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Shahzada Saleem
Pakistan’s madrasa sector has been at the centre of debates on extremism and radicalisation of society since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terror. The western media branded madaaris as factories of jihad and nurseries of violent extremism especially in the Pakistan. Thousands of newspaper articles, research papers and essays have regularly been published to shed light on the political and social role of the institution as well. Meanwhile it has been highlighted time and again that there is a need to reform the madaaris after diagnosing what ails the contemporary madrasa system in Pakistan.
There are 25 to 30 thousands madaaris in Pakistan. Every religious sect has its madaaris to help survive and spread its beliefs in the world. Unfortunately, there has not been any proper framework where this centuries-old institution of madaaris could be utilized for imparting best-quality and optimum educational, religious and social benefits to the masses.
Reforming the madaaris remains one of the most significant issues that have been pending for the last many years. During the Musharraf-sponsored PML-Q government, ministers of education and religious affairs had been blaming each other for not cooperating on this issue. Although, the previous government tried to deny the international allegations of spreading terrorism and extremism via madaaris but being an ally of the west in war on terror it could not escape itself so long from the international pressure. And the newly established PPP-led coalition government in the centre will also have to face madaaris reforms issue.
Previous Government’s Efforts
The PML-Q government had launched a five year madrasa reforms program in four provinces of Pakistan besides Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA) under the banner of “Madaaris Reforms Project” (MRP) in 2002-03 and its period expired on June 30, 2007. The aim of the project was to teach formal subjects like English, Mathematics, Pakistan Studies/Social Studies and General Science along with the religious education. This program was launched by federal and provincial education departments and two separate Project Management Units were set up at federal and provincial levels.
The cost of the project for five years was estimated at Rs5.759 billion to be spent to provide formal subjects, computer, printers, syllabus, library, books, sports items, salaries of teachers of about 8,000 religious/madaaris in the country. Out of 8,000 religious schools, 4,000 were of primary level, 3,000 of secondary level and 1,000 of higher secondary level. In Sindh alone 1,536 madaaris came under the category of religious schools. Out of this number, the Sindh government had chosen 768 for primary levels, 576 for secondary levels and 192 for higher secondary level for reformation program in five years.
The Project Management Unit had not shown any on ground progress and the project tenure expired in year 2006-07; only in the final year some progress was witnessed. There was a lack of coordination and collaboration between the federal government and the provinces on implementation of the project. For example the reason for not issuing salaries to 187 madaaris in Sindh, was a shortage of funds as the federal government had not released the grant to the Sindh province in the final year. According to plan the funds were to be released by the ministry to the provincial education departments. The Auditor-General of Pakistan Revenues were to be responsible for the audit of the project accounts. The monitoring and evaluation of the project remained with the provincial education departments and the provincial education foundations.
In the period of Q league, the then education minister Javed Ashrif Qazi had largely blamed the religious affairs ministry for the fiasco, saying the ministry could not be entrusted with the job in the future. Religious affairs minister Ijaz-ul-Haq, according to Qazi, never offered his full cooperation over the issue. The ministry of religious affairs had already failed to implement the Madaaris Board Act 2001 that was aimed at facilitating the work of madaaris. It could not also streamline the affairs of 105 madaaris which were affiliated with the ministry at that time.
After Lal Masjid operation in 2007, the federal government once again paid its attention towards reforms in the madaaris. The list of those madaaris, which had not received grant, was sent to federal govt. It is interesting to mention that the federal government had released only Rs40.800 million in five years from its share of Rs1106.149 million to Sindh government for madaaris project; provincial authorities paid back unutilized Rs12.469 million from released amount of Rs40 million on the request of Islamabad. Sindh received only Rs28.469 million for MRP out of the total sanctioned amount of Rs1106.149 million.
The province of Punjab returned the entire amount sent by Islamabad for the reforms project because they felt that the salaries of the teachers were merging and the amount given was not sufficient. The Province of Balochistan showed some progress in the closing year of the project. On the other hand NWFP province showed good progress and utilized to the maximum the amount given by Islamabad.
Government had promised funding Islamic seminaries that were formally registered with the government. The minister of religious affairs made frequent visit to convince the Khateebs of mosques and clerics to accept the government reforms in the seminaries but due to the conservative ideas some clerics thought it a un- Islamic activity to do.
Now after a seven year struggle for reforming and registration of the seminaries, government official were defending the projects saying the data collection process was still mired in confusion. It was generally believed in government circles that the data figures mismatch at various tiers like the federal, provincial and local levels.
Registration Issue: The ministry of religious affairs had till July last year registered only 13,000 religious seminaries, while their actual number is estimated to be over 200,000 across the country.
The interior ministry, nonetheless, has been expressing concern over the issue as ministry of religious affairs does not have a proper mechanism to determine the exact number of seminaries operating unlawfully.
Besides madaaris, the exact number of students studying in the country’s madaaris is also not yet known, as the ministry of religious affairs has so far registered only those seminaries that house 30-40 students. The ministry provided cursory figures to the interior ministry after the Madressah Registration Ordinance was promulgated.
The ministry of religious affairs on the other hand continued harping on the same string of lack of proper mechanism to trace unregistered madaaris. They however revealed time and again that there has been a sharp growth in institutions associated with the Deobandi school of thought. The NWFP had witnessed the largest number of unregistered religious institutions. Some people had then also suggested that interior ministry should be given the task to contain pro-militant seminaries as well as register other madaaris as it enjoys manpower and would more effectively tackle the issue.
Madaaris Response
Along with the planning of reforms, in a more controversial decision Musharraf government demanded that all the madaaris would have to expel the foreign students enrolled since Dec 31, 1995. After the declaration of the decision many Islamist groups vehemently resisted the government efforts in the madaaris reforms. Many clerics, heads of the seminaries in all the four provinces and regions openly refused to provide any information about students and teachers besides their location, branches in the country. The education ministry had even forwarded a list of 800 seminaries to interior division in August last year who were totally non-cooperative in registration process.
Not a single seminary in federal capital had returned a form from the federal education ministry seeking information about the seminaries, sources of funding and decrees. And the event of Lal Masjid deteriorated the situation further. There are several reasons of the refusal of the madaaris heads to provide the information about the seminaries. Besides others, one important factor remained the stance of some prominent religious scholars for not accepting government intervention into madaaris. Maulana Hanif Jalandhari, a central leader of the Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Deeni Madaaris (ITMD) had warned those at the helm of madaaris affairs that the organization would cancel the affiliation of any seminary which received the government aid (although he has recently softened his stance).
Another bitter reality is that most of the religion leaders have seminaries and they have played a vital role in Afghan Jihad. They want to maintain their supremacy over madaaris and are the main hurdle in madaaris reforms.
Need of Reforms
Almost every government, elected or none-elected, has been trying to introduce some reforms in the madaaris but there has not yet been any comprehensive reform policy in this regard. There can be many aspects of madaaris reforms ranging from regulation, administration and uplift of madaaris to introduction of curriculum reforms. The objective of these reforms should be to substitute radical ideologies with real Islamic moderate values and provide an applied-education mode where madaaris students become useful members of the society. This way madaaris education can be brought at par with the mainstream education systems.
The madaaris in Pakistan teach a curriculum known as Dars-i-Nizami, first introduced by Mullah Nizam ud-Din Sihalvi (d. 1747) who was a scholar of some repute in Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy in Lucknow. Almost all Sunni madrasas, irrespective of whether they are of Deobandi, Barelvi, or Ahl-i-Hadith persuasion, follow the same standard Nizami course of studies adopted by the Deoband seminary in 1867.
Dars-e-Nizami consists of about twenty subjects broadly divided into two categories: al-ulum an-naqliya (the transmitted sciences), and al-ulum al-aqliya (the rational sciences). The subject areas include grammar, rhetoric, prosody, logic, philosophy, Arabic literature, and dialectical theology, life of the Prophet, medicine, mathematics, polemics, Islamic law, jurisprudence, Hadith, and Tafsir (exegesis of the Quran).
It is important to note that out of the twenty subjects, only eight can be considered as solely religious. The remaining subjects are otherwise secular and were included in Nizami curriculum both to equip the students for civil service jobs and as an aid to understanding religious texts. Also, facilities for teaching all of the subjects and books are not usually available in all madaaris. This is particularly true in the case of subjects such as medicine, mathematics, history, philosophy, prosody, and polemics. Nonetheless, most of the books taught in this curriculum are very old. Books used in philosophy and logic, for example, were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Medicine is taught through an eleventh-century text that is still considered an authentic study of human anatomy and pathology. In what we have described as purely religious subjects, the books used date back to the seventeenth century at the latest and the eleventh century at the earliest.
The entire system has been traditionally supported by the community through trusts, endowments, charitable donations, and Zakat contributions. However, since the introduction of the compulsory collection of Zakat and Usher by the Zia ul-Haq government in 1980, a large number of madaaris receive regular financial assistance from the publicly administered Zakat funds. Not only do the students not pay any tuition, they are provided with free textbooks, board and lodging, and a modest stipend. The government should introduce some financial monitoring system for madaaris with regular audits. The madaaris should also be provided sufficient funds so that they are well equipped and can educate the students properly.
With the exception of a few madaaris managed by the provincial government Auqaf departments, madrasa education in Pakistan is mainly in the private sector. In the majority of cases, madaaris are personal enterprises of prominent Ulema who own and manage the madaaris and make arrangements for their finances. Usually, the founders of the madaaris are Ulema of good standing who have a degree of influence in the local community, which enables them to acquire land, housing facilities, and financial resources for the madaaris. To bring madaaris into mainstream education system, the government should evolve a viable regulatory body after consultation with madaaris boards.
Most of the madaaris are registered with the government as charitable corporate bodies and have acquired tax-exempt status, thus receiving an indirect subsidy from the public treasury. Some larger madaaris have their own board of trustees or executive committees, which consist of local business elites, landed gentry, and prominent Ulema. In most cases, these are merely ceremonial bodies, meant largely to provide decorum and legitimacy to the madaaris. Major policy decisions regarding doctrinal preferences, curriculum, and selection of teachers and students remain the exclusive prerogative of the Ulema.
Given this extent, there is an urgent need to introduce comprehensive educational along with ideological reforms in the seminaries and the society. The change will not come by only reforms in the madaaris; we have to bring change in the minds of the people to understand the global challenges and to face them. Religion leaders have to think about the global competitions of innovative ideas propelled by rapid advancement in science and scholarship. What can do the Documental reforms and registration?
For the large madaaris (some are said to have up to 10,000 students on their rolls) the government should establish an autonomous university on the pattern of Al-Azhar which is, undisputedly, the greatest mosque-university in the world and a centre of Islamic culture and religious learning. Al-Azhar examines nearly 200,000 students every year. Its campus in the heart of Cairo draws students from almost every Muslim country in the thousands. The standards for enrolment are so exacting that very few students reared in Pakistan’s madressahs are able to get in and fewer still leave with a degree or certificate. The graduates of the madressahs affiliated with Pakistan’s own version of al-Azhar should be treated at par with the graduates from the secular universities for jobs in the government and private sectors.
Islam adopts a holistic approach to knowledge, not making any rigid division between 'religious' and 'secular' knowledge. Rather, it divides knowledge into 'useful knowledge' (ilm-e nafi) and 'useless knowledge' (ilm-e ghayr nafi), with 'usefulness' being determined by the capacity of a certain body knowledge to promote individual and social welfare in this world and in the life after death, as described in Islam. Hence, socially useful sciences like medicine, engineering and so on, are positively allowed for in Islam.
The Quran also refers to numerous issues that are related to a range of scientific disciplines, including astronomy, physics, biology, history, languages etc. This implies that Muslims are not forbidden from learning these subjects. 'The Quran', 'encourages us to acquire knowledge of the sciences that can reveal the secrets of the world', and these include the human and the natural sciences. Accordingly, early Muslims excelled in these sciences, building upon the legacy that they inherited from the Greeks. Using this argument, madrasas should include a modicum of 'modern' subjects in their curriculum, enough to enable their students, as would-be Ulema, to function in the world outside and to be aware of 'the demands of the present age'.
This would also provide them with better skills to communicate with 'modern' educated Muslims as well as non-Muslims. It is wrong to say that the Ulema ever condemned the learning of English and other 'modern' subjects, for all languages 'are from God'. Rather, what they opposed was the 'Western culture' that advocates of English education championed. Just as the founder of the Deoband madressahs, Maulana Qasim Nanotavi, introduced Sanskrit in the madrasa's syllabus, so today's madaaris can teach English. Besides, he says, they should also familiarize their students with the basics of Economics, Political Science, History, Geography and Mathematics. These subjects are also important for understanding and interpreting Islam according to the demands of the times. It is entirely possible to learn 'modern' subjects by keeping one's Islamic faith and culture intact.
Secretary General of Wafaq ul-Madaaris, Maulana Hanif Jalandhari, has recently offered government to equalize the curriculum in both the seminaries and government institutions. He says Wafaq ul-Madaaris will appreciate the reforms if they come form the government and not from the American side. “Instead of accusing us government should streamline first its own educational institutions, there should be no difference between rich and poor children. Government should make a national education commission including Islamic clerics and experts. The commission is to introduce a curriculum which is equal at least till matriculation level”, he was quoted as saying.
The provincial Ameer of JUI (F), Senator Maulana Gul Naseeb, has also said that there is need of a university of modern education for the madaaris students in which they can get admission for the study of modern education after completing their tenure in the madaaris.
The madaaris are ready to be reformed but they argue that government should not follow the American instructions in order to reforms the madaaris; reforms should be done according to the needs and not to please the American. However it remains a fact that if the madaaris do not educate their students with modern education then it will be harmful for the students in future. On the other hand this centuries-old institute of Islamic education needs to be brought at par with the modern learning institutes which may produce learned scholars and enlightened Muslims and not mere orthodox clerics.
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