Reform initiative: Madrassas bar entry of ministry survey teams

Teams distributing forms for a primary survey are told not to bother.

ISLAMABAD: The government is facing stiff resistance from religious clerics in registering madrassas across the country. The clerics have banned the entry of special teams of the interior ministry tasked to conduct a primary survey—the first step in introducing reforms in the seminaries’ system, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The interior ministry plans to bring reforms in madrassas by introducing contemporary subjects in their curriculum. The ministry held a meeting last month in this regard with all the stakeholders, including Ittehad Tanzeem-ul-Madaris – an umbrella organisation under which religious schools work – and took them into confidence about the proposed reforms.

“Under this plan, once all the seminaries are registered, they will be put under the education ministry which will supervise introduction of modern subjects in the curricula of religious schools,” said Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

The interior ministry also constituted special teams to conduct a nationwide survey, collect data and register all the religious institutions. Special forms were printed to collect all the data including details about teachers and the students of each seminary.

Las week, the survey teams, on Malik’s directions, started distributing forms but faced resistance by heads of religious institutions who warned them not to enter the madrassa premises.

“Entry of men in uniform in madrassas will exacerbate the situation because it is an insult of Islamic values,” said a statement issued by Wafaq-ul-Madaris al-Arabia.

Its spokesperson Abdul Qadoos termed the survey of religious seminaries a move to tarnish the image of Islamic teachings as, according to him, the survey sought the names of family members and other personal data of teachers and students.

“We are not against registration but will oppose such reforms which have been prohibited in Islam,” the cleric added.

Members of Ittehad Tanzeem-ul-Madaris told The Express Tribune that clerics belonging to Wafaq-ul-Madaris Al-Arabia, Tanzeem-ul-Madaris, Wafaq-ul-Madaris Al-Salfia, Wafaq-ul-Madaris Shia and Rabita-ul-Madaris are kicking off a campaign to resist the government’s plan to introduce reforms which, according to one cleric, “are meant to put the madrassas on the path to ultra-modernisation”.

“We are against the reforms suggested by Americans for Pakistani religious education,” one of them said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2010.