The article explores the debate on education in madaris in South Asia, highlighting historical biases and the challenges of reforms. It addresses controversies regarding the counting of institutions and students, as well as proposals to improve education by providing job opportunities and introducing online courses and remote exams. It emphasizes the need to value the educational tradition of madrasas, proposing solutions to promote positive change.
The debate on the uniformity of school programs in South Asia aims to eliminate educational disparities in the region, but it has also shed light on education in madrasas. However, the discussion on the educational system of these Quranic schools is tainted by long-standing prejudices, mainly due to the lack of knowledge and communication gaps.
Pakistan , India , Bangladesh and Afghanistan had largest Madrassa education institutions . Some critics opine that the Madrassa curriculum is designed in such a way that it will only serve to increase extremism. They have reservations over the Islamic literature introduced in the books. Such critics, who deem Islamic literature as the cause of extremism Most of the information they have about madrassas is from uncredible sources.
Consider the argument that the reforms aimed at improving madrassa education in Pakistan and South Asia haven't yielded any good results. However, this is easily explained: it isn’t so much a fault of the intent behind madrassa reforms than a failure of governance and management which has kept these reforms from bearing fruit.
Next, consider the confusing statistics about the number of madrasas in the country. This confusion largely stems from the fact that people are unsure whether to include local mosques in the list of madrassas together with the larger, more established facilities.
The official data for 2017 indicated 32,272 madaris in Pakistan. The five councils that administer them instead counted 30,286. Similarly, according to government statistics, the enrolled students were 2,257,253, while the councils reported 2,545,341. These discrepancies and lack of consensus contribute to fueling uncertainty.
In Pakistan, the five main boards register religious schools based on their belief and reference school. Dividing them into groups, 86% of the madaris are registered with the Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabia Pakistan, a Deobandi board. The Tanzeem Ul Madaris Ahle-Sunnat Pakistan (Barelvi) accounts for 7%, the Rabita Ul Madaris Al-Islamia Pakistan (Jamaat-e-Islami) 3.4%, Wafaqul Madaris Al-Salafia Pakistan (Ahle-Hadith) 2.1%, and the Wafaqul Madaris Al-Shia Pakistan (Shia) only 0.7%. In this way, the government institution of the boards seems to ignore the risk of exacerbating tensions.
Many contend that the syllabus taught at the madrassas promote extremist ideologies. However, most people making such assertions are unaware of the fact that the madrassa syllabus has a lot of diversity.
For example, madrassa students use the Arabic dictionary of a Christian orientalist Loes Moluf. Also, in the Arabic classic literature, the poetry of Al-Mutanabbii, who was an alleged blasphemer, is taught. The students also keenly study the works of Omra-ul-Qais who was an atheist. After 1857, most of the madrassa curriculum books were published by Munshi Nawal Kishore, a Hindu publisher from India.
In fact, for research purposes, I closely studied the curriculum of Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania, a Nowshera-based religious seminary that is notorious for being the nursery of Jihadist Ideologies, and came across some shocking facts about the curriculum. The syllabus of ‘Philosophy’ and ‘Logic’ being taught there contains at least seven books, mostly written by Shia scholars!
The modern madrassas curriculum was devised by Mulla Nizamuddin Sihalvi in 1748. Students of all sects used to study in his madrassa. Having a common origin, today’s syllabuses of Deobandi and Barelvi madrassas have an up to 95 percent similarity rate, while those of Shia and Sunni sects are about 45 percent similar. It’s unfortunate that today Sunni students are unable to get admission in Shia madrassas, while Shia students can’t enter Sunni madrassas.
Given these observations, it should be clear that the rectification of the current state of education in madrassa depends largely on serious and diligent reforms. Every wifaq (madrassa board) has a curriculum reforms committee but it needs the government’s support to build its capacity. Unfortunately, every government fails to engage the wifaqs meaningfully, leaving successive governments no choice but to restart the process all over again.
However, a lot can be done even now:
1- Offering jobs to madrasa graduates, and recognizing their qualifications, will be a positive step towards a major change. The madrassa degree isn’t accepted by the mainstream government education system in some areas. The result is that madrassa students don’t get government jobs.
2- There is a need to design online courses for madrassa students and the setting up of online exams for provide a space of contemporary education.
3- Some madrassas have started higher and secondary education affiliated with provincial universities. By taking this model further, some large madrassas can also be converted into university and postgraduate colleges.
4- The government should start providing technical education to madrassa students by establishing technical institutes and vocational centers in the madrassa.
5- The madrassa is a South Asian religious tradition which need to develop and promote in positive way.
Muhammad Israr Madani*
He leads the International Research Council for Religious Affairs, a Pakistani think-tank dedicated to the study of South Asian religious-political ideologies and movements.
Translation into Italian by the EuroIslam Editorial Team EuroIslam