students sat on rough mats woven of date-palms and memorized, internalized, and acted upon what was being taught to them by the Holy Prophet himself. This prototype of the madrasa was then taken to cities as far as Samarqand and Bukhara in Central Asia and Timbuktu in Africa. The madaris then proliferated to cities such as Baghdad, Basra, Kufa, Samarqand, Ghazni, Lahore, Multan, Deoand, Berali and Damascus. To give the exercise a ‘flawless’ legal cover, General Musharraf promulgated an ordinance amending the Societies Registration Act of 1860, requiring the 11,882 seminaries in the country to register with the government. The amendment settles a conflict between the ministries of education, interior, and religious affairs, with the former two seeking a new law for registration and the latter agreeing with the madaris to make use of the Societies Act. Under the presidential ordinance, a new section has been added to the act, providing that no seminary will operate without getting itself registered. The four provincial governors also followed suit and promulgated similar legislation to ensure no religious school stays out of the registration net. According to the new law, madaris are institutions which provide boarding and lodging facilities while maktabs (junior schools) are institutions where these facilities are not offered and students are taught religion and the holy Quran in mosques. The ordinance also seeks the submission of audited reports by seminaries along with a list of donors. Until 1996, the religious schools had been registering with the government but Benazir Bhutto’s government stopped this practice for unknown reasons. The ensuing period saw the unmanaged proliferation of madaris all across the country, the majority being based in the North-West Frontier Province and the populous Punjab province.

IMPLICATIONS: Initially, the religious schools accepted the Musharraf-promulgated ordinance and showed willingness to register with the government, but later the most influential boards, Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabia and Tanzeemul Madaris (Barelvi) refused to register religious schools under the amended Society Registration Act of 1860. The two board or wafaqs run approximately 9,000 schools, out of a total 12,000. The country’s largest and most influential madrasa boards accuse the government of defaming religious schools and hold that some aspects of the ordinance, including the requirement for government approval in financial matters, raids on religious schools and a campaign against jihadi literature, were unacceptable. In fact, the alliance of five boards of religious schools – Ittehad Tanzeemat Madaris Deeniah – have reservations about the amended ordinance, especially its provision about submitting their audit reports to the registrar. Also, the ulema of these schools of thoughts are not cooperating with the government in epatriating foreign students by the deadline of September 30. The Pakistani government has so far deported a number of foreign students in line with a decision made on August 7 following criticism from the West after the 7/7 London bombings. The students so far repatriated were studying in seminaries in the coastal metropolis of Karachi and mainly came from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Somalia, Uganda and Surinam. In the Muslim world, Pakistani religious schools are known for their quality education in Islamic disciplines. Most of the foreign students are living in Pakistan on visitor visas and they normally have their return ticket with them, thus posing little problems to the government in their repatriation process. The government has never offered a study visa to students joining religious schools. Government figures suggest that there is a total of 1,400 foreign students in Pakistan, 600 of which are based in Karachi and adjoining rural districts. Yet another bone of contention between the government and the religious schools is the amendment in the syllabus of the students. Critics of US ‘war on terror’ say that it does not prove at all they are churning out terrorists. However, a sizeable number of seminaries have already started formally teaching English, Mathematics, science and computer as additional subjects since 2001. Madaris in remote and poor parts of the country still have to introduce the newer changes in their syllabi.

CONCLUSIONS: Why is the Musharraf regime not succeeding in streamlining the religious schools? The madaris are extremely autonomous and see outside, including governmental, interference with great suspicion. As the religious schools neither seek money from the government nor any privileges, they want to exercise freedom. Undoubtedly, General Musharraf has little credibility amongst religious circles after allegedly bending backwards before the United States and other western powers to seek legitimacy for his military rule after September 11, 2001. He is using the son of late President General Zia-ul-Haq, who spearheaded the insurgency against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, to sell the reforms to the madaris. On the ground, the well-respected son of a pro-jihad Pakistani president has minute success in promoting Musharraf’s ‘enlightened moderation’ as a vision for peace. The moment he glorifies Musharraf, the religious students chant full throat slogans against him. The post-7/7 crackdown on seminaries, involving the arrest of some 300 ulema followed by the registration deadline and the repatriation of foreign students come as fatal blows to the entire reform exercise started in late 2001. Leading religious scholars suspect that the government will recognize Israel and relinquish its position on Palestine and Kashmir once it strangles the dissenting voices from the madaris on ideological issues. The most recent public meeting between the Israeli and Pakistani foreign ministers in Istanbul has created even bigger fissures within the ideologically divided nation. Looking at its performance report over the madaris issue, the Pakistani government and its western allies seem to have little capacity and commitment to reach a middle ground, keeping in mind the sensitivities of both the sides. Reforming madaris in Pakistan is not just a religious, legal or procedural matter but it is an equally sensitive subject political as well as socially.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Naveed Ahmad is an investigative journalist, broadcaster and academic whose work regularly appears in the The News International and Newsline. He also hosts a 30-minute current affairs talk show, Insight, for Radio Pakistan’s News and Current Affairs Channel.