Pakistani and Indian Madrasas - A Fine Balance?

Originally published on Desicritics
Have the political environments of madrasas in two different countries affected their programs and curricula? Has the development of madrasas in India, under a secular constitution since Partition, created religious education programs which have a different emphasis and intent from those across the border in Pakistan where these have developed under an Islamic state?

Recent news reports from Pakistan about madrasas appear to center on whether these schools are supporting Islamic militancy and training young people to become involved with the Taliban. News reports from India about madrasas hint at another concern, how to remain viable institutions whose primary mission is to provide religious training to support the growth of Islam as a word religion within a secular political/social environment which allows for and protects any expression of religious belief for its citizens.

My first personal experience as an adult with Islamic religious schools began in 1984 in Sukkur, Pakistan. During the early morning hours, after the first call to prayer, my colleague, a professional sociologist working with the Department of Agriculture, were invited to an Islamic school for young boys. The school was not far from the Indus River near the famous Mir Ma’Sum Sha Minaret Minaret.

I will call the teacher Alhaji Mohammed. He sat on a mat in the shade under a mango tree. Twenty children sat in front of him on the hard-packed ground. Alhaji Mohammed held a long narrow cane in his right hand and appeared to be half asleep. The boys were reciting, pointing to the Arabic words written out on their chalk boards, Surah 4, vs. 74. Let those who fight in the way of Allah… sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward. (Translation into English by Mohammed M. Picthall, 1953, Karachi.)

All the voices chanted in unison, pointing to the words with their index fingers, their bodies swaying backwards and forwards. One child, a skinny little lad, began to fall asleep and his finger sagged in front of his slate, his eye lids drooped. The long slender cane held in Alhaji’s hand snaked forward and tapped the hand smartly. The boy awakened, and now crying, pointed to the Arabic words. The children next to him raised their voices and sang out the words more vigorously, reinvigorated by the tears. In the background the second call to prayer of the day sounded from the short minaret.

Alhaji Mohammed rose to his feet and with much flourish, adjusted his loose flowing robe, set his embroidered Quetta style hat on his head and walked across the street, followed by the children. At the mosque they all began the ritual washings, hands, feet, face and ears. The teacher set the example and the boys all followed suit. He took a handful of water and slurped it into his mouth, swished the water around, turned and spat onto the soil behind him. The boys rinsed their mouths and spat.

After namaz the group dispersed. I asked Alhaji to tell me about the lesson the boys were learning. “What is the meaning of the Surah the boys were learning today?” I asked in Urdu.

He turned to face me abruptly, (his orange colored beard signaling that he had made the haj to Mecca) and frowning, repeated the Surah in Arabic. Then feeling satisfied, he said, “That’s it.”

I persisted. “Tell me in Urdu what the meaning is so I can understand what the boys were repeating and memorizing.”

“It only has real meaning in Arabic, the language of Allah. To say the holy words of the Prophet, peace be unto Him, in another language, removes the meaning from the Surah. The boys learn the Arabic. After some years of learning, they feel and understand and believe the meaning when their Arabic improves.”

“Do they get classes in the Arabic language as well, so the meaning of the Arabic words they are reading makes sense to them?”

“Yes. At the end of the day when it is cool, I teach them some Arabic. I will teach them the word fight today. Then tomorrow when we once again repeat the Surah they will understand the meaning. First the holy words in Arabic, not in Urdu, then later the meaning.” He now smiled and I got the feeling that I was being dismissed.

Growing up in northern India near the North West Frontier Province, was my first introduction to Islamic schools, most of which were connected to mosques. Entering such places required that we take off our sandals. The stone floors against our bare feet was pleasant as we walked about, led proudly by the Imam. The stone steps leading up to the top of the high minaret of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore were cool against our bare feet. From the top we could see the huge open area where thousands came to pray. In one shaded corner a group of boys and their teacher were having a lesson from the Koran. Their high voices carried up to us as they repeated a surah, over and over again, learning by rote the verse of that day, in Arabic.

I had not heard the word madrasas until after September 11, 2001. Then the frequency of its usage made it a household word and a concern for those involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Madrasas came into focus when it became known that several Al Qaeda members and Taliban leaders had developed their rather radical political views at madrasas in Pakistan. Words such as Islamic extremism, militancy and terrorism and Taliban were frequently used in conjunction with madrasas. I learned that Taliban meant student in Arabic. Then we heard that one such school in Pakistan near the Afghan border had been bombed by American forces, and there were pictures of Pakistanis holding up signs in protest against George Bush and America. (A fictional account of such a bombing appeared in my novel One Way to Pakistan) That madrasa was located in the Bajaur tribal region. Reports in the USA indicated that 80 militants were killed in the 2006 air strike. The reaction in Pakistan to this military violation of their territory was immediate and strong. Anti-American feelings ran high. They also ran high yesterday when it was reported that Pakistani people were killed in a raid on the Afghanistan border with Pakistan. Such incidents feed the fervor against one who is called the Great Satan.

In Pakistan, most madrasas offer free education to their students. Thus, many poor families are eager to send their sons to such schools, which in large measure, are supported by alms-giving, known in Arabic as zakat. In some instances, little is provided to the students, who are told to go and beg to help support themselves through the gifts of others who consider giving alms to such children a good deed.

A small number of madrasas are for girls, although I have never personally seen one. I recently read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson which commented about Islamic religious schools, madrasas, and their financial support from foreign sources. The approach taken by Mortenson through his efforts to develop 55 schools in Pakistan, primarily for girls, was a means to fight extremism and terrorism. I found the first part of his book inspiring. To educate young women gives them a window on the world through literacy, writing and dealing with numbers, it provides them with improved means for keeping healthy and rearing children and this is a most positive effort toward promoting peace, one school, one girl at a time.

In Pakistan there are over 12,000 madrasas. (See the CRS Report for Congress,”Islamic Religious Schools, Madrasas: Background” by Christopher Blanchard, Jan.23, 2008)

“In an economy that is marked by extreme poverty and underdevelopment, costs associated with Pakistan’s cash-strapped public education system have led some Pakistanis to turn to madrasas for free education, room and board.”

This report states that some madrasas have been used as incubators for violent extremism. Some foreign students were enrolled in Pakistani madrasas. In 2006 there was a report that Pakistani authorities would deport 700 of the remaining foreign students unless they got permission from their own governments to remain in Pakistan with appropriate visas. Many of the 12,000 madrasas in Pakistan teach only Islamic studies. In September of 2007, according to the CRS report mentioned, “…many Pakistani madrasas have taught extremist doctrine in support of terrorism.” The curriculum, if it is only Islamic in nature, does not provide students with contemporary knowledge about the world outside Pakistan, about its neighboring state India from which Pakistan emerged after partition or other nearby non-Islamic countries. One teacher in such a school said, “The aim of our religion is to reach god.” The CRS report quoted Samuel Haq who said, “We only impart religious education here. The students later take up arms on their own.”

Though it is matter of conjecture of what is actually taught by religious teachers in Pakistani madrasas, since none of us will sit and hear what the teachers teach, their own statements are that these schools impart religious information only. This is of sufficient concern to many in the world at large. A curriculum which teaches that there is only one right way and this is based on religious belief, which by its nature is exclusive of other ways of thought, of other belief systems, exclusive of others who live out their lives in the greater modern world, this fundamental religious stance can produce graduates whose world and life view is conservative and focused on intolerance. Reportedly, some Pakistani madrasas teach subjects other than religion. Some teach computers and local languages, however, their mainstay is religious training. Some madrasas in other countries are seeking government approval for awarding bachelor and master’s degrees in Islamic religious studies, or as one stated, Islamic Religious Science.

If the truth can only be learned in Arabic from religious documents such as the Koran and the madrasas’ curricula rejects secular information based on scientific enquiry and holds it to be suspect or dangerous, it is logical that such students will form highly conservative social understandings, including negative consideration and respect for other religions or ideas such as the emancipation of women. Militancy, extremism, crusades and/or jihad frequently emerge from rigid belief systems.

In Pakistan, twelve thousand madrasas are teaching youngsters in schools which have funding from other Islamic states, including Iran. As hundreds of young men leave these schools each year, they merge into society at large and seek work and life causes with religious zeal and philosophical underpinnings that, from this writer’s point of view, bodes ill for their participation in the development and support for a liberal, secular and democratic society. Madrasas are proliferating in many Muslim states, including Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and nearby neighbor, India, but there are differences, both in curricula and emphasis.

There has been a long debate about madrasas in India going as far back as 1947. The volume of literature about this is large and experts from within the madrasas system, as well as social critics about the system, have and are continuing to speak out about the need for reform of the madrasas’ curriculum. Such dialogue, which emerges out of Indian religious diversity, is healthy and keeps alive the issues. Dialogue, forces conservative elements to constantly review their programs and their teaching approaches in order to bring these more in line with modern secular-political needs which are in support of freedom of religion as expressed in the Indian Constitution. Madrasas enjoy this freedom to express their religious beliefs and teach these in Indian madrasas.

R. Upadhyay’s article published in Feb. 2003 presents an interesting review which leans toward reform and change, "Madrasa Education in India"
Is it to sustain medieval attitude among Muslims? “A recent circular of Government of India to keep watch on the anti-national activities of madrasas raised many eyebrows in the country. But if we look back to the historical developments of madrasas in India this Islamic system of education has all along been playing a prominent role in keeping the movement of Muslim separatism alive in this country. The British also suspected them. Contrary to it the Post-colonial India for reason best known gave special constitutional privilege for the autonomy of madrasas. But the manner in which the madrasas promote medieval attitude among the Indian Muslims at the cost of secular education needs to be checked. In fact, orthodoxy, religious conservatism and obsession to medieval identity remained the main focus of Madrasa education in India.

Muzaffar Alam’s article, Modernization of Madrasas in India, The Hindu , April 23, 2002 reviews how various changes are being made to bring madrasas up to modern standards, yet still remaining true to their basic principles of training youth in the fundamentals of their faith. This same debate is well presented in the book Bastions of Believers: Madrasas and Islamic Education in India by Yogender Sikand, New Delhi, Penguin 2005. The book utilizes a historical research perspective to describe the growth of this institution and summarizes what the stated intents of madrasas have been.

The debate centers on the words modern and liberal vs. medieval and radically conservative. One writer speaks of new trends in madrasas as being efforts to teach the youth Islamic ‘science’, which made me smile, thinking of the Christian Science Church movement in the United States which is a distinct form of religious fundamentalism with an approach that is far from what is globally considered to be scientific. (However, to be fair, the Latin, scio, from which our word science came, simply means, knowledge in the fullest sense of the word.) But still, the terms science and religion seem to grate when put side by side in this context. Some writers debate whether Islam and democracy are compatible with each other. One thing is certain, the madrasa movement is growing and moving south through India to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. It is a grass roots movement supported and fed by funds from Iran, Saudi Arabia and local donations.

How many young men and women are being taught in Indian madrasas? That seems to be a hard question to answer. Many such schools are not registered and what is taught in them is not monitored nor approved by government, thus counting them or defining what they are is a difficult task. One source suggests that there are 1.5 million children and young adults in Indian madrasas. Another source says there are between 25,000 and 40,000 madrasas scattered across India. (Consider that in Pakistan there may be only 12,000 of them.) I found the blog by Yoginder Sikand, “Islam and Democracy: Lessons from the Indian Muslim” interesting. He debates whether or not Islam and democracy are compatible with each other. Sikand presents Ali Naswi’s point of view this way.

In contrast to Muslim liberals, and echoing the views of the Islamists, he insisted on the need for an Islamic order in order to implement the laws of God. However, he stood apart from most Islamists by arguing that the Islamic political order could come about in India only in some remotely distant future. Rather than directly struggling for it at the present, he believed that the Muslims of the country should accept the secular and democratic Indian state as it was and focus their energies in trying to build what he saw as a truly Islamic society, on the basis of which alone could an ideal Islamic political order come into being.

Madrasas in Pakistan emerged from within an Islamic religious state are not a mirror image of those in India. There is a point of view that many of these madrasas are hotbeds for the training of radical religious elements and this is expressed almost daily in Pakistan newspapers. Many of the Indian madrasas have expanded their curriculum to include a wider number of what could possibly be termed secular subjects, however, all are taught with the intent of understanding and giving meaning to the teachings of Islam. What could be called the ‘core curriculum’ is the Holy Koran. Hopefully, madrasas in India will be influenced by the various religions around them, by the secular political nature of India and by the great philosophical and religious tolerance that embodies Hinduism.

With the growth of dynamic and expansive secular democracy in many parts of the world there appears to be a concomitant growth of more dynamic and radical religious teaching opposing the ‘heretical secularism’ and its perceived dangers. The ‘Great Satan’, America and its war with Afghanistan and Iraq have polarized religious attitudes and have created responses of hatred for the ‘enemy of Islam’. Madrasas are one of the few places that young people can be taught to uphold and struggle, make a jihad against secularism. Though the word jihad has a few meanings, one is certainly to stand up and fight in a cause for the truth as perceived by Islamists. Ali Naswi’s point of view is to wait, and this differs from many in Pakistan. I can still hear Alhaji Mohammed’s voice. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him shall We bestow a vast reward.