Curbing Militancy: Regulating Pakistan’s Madrassas

8 January 2016
Humaira Israr thinks that Pakistan must invest more heavily in registering, regulating and reforming its religious seminaries. The government’s inertia thus far has only aggravated the country’s already-precarious security situation.
By Humaira Israr for Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP)
This article was originally published by the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) on 20 August 2015.

In January 2015, the Pakistani government unveiled its 20-point National Action Plan (NAP) aimed at tackling terrorism in the country. Along with measures such as the re-verification of mobile phone users and trial of terror­ism offences, NAP also resolved to register and regulate madrassas (religious seminaries) to curb militancy and ex­tremism. Yet an absence of commitment and lack of ca­pacity to implement reforms have hitherto thwarted such intentions. Failure to strengthen government oversight of madrassas and their sources of funding, as well as to equip students with a more modern education, will continue to endanger the security of Pakistan.

Madrassas and Militancy
While initially hubs of education, both religious and secu­lar, madrassas subsequently emerged as “trust institutions” providing social services such as food, shelter, clothing, and free religious education to their students. Their appeal increased in regions where public provision of services was lacking. Thus in a country where 60 percent of the population earn less than two dollars a day, many parents have opted to send their children to madrassas where they hope their children will not only obtain shelter and food but also the opportunity to learn the basics of the religion. Studies have shown that the vast majority of students join madrassas for economic reasons and only a small minority for religious reasons.

Whereas some reports such as the Annual Status of Education Report Pakistan 2011 suggested no direct link between madrassas and militancy, a negative perception of madrassas as “incubators for violent extremism” became cemented post-9/11 when they were linked to Islamic militancy. One incident in particular reinforced this per­ception when, in July 2007, the Red Mosque in Islama­bad (which demanded the imposition of Sharia law in the country) together with an adjacent unregistered female madrassa became scene of a bloody confrontation with government forces that resulted in dozens of casualties [ed. the precise number is disputed].

Pakistan’s National Internal Security Plan (2014-18) has since confirmed involvement of some, not all, madrassas in extremism. Problematic aspects include the presence of a considerable number of unregistered madrassas, funding from undisclosed sources (including from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar), and the publication and distribution of hate material. It has been acknowledged that a large number of terrorists either are or have been students of madrassas where they were indoctrinated to take up arms against the state. The issue is further exacerbated by the lack of subsequent employment opportunities that an ex­clusively religious education entails: poverty and dearth of prospects make madrassa students easier targets as ex­tremist recruits.

It is important to recognize that madrassas are not ho­mogenous entities. Divided along sectarian and political lines, there are five types of madrassas in Pakistan which follow their own exclusive texts based on their own sec­tarian interpretation of Islam. While militancy cannot be associated to one particular type, a study by the Brookings Institute in 2010 found that 82 percent of students belong­ing to the Sunni Deobandi school of thought (which has a large following in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan) see the Taliban as role models.

An additional problem is that some madrassas have become politicized, with political parties such as Jamiat e Ulema Islam (which is pro-Afghan Taliban) fostering links with certain madrassas which serve as their vote banks and provide a core of student activists. This has the result of promoting a narrow sectarian agenda among students that also incites sectarian violence. Accordingly, it is clear that some of Pakistan’s madrassas have been exploited by inter­nal and external actors for their own vested interests.

Lack of Regulation and Oversight

The very large number of madrassas as well as the fact that there exist two different bodies for registration complicate the issue of their monitoring and oversight. Ittehad-e-Tan­zeemat-e-Madaris Pakistan (ITMP), an umbrella organiza­tion of madrassas, has reportedly 35,337 registered ma­drassas hosting nearly 3.5 million students; by comparison the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony has 22,052 registered madrassas.

More worryingly, there exist an estimated 8,249 unreg­istered madrassas (registered neither with the ITMP nor the government) hosting approximately 300,000 students. Not only is their religious affiliation, source of funding, and location largely unknown, but the absence of government checks and monitoring leaves the students entirely under the control of the madrassa administration. It is these ma­drassas that are most likely to fall into the ambit of mili­tancy.

Various governments have tried to tackle the issue of re­forming the madrassas but with little success. Post 9/11 ma­drassa reforms began under former President Pervez Mush­arraf. In 2001 the government created a Pakistan Madrassa Education Board (PMEB) to establish a network of model madrassas and regulate others. However, to date, only three model madrassas (teaching modern subjects such as com­puting alongside religious subjects) have been established— two in Sindh and one in Islamabad. Other initiatives such as the Voluntary Registration and Regulation Ordinance 2002 (in which the government promised funding to madrassas registering with the state) have also fallen short due to an absence of political will and vested interest in reforming the madrassas.

In 2009 the government decided to introduce a Ma­drassa Regulatory Authority under the Ministry of Interior but this was rejected by the ITMP. Moreover, whereas in 2010 the government succeeded in inking an agreement with the ITMP to introduce contemporary subjects in semi­naries, the draft legislation was never shared by the govern­ment with the ITMP and the reform thus never happened. A key stumbling block in this regard has been the fraught relationship between the ITMP and the government, with the former resisting further regulation.

National Security Plan

Recently, the government in its National Internal Secu­rity Policy 2014-18 has renewed its resolve to map all the madrassas and mosques in Pakistan to stem the spread of violent extremism. The government plans in this regard to integrate mosques and madrassas in the national and pro­vincial educational establishment by mapping and thereafter mainstreaming existing and new madrassas as well as private sector educational institutes.

In January 2015 the Minister for Interior Affairs and the representative of ITMP agreed to form a separate commit­tee for registration of madrassas and launch a crackdown against those that have direct or indirect link with the ongo­ing militancy in Pakistan. Both the ITMP and government agree over the existence of thousands of unregistered func­tional madrassas in Pakistan.

And yet, despite the lapse of 18 months since the launch of NISP, translating plans on paper to actual implementa­tion have been lacking amidst a lack of commitment and capacity to enforce reforms. Indicative of this failure is that Abdul Aziz, head of the Red Mosque that launched war on state in 2007, was not only reinstated in the same mosque, but he is also heading 27 madrassas in Punjab with 5000 students under his supervision, and he has even named a seminary library after Osama bin Laden.

Needed Steps toward Reform

First and foremost, political and administrative will to re­form the entities is needed involving a number of stake­holders; after all the security of Pakistan and the future of millions of students is at stake. The government should provide a timeline for the registration of madrassas under the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony, and thereafter launch a crackdown on the unregistered ones. The government should also increase scrutiny of interna­tional and national NGOs and their link with the madrassas. It has rightly decided to route the financing of the madrassas through the government system which necessitates policy measures to register, regulate, and monitor their financial sources. While the task of registration and regulation should fall under the portfolio of the religious ministry, the actual monitoring of madrassas for security purposes falls within the ambit of the Ministry of Interior.

There is also need to cut the ties between madrassas and political parties. If madrassas are educational entities then they logically should not have any link to political parties. Furthermore, the fact that it is poverty that forces students to take shelter in madrassas should also be addressed. Stu­dents of madrassas should thus be included in the national social safety net program currently active in Pakistan. In­troduced by the government in 2008 the program provides income support to selected families earning less than US$67 a month, but there is no focus on madrassa students.

The curriculum of all the five madrassa types should also be approved by the government with responsibility ex­ercised by a number of stakeholders including the provincial education ministries, Ministry of Interior, ITMP, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. In so doing, attention should be paid to the intellectual orientation, structure of content, methodology of teaching, and the relevance of madrassa curriculum to the educational needs of modern Muslim so­ciety. Teacher training and their qualifications should also be taken into account while reforming the madrassas.

Continued failure to effectively carry out the above measures—which necessities cooperation among govern­ment ministries—will leave millions of madrassa students vulnerable to militancy and extremism.


For more information on issues and events that shape our world, please visit the ISN Blog and browse our resources.