Madrasas in Pakistan persevere

By Salman Masood The New York Times

TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2006

ISLAMABAD As the incendiary training at some seminaries in Pakistan drew renewed focus in the weeks after the July 7 bombings in London, the Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, promised to bring the schools into the mainstream and expel their foreign students by the end of the year.

But his tough pledge has fizzled. Last week, the government backed away from that promise and said it would not use force to deport students. The schools, called madrasas, then said they would resist any effort to round up students, and on Sunday a coalition representing the seminaries called the government plan "inhuman, immoral and totally illegal," The Associated Press reported.

The madrasas were once the Islamic equivalent of Sunday school. They have evolved. Supported by private donations, they now provide free housing, meals and education - a lure for poor families in particular. The rigid training at some schools makes them ripe for recruiting by Islamist militant groups.

Of the four suicide bombers responsible for the London attacks, three were Britons of Pakistani descent and at least one had spent time at a madrasa here with connections to militant groups.

The limited gains in carrying out the madrasa changes reflect the delicate political choices facing Musharraf. His supporters point out that pursuing the schools too aggressively would only empower religious radicals here to depict the president as a stooge of the West. His critics say the lack of results reflects his half-hearted resolve to flush out religious militancy.

His promise last July was, in fact, a reiteration of earlier promises. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the madrasas were put under a spotlight. Among the many changes Musharraf pledged in exchange for generous aid and debt relief from the United States and other Western allies was to bring the schools under greater government scrutiny.

On Friday, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told Reuters that the government did not intend to use force to root out foreign students. "What action can be taken against those students?" he asked. "The management of the madrasas are responsible to arrange departures of their students and we are pushing them to help us in implementing this decision."

The Associated Press, citing figures from the main association that represents the schools, the Federation of Madrasas, reported last week that about 1,000 foreign students had left since July, while 700 remained.

In addition to expelling foreign students, Musharraf said in July that the madrasas would be required to register with the government and to account for their financing. In September, the government announced that it had struck a deal with influential clerics to register all seminaries. So far, 5,000 of the 12,000 established schools have not registered, said the minister for religious affairs, Ijaz ul-Haq.

Madrasas operate autonomously. They follow their own curriculums and spurn efforts to modernize their syllabuses. Musharraf has called them the largest nongovernmental organization in the world.

The schools mushroomed during the government of Haq's father, General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who was president from 1977 to 1988 and an ally of the United States. At that time, students recruited from the seminaries were trained to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal, many of the radical Sunni madrasas educated Taliban foot soldiers and leaders.

Government officials have noted that not all madrasas churn out militants, and that they need to be handled diplomatically rather than confrontationally.

"Madrasas have agreed that there will be no militancy, no hate material and no sectarian teachings," Haq, the religious affairs minister, said in an interview. "You have to regulate them. You have to contain them. You cannot close them. If we close the madrasas, they will open in every second, third house. What will you do then?"

But Najam Sethi, editor of the English-language newspaper The Daily Times, said "this government has a track record on backing out on issues of political Islam. The clerics are feeling strong, they are digging in their heels."