Bid to transform Afghan madrassas

BBC ^ | 11 January 2008 | David Loyn

[forkinsocket]

The Afghan government has changed its policy on madrassas, the religious schools that inspired a generation of fundamentalists who became the Taliban.

Rather than trying to freeze them out, it is trying to bring them into the state system, providing they widen their syllabus to teach other subjects.

The Education Minister Hanif Atmar says: "We are critical of policies in the past. Actually it was a result of those policies to exclude these madrassas, keep them on the margin of the society, and then entirely hand them over to the fundamentalists."

Under the reform the schools will be able to continue to teach subjects connected to the Islamic faith for 40% of the time, but the other 60% will be taken up with more standard subjects - history, geography, science and languages - as well as computer studies.

Mr Atmar likes to remind people that the founder of modern European medicine, Ibn Sina, born about a thousand years ago, studied at an Afghan madrassa: "I think our madrassas will go back to the historic glory these madrassas had. Four or five centuries ago they were the best institutes of education in the east."

The new policy is a direct challenge to neighbouring Pakistan, where madrassas have been a key recruiting ground for the Taliban.

The Speaker of the Upper House of the Afghan parliament, Sibghatullah Mujadidi, says: "In Pakistan some of our students are studying religious subjects and they have been also trained for terrorism.

"If we have enough madrassas in Afghanistan, there will be no need for students to go to Pakistan. They will study here and real moderate Islam will be taught to them."

[forkinsocket]

The Dean of one of these madrassas Mullah Rahimullah Azizi says that if they are forced to introduce other subjects then some of his students will go to learn in madrassas in Pakistan.

[Romneyfor President2008]

Well, this is the right step. It’s probably what Turkey and China does with their mosques and what-not.

[G8 Diplomat]

...but the other 60% will be taken up with more standard subjects - history, geography, science and languages - as well as computer studies.

'Madrassa' is the Arabic word for school. What we think of as a gradeschool they would call a madrassa. However the word also applies to the Islamist training schools, which is what most Westerners automatically associate the word with. Unless you've taken Arabic.

[forkinsocket]

Yes, to me madrasah means school, but in non-Arab Islamic countries, using the Arabic word specifies a religious school. I don’t speak Dari or Pashto, so I don’t know if they’ve adopted the entire word madrasah for school, or if madrasah means Islamic school to them & they use the Dari/Pashto word for other schools.

[ViLaLuz]

Afghans consider a madrassah (arabic word) to be a school where talibs study the koran.

The Dari word for a regular (non-religious) school is maktab, and Pashto is khowanzai.

Many Afghans, living in an Islamic Republic, still want koranic study in their public schools, just not as much. Generally speaking, the religious study should only be about 10% of the curriculum. They recognize they need scholastic study, too, to fight the illiteracy and ignorance that fuels their poverty.

[forkinsocket]

Thank you for your informative reply!

[ViLaLuz]

You’re welcome... and I love the articles you post!

[forkinsocket]

:)