Law to regulate Islamic religious schools difficult to implemen

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- President Pervez Musharraf's military government is expected to implement a law within the next few days to regulate the country's controversial Islamic religious schools, whose increasingly militant, anti-Western teachings have influenced a generation of young men.

But the law has already met such strong resistance from religious leaders that effective enforcement remains far from certain.

The ordinance requires each of the estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Muslim seminaries in the country, known as madrasas, to register within six months with federal and provincial authorities.

In addition to ordering punishments of up to two years in prison for Muslim clerics who use the madrasas to preach militancy and sectarian hatred, the ordinance requires the schools to broaden their curricula to include four subjects: math, general science, English and social studies.

As many as 1.5 million students will be affected, Ghazi said.

The law is the latest in a series of measures taken by Musharraf to weaken the influence of religious extremists in the country. Many in the West -- and in Musharraf's government -- came to see the madrasas as incubators of the virulent anti-Americanism and strong sympathies for Muslim militancy that were visible in Pakistan during the days after Sept. 11.

But many madrasa administrators and teachers view the reform efforts with suspicion. They insist that the problems are exaggerated by what they characterize as outside interests working to undercut Muslims. Musharraf's government, they say, has simply buckled under to Western influence.

(Begin optional trim)

``You only reform what is bad, and madrasas are not bad,'' said Shafiq Julludhari, head of the Jamia Muhammadi Madrasa in this bustling Punjabi city. Like many of the madrasa leaders in Pakistan, Julludhari is a follower of the conservative Deoband school of Islam.

``There is more violence in the (state) educational institutions and universities than in madrasas,'' he added.

Under terms of the ordinance, foreign donations to the madrasas will require prior government approval and foreigners studying in them will need to register with the government and possess student visas.

(End optional trim)

Madrasas are as old as Islam itself, but their number has grown rapidly in Pakistan over the last two decades, spurred largely by the religious fervor connected with the armed resistance to the Soviet Union's invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.

At the time, the United States encouraged this fervor as a way to weaken its Cold War enemy.

(Begin optional trim)

Members of the archconservative Taliban, who were themselves products of Pakistan's madrasas, quickly became role models for these young and impressionable students after they came to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Rather than imposing the new controls on the schools' leaders, Ghazi said, he is trying to sell them on the idea as a way to improve the quality of education offered.

But with Pakistan's state-run educational system woefully underfinanced and staffed by low-paid teachers who all too frequently show little motivation, simply finding good new blood for the madrasas won't be easy. Ghazi said the government hopes to hire state-school teachers at rates of $60-65 a month for part-time work.

(End optional trim)

But as Ghazi noted, enforcing the provisions against incitement won't be easy, even if clerics are won over.

As interviews with religious leaders make clear, even defining what constitutes extremist teachings is highly debatable. For example, Mohammed Kamal, the head of the Rawalpindi branch of the Jamaat-i-Islami religious party, claimed that teaching contempt for the United States isn't extremist at all. It is an obligation, deduced by simple logic.

``When (our teachers) see Americans supporting those who kill Muslims around the world _ in Palestine, in India _ they develop a hatred,'' he said. ``So they teach students that Americans are against their religion and so they should fight against them.''