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Friday, October 09, 2009
The Senate has been told the actual number of madressahs in the country far exceeds the 15,843 that have been registered. The largest number – over 11,000 – is located in Punjab. Only 507 madressahs have been provided assistance by the education ministry under the Madressah Reforms Package of the previous government. The vast majority remain well beyond the ambit of government control, with no means of ascertaining what is taught or how. The limited studies carried out suggest that even when madressah pupils are not encouraged to back militancy, they are brainwashed into believing women are inferior or that Indians represent a threat to Muslims. Such opinions have crossed over into the mainstream. The new educational policy announced by the PPP government incorporates many hard-line views and fails to take into account the possible presence of non-Muslim children in classrooms. We are told the government succumbed to pressure from the religious right to avoid tampering with 'Islamic' components of the policy – even though in most cases these have nothing to do with Islam and its focus on tolerance and peace.
Extremism continues to haunt us. It does so in part because we have consistently failed to heed the voices of sanity. An eminent religious scholar has suggested religious education be declared a 'speciality' and be pursued only after ten years or more of regular schooling. Other persons with religious learning have suggested that the views of Al-Azhar University, the premier institution of Sunni Islam, be promoted and followed more widely. Such counsel makes sense. It is time we adopted policies that could help us escape the nightmare of extremism into which we have been hurled as a result of the flawed policies of the past.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
