Counting the Countless: Madaris Funding and Foreign Students

Final­ly, state Min­is­ter for Inte­ri­or Baleeghur Rehman has con­fessed that some of the sem­i­nar­ies are get­ting for­eign fund­ing from ‘some Mus­lim coun­tries’. Also he accept­ed the Government’s inabil­i­ty in check­ing the details of these trans­ac­tions.

After the attack on Army Pub­lic School (APS) Peshawar, the Gov­ern­ment final­ly decid­ed to launch a Nation­al Action Plan (NAP) to fight ter­ror­ism and mil­i­tan­cy in the coun­try. For this pur­pose, Pak­istan Mus­lim League Nawaz (PML‑N), after tak­ing the Par­lia­men­tary par­ties on board, tabled a bill for 21st Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment. Most of the reli­gious par­ties have object­ed to the 21st Amend­ment. They are of the view that after this amend­ment, Madaris (reli­gious sem­i­nar­ies) will be tar­get­ed in the name of secu­ri­ty. JUI‑F and JI had not par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vot­ing to reg­is­ter their protest against this amend­ment.

There is heat­ed debate going on about the fund­ing of Madaris, for­eign stu­dents enroll­ment in such Madaris and the steps to be tak­en by Gov­ern­ment in accor­dance with the Nation­al Action Plan. Appar­ent­ly the rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tions of Madaris are resist­ing attempts to reg­is­ter and reg­u­late the Madaris. The con­tention of madras­sa reg­u­la­tion traces its root in the tenure of for­mer Dic­ta­tor Pres­i­dent Gen. Per­vaiz Mushar­raf.

In Musharraf’s regime, an agree­ment was signed between Itte­had Tanzeemat Madaris-e-Deeniya (ITMD) and then Prime Min­is­ter Shaukat Aziz in which both par­ties agreed on the reg­is­tra­tion of Madaris under the amend­ed act of Reg­is­tra­tion of Soci­eties Act, 1860. In the said agree­ment, ITMD also showed lenien­cy on the issue of for­eign stu­dents and they were also ready to pro­vide any guar­an­tee on the behalf of for­eign stu­dents.

Now as PML‑N gov­ern­ment attempt­ed the reg­is­tra­tion of Madaris with­out any such agree­ment with ITMD, it is invit­ing a strong reac­tion from Madaris. In a report pub­lished on Mon­day, Wafaq-ul-Madaris sec­re­tary gen­er­al Qari Hanif Jalandhri said that they didn’t object the reg­is­tra­tion of madaris but the pro­ce­dure.

Also accord­ing to media reports, Pun­jab Gov­ern­ment is to deport 500 for­eign stu­dents from Madaris whose visas have expired. And the Gov­ern­ment has also decid­ed to retain them till their depor­ta­tion to their home coun­tries.

These both reports hint a lack of coor­di­na­tion between the Gov­ern­ment and the Madaris that seems nec­es­sary for the reg­is­tra­tion of the lat­ter.

There is no doubt that a big num­ber of deserv­ing stu­dents are study­ing and resid­ing in Madaris. They are not only get­ting reli­gious edu­ca­tion there, they also get res­i­dence, meals, cloths and oth­er neces­si­ties of life.

On the oth­er hand, it is also true that in the past there has been a very strong con­nec­tion between the ter­ror­ists and Madaris.

Let’s have a look at some of the ter­ror­ists who have strong con­nec­tions with Madaris:

Naeemul­lah, who attacked Karachi CID Police Chief Chaudry Aslam, was a stu­dent of a Madres­sah and his father was an Imam of Oran­gi Town Mosque.

Bait­ul­lah Mehsood and for­mer head of Pak­istan Tehreek-e-Tal­iban Hakeemul­lah Mehsood were stu­dent of the same madras­sa in Hangu. Hakeemul­lah Mehsood was killed in a US drone strike.

Hafiz Gul Muham­mad was stu­dent of a madras­sa in Mul­tan. He par­tic­i­pat­ed in Afghan war in the 80s and lat­er he joined Jami­at Ulma-e-Islam.

Waled-Ur-Rehman was a stu­dent of Jamia Islamia Imda­dia, Faisal­abad and after that he went to Waziris­tan.

Mul­lah Faza­lul­lah got reli­gious edu­ca­tion from the madras­sa of Molvi Sufi Muham­mad in Swat that was estab­lished by the Tal­iban.

Khalid Haqqani belonged to Darul Aloom, Ako­ra Khat­tak and he was a close aide of Hakeemul­lah Mehsood.

Mas­ter­mind of sui­cide bomb­ings Qari Hus­sain belonged to a madras­sa of Karachi Jamia Farooqia. He tried to con­vince the stu­dents of Jamia Haf­sa to join Ghazi Force.

Kosar Ali who attacked Wah Cant Police Check post was a stu­dent of Jamia Haf­sa.

In the response of these alle­ga­tions, the defend­ers of Madaris argue that there are so many ter­ror­ists who belonged to dif­fer­ent uni­ver­si­ties. Such as Omar Sheikh who aid­ed the 9/11 attacks was an alum­nus of Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics.

In a report pub­lished by dawn.com, Inte­ri­or Min­istry claims there are 20 thou­sand Reg­is­tered Madaris where­as the num­bers of unreg­is­tered Madaris is 40 thou­sand. So the total num­ber of Madaris is 60 thou­sand and major­i­ty of these Madaris are unreg­is­tered.

On the oth­er hand, accord­ing to ITMD, an orga­ni­za­tion that rep­re­sents Madaris of 5 major sects, there are 26 thou­sand Madaris which are reg­is­tered and only 4 thou­sand Madaris are unreg­is­tered.

In 1947, there were only 300 Madaris in the coun­try. In 1988, the num­ber of Madaris increased to 3 thou­sands. In 2005 when an agree­ment was signed between then Prime Min­is­ter Shaukat Aziz and (ITMD), there were 13 thou­sand Madaris in which 1.5 Mil­lion stu­dents were enrolled. Now in 2015, the num­ber of Madaris is 30 thou­sand with 3 Mil­lion stu­dents enrolled.

Madaris Work­ing under Itte­had Tanzeemat Madaris-e-Deeniya (ITMD)

Wafaqul Madaris Alar­bia Pak­istan
About 80 per­cent of the Madaris in ITMD belong to Deoband sect and accord­ing to the web­site of Wafaqul Madaris Alar­bia Pak­istan, they have 18677 branch­es and affil­i­at­ed Madaris in which 23045512 stu­dents are enrolled. The num­ber of teach­ers appoint­ed for them is 90349.

Idaara-e-Tanzeem-ul-Madaris Ahle Sun­nat Wal­ja­maat
This Barelvi sect’s orga­ni­za­tion cov­ers 10 per­cent of the Madaris and comes sec­ond in num­bers.

Wafaq-ul-Madaris Alshia
Madaris belong­ing to Shia sect work under the umbrel­la of Wafaq-ul-Madaris Alshia and the num­bers of their Madaris is about 500.

Wafaq-u-Madaris Alsal­fia
A num­ber of 5 hun­dred Madaris work under the ban­ner of Wafaq-u-Madaris Alsal­fia.

Rab­ta-al-Madaris
Under the super­vi­sion of Jamat-e-Isla­mi, this net­work is the fifth body of ITMD and they have more than 400 Madaris across the coun­try.

One of the most impor­tant ques­tions asked about these Madaris is about their fund­ing. As admit­ted by the state Min­is­ter for Inte­ri­or, some of the Madaris receive fund­ing from Mus­lim coun­tries. Alleged­ly these coun­tries finance dif­fer­ent Madaris to fuel sec­tar­i­an and reli­gious hatred. There is no sys­tem of audit­ing preva­lent in Madaris.

A rough cal­cu­la­tion of the min­i­mum run­ning expens­es of these thou­sands of sem­i­nar­ies will be in bil­lions of rupees per month.

In the end, I have a ques­tion for Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al ITMD. Accord­ing to him the Gov­ern­ment is vio­lat­ing 2005 agree­ment. When the agree­ment was signed between then gov­ern­ment and ITMD in 2005, the num­ber of Madaris was 13000 in which 1.5 Mil­lion stu­dents were enrolled. Now in 2015, there are 30 thou­sand Madaris in which 3 Mil­lion stu­dents are enrolled. So how can the Gov­ern­ment reg­is­ter all the 30 thou­sand Madaris accord­ing to 2005 agree­ment when the num­bers of Madaris and stu­dents have more than dou­bled in less than 10 years?