Madrasas in Pakistan

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Study of the Koran in the Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore

The following article about madrasas in Pakistan describes the historical development and the social role of the traditional Islamic educational institution of the madrasa in Pakistan .

With the exception of Punjab Province , Pakistan has no compulsory schooling or education , or a free elementary school . The chronically underfunded public education system in the heavily indebted country cannot give the sustained, rapidly growing population comprehensive access to education. The madrasa system, financed privately, often by foreign aid organizations, remains the only access to education and limited social advancement for the majority of the people in Pakistan today. Saudi Arabian aid organizations in particular use the madrasas they maintain to spread Wahhabi teachings, while the Shiite madrasas are influenced by the neighboring country, the Islamic Republic of Iran . The lack of state supervision over the educational institutions and curricula of madrasas and the often inadequate qualification of their teaching staff remain just as problematic as ideological indoctrination and the later professional prospects of madrasa graduates.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the intra-Islamic conflict between sectarian Sunnis and Shiites escalated in Pakistan. Islamic organizations embodied the religious and political fronts and spread their ideas through the schools they run. Graduates ( Talib ) of northern Pakistani madrasas played a role in the establishment of the Afghan Taliban regime and in the development of Islamist terrorism . In the wake of Islamist terror, the madrasas' education system fell into disrepute in general in the western world.

term

Madrasa ( Arabic مدرسة 'Place of study', plural Madāris , urdu Madaris-e-Deeniya ), in German also Medresse or Medrese, is the name for a school in which Islamic sciences are taught. Madāris have been a traditional educational institution in the entire Islamic world since the 10th century . Their subjects include Koran exegesis , Islamic law ( Fiqh ) and its source theory ( Usūl al-fiqh ) as well as hadith science and Arabic linguistics, sometimes also logic and Mathematics. Many madrasas in the Indian subcontinent traditionally followed the curriculum of Dars-i Nizami . Today, students of a madrasa learn by heart passages of the Koran and the six Kalimāt during their six-year basic training ; lessons are given in Urdu , Persian , English, the basic arithmetic and the basics of geography and history.

The construction and maintenance of a madrasa are usually financed by a pious foundation . The founder has the right to determine the teaching program and the number of mostly male students, teachers and other employees. A single classroom is sufficient to run a madrasa, but the madrasa itself can be part of a larger building complex with a mosque , living rooms for teachers and students, a library and soup kitchen. In addition to religious scholars ( mullah or mawlawi ) , Madāris also trained administrative officials, judges ( qādī ) and the teachers themselves. In addition to the Madāris, hospitals (bimaristan) were built in large cities , which not only served to care for the sick, but also to provide practical training for Islamic doctors .

Role of the madrasas in British India and Pakistan

Islamic Reform Movements and Political Islam in British India before 1947

In the 19th century, the intellectual confrontation with British colonial rule in India, in particular the discourse about an independent Islamic state, was largely carried out in the north Indian madrasas and by their graduates. The mass communication media that emerged at this time spread ideas for reform throughout the Islamic world and shaped the discussion about political Islam . Different schools of thought emerged, which today developed into sometimes large, supranational organizations.

The Islamic reform movement in India began even before European influence took effect on the subcontinent: after the death of the Mughal sultan Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), Muslim thinkers took the perceived weakness of Indian Islam as an opportunity to develop ideas for reform. The teachings of the Indian Shāh Walīyullāh ad-Dihlawī (1703–1762) and the Yemeni reformist Alī aš-Šaukānī shaped the ideology of the Tariqa-yi Muhammadiya in the 19th century . One of the group's political goals was the establishment of an Islamic state in the British-Indian province of Punjab . In 1826, under the leadership of Barelwī, the exodus of the followers of the Tariqa-yi Muhammadiya to Afghanistan began, which was named after the example of the Prophet Mohammed as Hijra . The participants viewed themselves as religious fighters, mujahed . In 1830 the Tariqa took control of Peshawar . However, their army was defeated by the Sikh at Balakot in 1832 .

In addition to the violent religious struggle, the Tariqa-yi Muhammadiya relied on missionary activity. The popularization of ideas using the vernacular played an important role. The community was one of the first movements in the Islamic world to spread its ideas with the help of printing, which emerged in the Islamic world in the early 19th century. This, and especially the newspaper industry, contributed to the mass dissemination of ideas and information. Lively press activity began around 1820 in the Urdu- speaking regions of northern India.

The Dar ul-Ulum Deoband , one of the most influential Islamic universities alongside the Al-Azhar University , represents a strictly Sunni traditionalist way of thinking . Since their founding in 1866 in the city of Deoband in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh , the Deobandi have been devoting themselves to the revival of society and education, but also to Islamic piety. While it originally campaigned for an undivided Indian state, the school later developed into a strictly Islamic-traditionalist way of thinking

In 1941, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi founded the Jamaat-e-Islami ( Urdu : "Islamic Community"). She represents a purist way of thinking oriented towards the early days of Islam and works primarily through Islamic educational work on the madrasas she maintains. The Barelwī movement has also been politically active since it was founded in the late 19th century . This Orthodox Sunni movement was founded in the late 19th century by Ahmed Raza Khan (1856–1921). The movement advocates a strict interpretation of the Hanafi school of law . In 1904 she founded her first madrasa, the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam in Bareilly .

As early as the 19th century, the Nadwat al-ʿUlamāʾ society tried to achieve a balance of interests between the various currents. Today the Ittehad Tanzimat Madaris-e-Deeniya (“Society for the Reform of Madrasas”) represents the interests of the most important religious and political groups in Pakistan vis-à-vis the central government.

Shiite-Sunni sect battles in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s

The “ Islamic awakening ” of the last two decades of the 20th century in Pakistan was marked by violent clashes between Sunni and Shiite parties. The latter had gained political self-confidence through the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. A violent conflict between sectarians from both directions broke out with the beginning of the Islamization policy of Pakistani President Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq (ruled 1977–1988). Pakistani Shiites organized themselves into groups such as the Tahrik-i Nifaz-i Fiqh-i Jaʿfariyya , founded in 1980 by Mufti Jaʿfar Ḥusayn and ʿĀrif Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī. Their first public protest was directed against the payment of the compulsory religious tax ( zakāt ) to the Pakistani state. Had this tax been paid to the religious leaders instead of the treasury, they would have had significant financial resources at their disposal. Al-Ḥusaynī headed the organization after Jaʿfar Ḥusayn's death in 1983 until his own assassination in August 1988. During his studies with Ruhollah Khomeini in Najaf and until 1978 in Ghom , al-Ḥusaynī had learned that religious issues were suitable as a means of political influence to win. The Jaʿfariyya therefore invoked the authority of the Shiite imams in its publications based on the Iranian model .

The Sunni mullahs responded by forming a number of militant organizations of their own. The best known is the "Sipah-i Sahaba Pakistan" (lit. "Riders of those who are faithful to the prophet in Pakistan"), founded by Mawlana Haqnawaz Jhangvi (murdered 1989), a graduate of the Dar ul-Ulum Deoband . The group recruited mainly from the urban youth and found the support of the bazaar traders, whose organizations often called for protest rallies. Following the example of the persecution of the Ahmadiyya in the 1970s, which had shown the Sunni ʿUlama 'a way in which politics could be made through religious means, the Sipah-i Sahaba demanded that Pakistan exclude the Shiites as non-Muslims or apostates . This measure would have affected around 15% of the Pakistani population. In 1994 the organization started a campaign with propaganda pamphlets in which it appealed to the succession of the first faithful to the Prophet ( Sahāba ) in order to refute Shiite doctrines and compile fatwas that portrayed the Shiites as infidels.

From around 1980 the madrasas in Pakistan gained political importance because they provided an increasing number of militant graduates (mullahs) who intervened in the violent sectarian clashes. The madrasas contributed significantly to the politicization of their students, and steered political Islam into sectarianism. During the second half of the 1990s, Afghanistan came under the rule of sectarian Afghan and Pakistani madrasa graduates who named themselves Taliban after the Persian term for “student” .

meaning

Population growth, poverty, lack of education

Population development of Pakistan within its current borders 1961 to 2003 (population in millions)
Literacy Rates in Pakistan, 1951–2015
Madrasas in Pakistan in 1988 and 2002

The population development of Pakistan has been characterized by sustained strong growth since the country was founded. From around 46 million inhabitants in 1969, the population increased to 148.5 million by 2003; only around 5% of the population live in cities. According to World Bank statistics, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the countries of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation with the highest levels of debt and the lowest level of education. In 2000, not all children in Pakistan had access to elementary schools: in 1960 only 30% of children attended elementary schools and 11% went to secondary schools. The proportion had only risen to 69 and 24% in 2000. The enormous absolute increase in the population nevertheless led to a shortage of teachers and a drastic deterioration in the quality of training.

In this situation, the underfunded state education system failed. In 2005/06, only 2.1 percent of the gross domestic product was spent on education. To date there is no general schooling or compulsory education . Attending a primary school has only been legally required in the Punjab province since 1994, and school attendance has only been free of charge there since 2014.

Compared to the state schools, the number of non-official schools - often financed by other countries - increased. Due to the Islamization policy of Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq, the Islam taught in these madrasas gained political importance in the 1980s. Between 1980 and 1995 the number of madrasas had more than doubled, the number of seminarians (taliban) had increased many times over. In 1976 the Jamaat-e-Islami opened its first madrasa in Lahore , in 1990 it already had 75. According to David Commins, the total number of madrasas had risen from around 900 in 1971 to over 8,000 officially recognized and a further 25,000 unofficial in 1988. In 2002, according to Candland, the country had 10-13,000 unofficial madrasas with an estimated 1.7-1.9 million students. In particular, the madrasas run by Dar ul-Ulum Deoband - with the support of Saudi Arabian aid organizations - led to a massive increase in religious schools. In the absence of qualified teachers, the quality of teaching deteriorated at the same time. Pashtun tribal values ​​would have mixed with the strict Islamic interpretation of the Deobandis, according to Commins, this is the hallmark of the Taliban ideology.

Lack of alternatives

In conditions of near-widespread poverty, madrasas are the only realistic option for the majority of Pakistani families to raise their sons and daughters. Sadakat Kadri stated that "without a Marshall Plan for Education, the only hope for a better future that remains for millions of families is the hope of a literate breadwinner." The madrasas would provide "refuge from the social storm for lower-middle class Pakistanis." . and camaraderie instead of chaos. "

Radicalization

In 2008, WikiLeaks published a report from the US Embassy in Pakistan from the Public Library of US Diplomacy that Saudi Arabia-funded madrasas fueled “religious radicalism” in “formerly temperate regions of Pakistan by isolating children from poor families Madrasas would be sent and, hardly having arrived there, would be recruited for "actions of martyrs."

Inadequate government control

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , the US government put pressure on former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to resolve the madrasas problem. Musharraf tried, at least in part, to introduce legal control. A 2001 law provided for the establishment of state-controlled madrasas ( Dini Madaris ). Another from 2002 regulated their admission and control by the Pakistan Madrasah Education Board . Individual religious institutions then actually applied for approval from this authority. The second legal measure could not be enforced among the madrasas. At least the government managed to restrict the access of foreign students to the system of madrasas.

The Ittehad Tanzimat Madaris-e-Deeniya , an association of religious organizations in Pakistan, represents the Dar ul-Ulum Deoband, the Barelwī movement, Ahl-i Hadīth , Shiite organizations and the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. In July 2016, the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times reported that Pakistani Education Minister Bligh ur-Rahman had met with representatives from this institution to discuss the implementation of a unified national curriculum for madrasas. During these discussions, Ittehad Tanzimat agreed to collectively introduce the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) curriculum for elementary and secondary schools. However, it wants to set up its own supervisory body based on the state model, and encourage the provincial governments to make teaching the Koran generally compulsory, based on the model of the central authority.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Arabic plural form for madrasa is madāris ; in German there is mostly talk of madrasas ; For better understanding and to make it easier to access articles, a plural form is used, as is common in English.
  2. ↑ a b The Punjab compulsory primary education act, 1994 (PDF) ( Memento of the original dated November 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 4, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tariq.pap.gov.pk
  3. ↑ a b The Punjab free and compulsory education act, 2014 (PDF) , accessed November 4, 2016.
  4. ^ A b Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Finance: Economic Survey 2005/06, Chapter 11: Education ( Memento of October 4, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ a b FAO statistics online , accessed on November 4, 2016.
  6. ^ A b Tariq Rahman: Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study of Education, Inequality and Polarization in Pakistan . Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-597863-6 , pp. Chapter 5 .
  7. ↑ a b c d David Commins: The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia . IB Tauris, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84511-080-2 , pp. 191–2 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ a b c d Saïd Amir Arjomand: Islamic resurgence and its aftermath. In: R. Hefner (Ed.): The New Cambridge History of Islam. Vol. 6: Muslims and modernity . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-84443-7 , pp. 191-192 .
  9. ^ A b Clement M. Henry: Population, urbanization and the dialectics of globalization. In: R. Hefner (Ed.): The New Cambridge History of Islam. Vol. 6: Muslims and modernity . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-84443-7 , pp. 79-86 .
  10. ↑ a b Jamal Malik (Ed.): Madrasas in South Asia. Teaching terror? Routledge, 2007, ISBN 978-1-134-10762-9 .
  11. ↑ A detailed overview of the subject matter of Dars-i Nizami is provided by Jamal Malik: Islamic Scholar Culture in Northern India. Development history and tendencies using the example of Lucknow . EJ Brill, Leiden 1997, p. 522 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ^ Ali Riaz: Faithful education: Madrassahs in South Asia . Rutgers University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8135-4562-2 , pp. 180 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  13. ^ George Makdisi: The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West . Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1981, ISBN 978-0-85224-375-6 , pp. 10-24 .
  14. ↑ George N. Atiyeh (Ed.): The book in the Islamic world. The written word and communication in the Middle East . State University of New York Press, Albany 1995 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. ↑ Barbara D. Metcalf: "Traditionalist" Islamic activism: Deoband, tablighis, and talibs. In: Craig Calhoun, Paul Price, Ashley Timmer (Eds.): Understanding September 11 . The New Press, New York 2002, ISBN 978-1-56584-774-3 , pp. 53–66, here p. 55 .
  16. ↑ Jamal Malik, B. Malik: Islamic History and Civilization, Islamic scholarly culture in North India . Brill Academic Pub., Leiden 1997, pp. 483 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  17. ↑ Verinder Grover, Ranjana Arora, among others: The Islamic state of Pakistan. Role of religion in politics . In: Political system in Pakistan . tape 4 . Deep & Deep Publications, New Delhi 1995, pp. 334 .
  18. ↑ Ahmed Rashid: Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia . IB Tauris & Co Ltd, 2002, ISBN 1-86064-830-4 , pp. 77, 83, 139 .
  19. ^ Munir Ahmed Choudhry: Pakistan: where and who are the world's illiterates? (PDF) In: Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2006, Literacy for Life. April 2005, accessed November 4, 2016 .
  20. ↑ Christopher Candland: Pakistan's Recent Experience in Reforming Islamic Education. In: Robert M. Hathaway (Ed.): Education Reform in Pakistan: Building for the Future . Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC 2005, ISBN 978-1-933549-04-0 , pp. 151-153 .
  21. ↑ Sadakat Kadri: Heaven on earth: A journey through Shari'a law from the deserts of Ancient Arabia to the streets of the modern muslim world . Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-374-53373-1 , pp. 196 .
  22. ↑ Michael Busch: WikiLeaks: Saudi-Financed Madrassas More Widespread in Pakistan Than Thought. In: Foreign Policy in Focus. May 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016 .
  23. ^ Extremist recruitment on the rise in Southern Punjab. In: Public Library of US Diplomacy. wikileaks, accessed October 4, 2016 .
  24. ^ Muhammad Asad Chaudhry: Education minister meets with reps of Ittehad Tanzimat Madaris-e-Deeniya. In: Daily Times (Pakistan). July 14, 2016, accessed November 4, 2016 .