CIAO DATE: 07/02

Pakistan's Madrassahs: Ensuring a System of Education not Jihad

Abstract

Pakistan's religious schools, Madrassahs, trace their traditions back through nearly a thousand years of Islamic teaching. Over the last decades, however, they increasingly have played a role contrary to their original intent. Founded as centers of learning for the next generation of Islamic scholars and clerics, the schools now increasingly dominate the education sphere. The present danger is that a minority of these schools have built extremely close ties with radical militant groups and play a critical role in sustaining the international terrorist network. Madrassahs' displacement of a public education system is also worrisome to the stability of the Pakistani state and its future economic prospects.

While the religious schools are a matter for internal Pakistani policy, America does have a vested interest in ensuring both that Pakistan is able to fulfill its obligations in the education sphere and that terrorist training schools are closed. To succeed in countering the negative influence of those Madrassahs, which have been hijacked by extremists, the US must provide dedicated aid to education reform efforts, and also explore the possibility of a broadened program designed to combat the culture of violence. This will include providing both increased cultural contacts and economic hope. Efforts to combat terrorism will not be successful unless they also deal with the underlying institutions that support the threat.