Madrasas: How They Survive and Why These Institutions are Proliferating?, Islamic Society, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Society

Madrasas: How They Survive and Why These Institutions are Proliferating?

By M. A. Haque

Freedom First June 2009

‘Dastaar-bandi’

Self-imposed Seclusion

The self-imposed seclusion by the Madrasas helps in putting a kind of veil around these institutions spread all over the country. This leads to suspicion and mistrust. One more reason for this behaviour is that people who manage the institutions fear that outsiders may interfere in their affairs. Questions may be raised regarding the management and utilization of funds received by the Madrasas. For example, leaving aside a few of these institutions, it is common practice that the managers and teachers do not share food with students in the Madrasas. Reason is that the students are served inferior quality food. Also, in large numbers of these Madrasas entire families of the managers and/or teachers stay in the Madrasas. Also, their expenses are borne by the Madrasa fund. A third reason is that almost all Madrasas impart only religious education. So, they do not appoint any one as teacher who is educated in colleges, university During the past few years Madrasas (the seminaries where education related to Islam is imparted) have been in focus. One obvious reason is that the number of Madrasas is growing all over the country. But a more important reason is that the Madrasas are almost totally isolated from India’s mainstream society. Etc.

http://newageislam.com/madrasas--how-they-survive-and-why-these-institutions-are-proliferating?/islamic-society/d/1794

VHP misses Syed Shahbuddin’s rare moments of sanity, Letter to the Editor, NewAgeIslam.com

Letter to the Editor

VHP misses Syed Shahbuddin’s rare moments of sanity

There are many spheres of activity in which the "ugly Hindu" does not come in its way, nor does the unsympathetic administration breathe down its back. Its mohallas and villages live their own life. Indeed, they have been allowed to stew in their own juice. They have high infant mortality and low life expectancy. They have high incidence of tuberculosis and other environmental diseases, with overflowing drains and stinking dumps of refuse all over. Lanes are crowded with half-naked, half-fed children and idle youth, whiling away their time on cards, tea or gossip. Mosques are uncared for and madrasas are hovels with a semi-literate moulvi, instructing at the point of a stick, emaciated children to read the Quran. Look at the graveyards; they have no boundary walls; giving free access to cattle looking for food and men looking for privacy. One sees little sign of economically productive activity except in traditional centres of handicrafts and handlooms and they are also located in dark, dingy holes and largely manned by minor children. Of course, there are tea shops and eating places which inform a visitor of their existence, half a kilometre away.

http://newageislam.com/vhp-misses-syed-shahbuddin%E2%80%99s-rare-moments-of-sanity--/letter-to-the-editor/d/1446

For many Pakistani children, madrasas fill a void, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

For many Pakistani children, madrasas fill a void

They are creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to

By Sabrina Tavernise,

New York Times

But if the state has forgotten the children here, the mullahs have not. With public education in shambles, Pakistan’s poorest families have turned to madrasas, or Islamic schools, that feed and house the children while pushing a more militant brand of Islam than was traditional here.

The concentration of madrasas here in southern Punjab has become an urgent concern in the face of Pakistan’s expanding insurgency. The schools offer almost no instruction beyond the memorising of the Koran, creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to militancy.

In an analysis of the profiles of suicide bombers who have struck in Punjab, the Punjab police said more than two-thirds had attended madrasas.

Red alert

“We are at the beginning of a great storm that is about to sweep the country,” said Ibn Abduh Rehman, who directs the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organisation. “It’s red alert for Pakistan.”

U.S. President Barack Obama said in a news conference last week that he was “gravely concerned” about the situation in Pakistan, not least because the government did not “seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services: schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of the people.”

http://newageislam.com/for-many-pakistani-children,-madrasas-fill-a-void--/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1384