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Summary: Some in West suggest that Pakistan lying between twin poles of an authoritarian military and an unforgiving mosque is likely to remain an ally as uncertain as it is essential. They fail to understand that what is advocated as essential is no more than the ‘but…’ factor used by moderate Muslims to justify terrorism. This letter tries to identify some root causes associated with the terrorism and suggest possible solutions to address the problems. To eliminate sources of potential terrorist breeding infrastructure, all secular nations should enact laws to 

1. Prohibit foreign funding and instead encourage local funding for madrassahs to propagate a culture of assimilating into the majority non-Islamic population.

2. Ensure that all Islamic clerics are graduates of local universities, where they specialize not only in Koran and Islamic studies but also undertake comparative religious studies in addition to a diversified background in humanities, sciences, etc., so that they can appreciate how to help Islamic human resources development to benefit all in general and their country of birth in particular.

Introduction: The terrible bomb blasts in London, now described as 7/7, coming in the wake of 9/11, the Bali carnage, Madrid bombings, unsuccessful attacks on India’s Parliament and rampant terrorist carnage in Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle Eastern states and India’s Kashmir have again and again brought into focus the hard fact that terrorists trained in Pakistan were connected to it and that terrorism today is the single most threat to peace and stability of nations around the world. The extraordinary linkage between death and politics is a distinct feature of this new warfare, which is pursued in West more for ideological reasons than for any territorial gains, but in case of India’s Kashmir the ideology is the excuse advocated for territorial gain. The perpetrators happen to be politically motivated Muslims. Terrorism is essentially a political weapon and terrorist are driven by the prevailing social, political and economic realities. Muslims are not only fighting the non-Muslims but also killing fellow Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle East and Pakistan more than the followers of any other religion. The reality is that the West’s focus, after the end of the Cold War, has shifted from fighting communism to combating Islamic terrorism. Unlike Indian politicians Western politicians are in denial that dictator Musharraf over six years of his tenure has been ineffective in reforming madrassahs to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure of Pakistan. 

Communal isolation and holding those who live differently in contempt is a known consequence of madrassah learning that could possibly make the children of immigrant Muslims in the West to turn to violence. To elaborate on madrassah brand of education I quote below from an Op-ed by Muhammad Ali Siddiqi (Dawn, July 24, 2005):

In his remarkable book Islam: chund fikree masayel, Dr Manzoor Ahmad, a former vice-chancellor of the Hamdard University, bemoans the fact that Islam has been turned into an ideology. Since by its very nature, every ideology is totalitarian, it rejects whatever is outside it. So, because Islam is now an ideology, says Dr Ahmad, it must reject everything modern, even if it is for the good of the people and does not violate Islamic values.

Can the madressah students be “de-ideologized” and if so how? Under the present system — given the nature of the curriculum and the restricted mental horizons of those who teach — the madressahs have turned into ideological schools, where students are brainwashed into becoming indoctrinated robots lacking a will and an intellect of their own.

They may be taught the traditional course, but what they are not taught are values that go into the making of a refined human being — an individual who is a citizen of planet earth, who abhors hate and revenge, and who has an abundance of love that looks at all human phenomena, including individual and social conflicts, with understanding. He respects every human being and considers human life sacred. He loves both the wronged and the wrong-doer. He may hate sin but he does not hate the sinner. He believes in salvaging the sinner rather than in punishing him and making a spectacle of punishment. These are values higher than those that modern education promotes.

Teach a brainwashed madressah student a subject like aerodynamics or marine biology, and he would still remain beholden to Mullah Omar, because he would continue to view the world through the prism of the “ideology” as taught by teachers who themselves have had no exposure to humanities.

One reason for this tragedy is the absence of literature from the syllabi of most madressahs. Indeed, he has a poor understanding of the purpose of education and its effect on society if he does not understand the impact of literature on the development of human mind, outlook and personality.

Our elders were aware of this truth and made literature, especially poetry, an essential element of home education for all. That was the reason why Islamic learning and poetry went hand in hand in South Asia. Most Islamic scholars were themselves poets. As for those parts of the subcontinent which now constitute Pakistan, Sufi poets thrived, especially in Sindh, and they still have millions of adherents and admirers. That was the reason why, in our parents’ time, a person not well-versed in Urdu and Persian poetry was considered uncouth.

In middle class families, a child’s traditional education began with a dose of Persian poetry. Hafiz, Saadi, Jami, Nizami, Baydil and Amir Khusrau, if not Rumi, were compulsory reading. As for Gulistan and Bostan, one remembered most of them by heart. (Incidentally, Gulistan was part of the curriculum at Deoband, and Arab students seeking admission to Deoband were supposed to have learnt Persian up to Gulistan.)

Seen against the humanistic traditions of Islamic education in South Asia, today’s madressah curriculum is a tragedy, for the madressah products are unable to interact with the educated middle class on a footing of equality. Not just because they do not know English, but also because they have missed out on a vital part of middle class upbringing in the subcontinent.

Those who teach at madressahs must themselves be well-read in poetry, drama and fiction, besides history — not just Islamic history. History is a continuous process, and no nation or people has, or ever had, a monopoly of knowledge. Babylon and Egypt, Greece and Rome, Cordoba and Baghdad, and modern Europe and America are names that indicate the continuation of a process that began with the dawn of civilization and shall continue.

Another respected Pakistani, Mr. Kamran Shafi (The News, July 24) tried to answer some very pertinent question:

• Muslims are enraged at what is happening to their own across the world. But why is it that most of the terrorists who go about the world trying to bomb themselves and others to oblivion have the deepest linkages to Pakistan? From Reid the shoe-bomber to three of the four London bombers, all of them had their teachers and guides in Pakistani madrassahs? Why?

• I would ask why there aren't any Lebanese or Syrians or Libyans or Moroccans or Tunisians born, brought up and educated in England among the suicide bombers. Indeed, why aren't there any Iraqis and Afghans among them? Why?

• Pakistan is the hub of terrorism because it is due to the thousands (30,000 to 50,000 according to one reliable source) of un-regulated madrassahs teaching the poison that we saw spewed in London. All due to the fact that clerics can do in Pakistan what they want, in blatant disregard of the law no matter how loud the talk and how visible the posturing. Just listen carefully to what the mullahs say in their Friday sermons in the mosques and you will know what I mean. Every single khutba is laden with hate and rancor.

Some Root Causes of Terrorism:  Defeating terrorism requires understanding root causes. Moderate Muslims rarely speak out against the Islamists and the handful that do nearly always add the ‘‘but’’ factor. Terrible what is happening in London but America is to blame. Terrible those small children should be killed by suicide bombers but what about the children dying in Iraq and Palestine. As soon as a ‘‘but’’ gets added you get justification for evil deeds and an evil ideology of hatred and violence.

Identifying the root causes is very important to solve a problem. The Muslims in Europe experience residential segregation, low high-school graduation rates, and high unemployment rates. Several Western European nations including France, Germany and UK made no effort to integrate its Muslim communities into the larger society politically, economically and socially. Consequently most Muslims in Western European nations live in unattractive ghettos. This is not yet the case with Muslim-Americans but unless America learns from the European experience, there is a potential in America for development of a parallel Muslim society, which ignores local established social and cultural norms.

The additional root causes for training terrorist include Saudi Arabia’s money to establish and support madrassahs all over the world. Since the seventies, when oil exporting countries suddenly became very rich, Saudi Arabia has used hundreds of millions of petro-dollars to push its rigid Wahabi/Salafi version of Islam. This embodies a virulently anti-West strain that has now infected Muslim thinking, especially among the young, across the world. In Pakistan, Muslims have been further radicalized by the rigidly literalist Deoband school.

Globally the problem of terrorism gets compounded as many secular democracies over last several decades have in the ugly ghettos allowed immigrant Muslims to establish parallel Islamic societies, which ignore established local social and cultural norms. Instead of blending with the mainstream, Muslims have tended to stick together, usually in unattractive ghettos, some of which have become breeding spots for crime. Many madrassahs in these ghettos are funded by Saudi Arabia. Once brainwashed in madrassahs and driven by hate and intolerance of non-Islamic society and culture these bigots are easy pray for operatives of al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood to establish cells, which are then activated from time to time to commit terrorist acts. To eliminate the source of potential terrorist breeding infrastructure, all secular nations should enact laws to prohibit foreign funding and instead encourage local funding for madrassahs to propagate a culture of assimilating within the majority non-Islamic population.

Secondly, take a good look at global population of 1.2 billion Muslims and then check out who are most devoted to teaching its population to be intolerant and hate non-Islamic people. Saudi Arabia  sows the seed by providing funds to establish madrassahs to teach Wahabi/Salafi version of Sunni Islam but it is the Pakistani clerics who do all dirty work overtly in the name of religion, but covertly to re-establish Caliphate, which in its last avatar represented imperial Islamic rule using the loot and plunder methods. Madrassahs any where, not only in Pakistan can only breed fanatics because it is fanaticism that automatically comes to little children who are taught that they belong to the only perfect religion in the world and that all they ever need to learn is the Koran by rote because what knowledge can exist beyond a book written personally by Allah.

As the Western world and India is increasingly getting terrorized by Islamic political opportunists they should be inching towards enacting laws to prohibit clerics from preaching hate and intolerance. Another law they should pass is to ensure that all Islamic clerics are graduates of local universities, where they specialize not only in Koran and Islamic studies but also undertake comparative religious studies in addition to a diversified background in humanities, sciences, etc., so that they can appreciate how to help Islamic human resources development to benefit all in general and their country of birth in particular.

Kishan Bhatia, Ph.D.

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