By Farhan Bokhar
Dozens of students emerge from Karachi’s Jamia Binoria Aalimiyah Islamic madrassa on a sunny afternoon, dressed in the white, Arabian-style robe with long sleeves known as the thawb. Normal garb in the Gulf states, it is striking on the streets of Pakistan, where clothes tend to be more colourful and tailored in the south Asian manner.
Binoria is an Islamic school devoted to the Deobandi tenets of Sunni Islam, a conservative interpretation akin to the Wahhabi tradition practised in Saudi Arabia, and it is one of the institutions watched by western governments suspicious of links to Islamist violence and possible financial support from Saudi and other patrons in the Gulf.
Gul Khan, a rickshaw driver who routinely parks in search of passengers on the road leading to Binoria — which claims to provide mainstream education — sees the young students from the seminary as evidence of Pakistan’s “good relations with our Saudi brothers”. But some Pakistanis lament a four-decade trend they refer to as the “Saudi-isation of Pakistan”.
Saudi Arabia’s influence began to grow in Pakistan in the 1970s when Riyadh’s ultra-conservative ruling establishment teamed up with Pakistan’s military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq, and the US to aid the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of neighbouring Afghanistan.
After the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Saudis developed proxies in Pakistan to block the influence of Tehran. “Since Iran’s revolution, the Saudis have tried to build close ties with some political parties, the Islamic ones in particular, to expand their influence in Pakistan,” says a senior western diplomat in Islamabad.
Riyadh’s influence has been felt in mainstream Pakistani politics. The Saudis helped prime minister Nawaz Sharif after his arrest in a 1999 military coup. He was subsequently exiled to Saudi Arabia but returned to Pakistan seven years later and resumed his political career after the Saudi leadership intervened on his behalf with General Pervez Musharraf, the military leader at the time.
Pakistan’s policymakers recall the generous Saudi bailout following Islamabad’s maiden nuclear tests in 1998, when the kingdom sent them free oil for three years to counter punitive global sanctions.
An increasing drift towards Saudi-style Islam has accompanied the growing political influence. A former hotel manager in Karachi recalls his surprise in the 1980s to discover that increasingly pious visitors were washing their feet in the hotel handbasins as part of their daily ablutions — eventually prompting many five-star properties to post signs in their bathrooms prohibiting the practice. “As Pakistan began looking more like a Saudi country, such symbols also began spreading,” he says.
The more urgent concern for analysts and policymakers is what impact Saudi’s influence has had on Pakistan’s school’s — particularly a network of more than 30,000 madrassas that specialise in religious education.
The head of Binoria, Mufti Muhammad Naeem, insists the school has not received “even a single rupee” from Saudi Arabia. “The money we have received has all come from local supporters. In the past you have had students from Karachi University [a mainstream state funded university] go for jihad. There have also been acts of terror undertaken by people around the world who were not even Muslims. Why do you only focus on madrassa schools?”
Nonetheless, many analysts and diplomats see a Saudi hand behind Pakistan’s madrassas and their strict teachings. It is a source of pride for Sunni teachers and students to study in Saudi Arabia, says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political commentator. “We know that such students going to Saudi Arabia are generally on a scholarship, and they take a lot of pride in getting an education in Saudi Arabia.”
A senior western diplomat in Pakistan agrees: “It seems the Saudis have actively used the madrassa connection to their advantage”, he says.
The possible role of a conservative Islamic education in promoting extremism came under the spotlight earlier this month after the fatal mass shootings in San Bernardino, California. A young couple — Syed Rizwan Farook, of Pakistani origin who was born and raised in the US, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, a more recent immigrant from Pakistan — carried out the carnage before being shot by police.
Ms Malik’s connections to Saudi Arabia, where her parents have been based for more than 20 years, and her attendance of religious classes in Pakistan at Al-Huda — part of a network of Islamic schools for women — may have radicalised her, western officials say.
Al-Huda denies radicalising students. It says it has seen more than 20,000 women graduate in the past two decades and that its credentials have never been questioned. “We only teach the Koran and other subjects of Islam. Our message promotes peace,” Al-Huda says.
A senior Pakistani official estimates that 80 per cent of the country’s madrassas are Deobandi, and as many as 2,000 “are involved in violent activities”.
One western official who has regularly tracked militant activity in Pakistan sees a clear link between the schools and the country’s embrace of extremism.
“In the past 30 years, such institutions have emerged as the primary suppliers of human resource for militant causes in Afghanistan and India,” the official says. “Why should anyone be surprised if people are now taking a closer look at such connections?”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a65d2616-a78b-11e5-955c-1e1d6de94879.html#axzz3vkfJVCRd
No comments:
Post a Comment