Q:  We hear the government is formulating a new policy to regulate the madrassahs. What is its basic objective?

            A:  Many previous governments have tried to have  a policy to regulate the madrassahs.  Meanwhile, their numbers have mushroomed, over the last twenty years they have grown from a few hundreds into the thousands.  Unfortunately, some of them are a bit towards the parochial side, the sectarian side.  It is not for deen  but to serve the interests of their maslak – their school of thought – that they open these schools, and obviously that is dividing the Muslim ummah instead of strengthening it.

            But by and large most of the madrassahs are looking after the aspect of providing religious knowledge to the people.  For all the hundreds and thousands of mosques in the country they provide the khatibs and the imams and the muezzins. They have a role to play.  What we are telling them is that we have to regulate them, we have to register them and look into sources of funding.  We have to see that no elements of militancy or sectarian aspects are promoted.  If there are foreign students, we must ask the respective countries whether they want their young men to come and attend these schools.  They must have proper visas and not stay back on visitors’ visas. Some of the madrassahs get funding from foreign sources and they must disclose it because we ought to know that no country is giving money to serve its own interests.

            There are thousands of new madrassahs and some of them have students who keep on going for jihad, some of them come on the road to protest and damage property. That is why the interior ministry has to get involved, because there is a problem of security.  That is why we are working on the issue along with the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

            Q:  How many madrassahs do you estimate there are at present?

            A:  There are mosque schools and maktabs where you have day scholars and then others where people stay overnight.  If we take those that have above forty students and also offer residential facilities, the total figure should be between five to six thousand.  But if you include the mosque schools, maktabs and places where part time religious education is being imparted they may go up to 10,000.  The proper madrassahs have about 6,00,000 students and must be registered.  They have about 20,000 foreign students, of which almost 18,000 are Afghans, the rest are from Burma, the Central Asian countries or the Middle East.

            Q:  What strategy do you propose to adopt?

            A:  We want to study the whole system and not just make policy sitting in a room.  I have visited many madrassahs and held talks with the scholars who run these madrassahs.  We want to involve these people in a dialogue, a consultation process.  We  will define the problem and seek advice on how to control the ill effects which are affecting society.

            The mosque is an important institution in Muslim society and there are hundreds of thousands of mosques in the country. But some khatibs have only limited religious knowledge and cannot fulfil the needs of the people who go to the mosque to listen to them, they may not be able to give them the guidance they need.  We must produce high class khatibs for our mosques.

            We need people to perform religious ceremonies and the madrassahs provide opportunity to gain specialised religious knowledge about the Holy Quran, hadees, fiqh etc.  They are also doing a good job in that they provide free food, clothing and shelter to hundreds and thousands of students and also give stipends to these people.

            But we also have some sectarian parties and they have their own madrassahs.  Obviously they will teach a hard line about their own maslak, their students’ minds will be poisoned and this will affect the law and order situation in the country.  We have to consider what to do about these madrassahs, whether we need them in our society, or whether we should do away with them.

            Q:  The ulema claim that most madrassahs are registered already and that it is the government that is refusing to register new madrassahs.

            A:  They may be registered already with the Wafaqi Madaris but that does not mean that they are registered with the government.  There is an embargo on new registration at present because we want to wait for the finalisation of the madrassah policy.

            Q:  Under what act will you register the madrassahs?

            A:  We can look at the existing laws, such as some regulating charity or education or social work.  But if these are not suitable, then we will enact a comprehensive piece of new legislation for regulation and improvement of deeni madaris.

            Q:  Are there some madrassahs that are actually involved in arms training?

            A:  I don’t think so. Some of them may be keeping arms, but no military training takes place.

            Q:  If there are madrassahs that refuse to go along with your policy, how will you deal with the situation?

            A:  If we have gone seriously through the process of negotiations and we have made a policy that is generally true to the working of madrassah culture, then I think people should cooperate.  For those who don’t obey the law, we will have to enforce it.

            Q:  Are you asking for a change in the madrassah curriculum?

            A:  For one thing the people who lead the prayers in the mosque must have the requisite religious knowledge to instil confidence in the people who have come to listen to them.  And that means enhancing and improving religious education.  Apart from that, we want the students to learn Pakistan studies, social sciences, a bit of Urdu and other things, then they can form the habit of reading and remain current on national and regional issues and problems of the day.  They will be in a better position to guide people and if someone puts to them a question about day to day affairs and their relationship to deen, they will not be found totally wanting.

            Q:  The ulema say that the major purpose of the madaris is religious education but the government wants them to teach secular subjects which is the job  of secular schools.

            A:  All the schools in Pakistan must open the door to some religious education.  Students must know what Quran and hadees is and they must draw from it strength of character on which to build the general education required for their careers. We believe that if the knowledge of deen is correctly imparted then you have a man who is patriotic and responsible.  On that you build professional knowledge.  In the same way, we want the madrassahs to retain 80 per cent of their curriculum as religious education, but 20 per cent should be general education.

             Q:  Do you consider that the madrassahs have played  an active role in inciting sectarian violence?

              A:  There are two major sectarian parties.  One party has 166 schools, the other 119 schools, so obviously they will be teaching their maslak in their schools and that means polarisation, building up hatred.  Islam does not mean that we should preach hate.  That is why we will be looking at them very seriously and if need be we will do away with anything which divides the nation, which creates a bad law and order situation, which makes us a laughing stock before the world.  There are attacks and killings in the mosques and imambargahs.  This certainly creates a very bad image for Islam and Pakistan and we shall deal with it full strength.  Enough is enough.

            Q:  There is an opinion that action is being taken against the madrassahs under external pressures.

              A:  The events of September 11 have come up now.  But if you follow the government’s policies, we have been working on the issue much before that.  We have tried to take away weapons, we tried to bring in a terrorist law in August for which we worked for six months. Two parties were banned before September 11.  And then about the so-called jihadis who used to display weapons and put up their banners everywhere, we tried to control their activities.

            This government feels that religious extremism is not good for any country, and we are taking action for the good of Pakistan.  To the Americans and the west who sometimes have apprehensions about madrassah culture, we have asked them to depute their scholars to research, see the 1400 years of history of madrassahs.  You will not find madrassahs involved in extremism or arms training.  There were other places for people to raise armies and this was only for deen. The bad trend that has now come in with  some madrassahs run by small factions was not there.

            There is a grand history of keeping the deen alive, of having people who can read and recite the Holy Quran by heart. Such people are responsible, they respect other religions, they have enough tolerance.  But now some people have tried to use religion as politics.  There are political religious parties in the country and many Afghan students in the refugee camps were used by the Americans themselves against the Soviet Union and they invited holy warriors from other parts of the Muslim world to join them.  This form of extremism still exists and some people started believing in it.  We are trying to curtail this particular aspect of militancy or as some people call it, Talibanisation.

            Q:  There must be people coming in over the Afghan border with arms. How will this affect your drive against weaponisation?

            A:  The government for the first time in 21 years has become serious about its western border which had become an open soft border with people crossing in from every place.  We tried to restore in a strong manner the sanctity of the line.  We are insisting that anyone who wants to cross the border must bring his passport and visa.  This has been going on for over a year.

            As far as the present situation is concerned, we had foreseen that many people would like to enter Pakistan as a sanctuary, as refugees, and we made it clear a year ago, we closed the gates at Torkham and Chaman, we said no more refugees.  I suggested to Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership that please create proper conditions in your country so that people can stay there, we cannot carry any more burden.  And if people are displaced due to fighting and economic conditions then there should be internal refugee camps.  We became very firm with the UN and asked them to establish camps within Afghanistan.  So while people were expecting millions of refugees to pour in, only a few thousands have come.  We have established 300 new border checkposts after September 11.  There is also air surveillance and army deployed as a back-up.  We adopted a strict policy of rounding up Afghan refugees who didn’t have a refugee registration card but were trickling in over the years, we made them cross back over the border.  The message reached them that they are not very welcome in Pakistan. That is why less came.  As far as weapons are concerned, nobody, no person of any nationality can enter Pakistan with weapons.  This policy is being strictly enforced. Any Afghan refugee who comes in will be disarmed.

            Q:  How much progress has been made in the drive for de-weaponisation?

            A:  It was announced in June this year and 1,25,000 illegal weapons have already been collected.  In the amnesty period of 15 days, we collected 87,000 weapons, after that with good intelligence information we are going to pinpoint targets, arrest people, collect their weapons and take them to court.  This operation will continue.

            Such schemes have been launched all over the world and in terms of results we stand number three, after South Africa and the UK.  We have left Colombia, Mozambique and Kosovo and other places behind.  There are no weapons to be seen now even in the large jalsas taken out by the jihadis and others.