Registering seminaries: Government, madrassas at loggerheads over process

Clerics resist registration attempts, snub survey teams from interior ministry.

ISLAMABAD: Religious leaders are at odds with the government over the proposed mechanism for registration of madrassas and the idea of bringing a five-member board on religious institutions under the ministry of education, it has been learnt.

Stiff resistance shown recently by the clerics of Ittehad-e-Tanzeemate-Madaris Pakistan (ITMP) towards the interior ministry’s survey team indicates that the agreement arrived at in October this year would turn out to be a ‘total failure’, said officials from the ministry.

“If the government desires to obtain any information about madrassas, it should take the ITMP representatives into confidence,” said Abdul Qadoos, spokesperson Wafaq-ul-Madaris Al-Arabia while denouncing the survey forms being distributed by the ministry as ‘unacceptable.’

Meanwhile senior officials of the interior ministry insist the madrassas should abide by the Societies Registration Act of 1860 as amended by Ordinance XIX of 2005, as agreed upon between the two parties in October this year.

Under the act, the government wants to register all madrassas but the clerics of ITMP, under which Wafaq-ul-Madaris Al-Arabia, Tanzeem-ul-Madaris, Wafaq-ul-Madaris Al-Salfia, Wafaq-ul-Madaris Shia and Rabita-ul-Madaris work, expelled the interior ministry’s special team that was distributing survey forms, the first step of the registration process.

Interestingly, there is a huge discrepancy between the numbers provided by the ministry of religious affairs and the ITMP. According to the data provided by the ministry, there are about 11,000 madrassas across the country of which 573 are unregistered.

Meanwhile data provided by clerics of ITMP shows there are about 21,000 madrassas in Pakistan of which about 7,000 are unregistered. The seminaries are providing education to over two million students across the country, says the ITMP.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2010.