Asia Times: Musharraf has a lesson for religious students


	December 15, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Musharraf has a lesson for religious students
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Without the distraction of the routed Taliban in Afghanistan ended, traditional religious elements within Pakistan and the country's military regime are squaring up for confrontation once the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends on the weekend.

At stake is the future direction of the state of Pakistan - either it will develop into a modern and progressive democratic country, or into a hard-line religious nation.

Traditional and modern trends have been nurtured in Pakistani society side-by-side since the creation of the country in 1947, and even in large urban centers such as Karachi and Lahore, hundreds of Islamic seminaries have operated in tandem with modern schools and colleges.

The old and the new worlds were able to co-exist, each creating their own distinct sphere of influence, until General Zia ul-Haq took power in a military coup in 1977. His administration elevated the role of religion in the country and extraordinary importance was placed on religious scholars, so much so that they began to clamor for political power.

This gave the religious parties new strength, but although they had small pockets of support in different segments of society, their main supporters were their students. After the Taliban movement blossomed in Pakistan's madrassas (religious schools) in the mid-1990s, culminating of the seizure of power in Kabul in 1996, Pakistan's madrassas were given the courage and strength to begin claims for a similar role for themselves in Pakistan.

The influx of over 600,000 students into the street politics of the country at this time posed a serious threat to successive governments. Intelligence agencies on numerous occasions warned their political masters of the dangers posed by the students, but none were able to take them on in any significant fashion.

And in the early aftermath of September 11 the students emerged as an even greater threat to the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf. However, the precipitous decline of the Taliban caught the students on the back foot, giving Musharraf to chance to clip their wings. Musharraf has since stepped up action against both armed sectarian groups and the Islamic seminaries, while at the same time working on the development of an overall policy that will once and for all break the power of these groups.

It has been decided that any form of violent activity will feel the full force of the security apparatus, and the seminaries will be prevented from harboring - or nurturing - political and militant activists, and attempts will be made to bring them into the mainstream education system.

The basic groundwork in this regard has already been laid under which prominent leaders and members of the sectarian parties, including the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, the Sepah-i-Sahabah and the Sepah-i-Mohammed, have been rounded up, and the government has come down hard on their activities. For instance, whenever they try to gather in numbers they are blocked by a heavy police presence, with many arrests being made on the spot.

Many of the seminaries were at the forefront of protests against Musharraf's decision to side with the United States in its war on terrorism, and in effectively breaking the ties with the Taliban that Pakistan had in the past been so successful in developing.

These seminaries have now been asked to clearly provide details of their sources of income, as well as to provide the names and numbers of their students - both local and foreign - and their teachers. To date, though, the seminaries have been uncooperative in the extreme.

Sources say that the government has already drawn up plans with various pro-government religious scholars and federal and provincial ministers of religious affairs under which the syllabus for the seminaries will have to be approved by a board established and controlled by the government. Failure to follow the government-approved syllabus would render any degrees granted by the seminaries worthless.

Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, retired lieutenant-general Moinuddin Haider, has been tasked with integrating religious elements into mainstream society. He is bitterly despised by religious elements, sentiments that have not been cooled by the aggressive approach with which he has set about his business.

Leaders of the Pakistan Afghan Defense Council (PADC), an alliance of more than 30 religious and militant groups, which has been keeping a low profile since the sudden withdrawal of the Taliban from Kabul, has now decided to take up the issue of seminaries after Ramadan. The leaders of other religious-political parties have also vowed to join hands in the fight to keep the government's hands off the seminaries.

This has forced the government to try to improve its image within religious circles and to try to draw some of the strong elements onto their side. Last year, this job was given to the federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Dr Mehmood Ghazi, himself a respected scholar. He engaged other prominent religious scholars, as well as the president of federal religious education board (Wifaqul Madaris), Maulana Salimullah Khan. However, he was unable to convince Khan that modern education needs to be provided alongside religious education in order to produce rounded members of society.

Now, this task has been given to Haider. He recently visited the most prominent Islamic seminary in the country, Daraluloom Karachi (Deobandi school of thought), where he met with Mufti Rafi Usmani, who is also Mufti Azam Pakistan, the chief cleric of the country.

Usmani is reported to have agreed with Haider that the seminaries should not participate in politics, and that their students should not be allowed to take part in politics until they have completed their studies. However, he rejected point-blank the government's move to impose a syllabus on the seminaries, calling it outright intervention.

Sources say that despite this impasse, the government is determined to push on with its program, promising those who cooperate a share in the government at different levels. Following his military takeover on October 12, 1999, Musharraf has pledged that general elections will be held by August next year.

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