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190  c h a p t e r 6 Reforming Madrassahs In recent years, reform has become one of the central elements of discussion concerning madrassahs. Media analyses and policy discourses, especially in the West, present a simple and linear equation—the problem is security threats, the causes are the madrassahs, and reform is the panacea. Whether or not they subscribe to this perceived causal relationship, governments and civil societies in countries with substantial Muslim populations have also emphasized the need for reform. In a similar vein, some of the scholars of Islamic history and contemporary Muslim politics, portrayed as “Muslim modernists,” insist that reform of the madrassahs, particularly in South Asia, is long overdue. These discussions both explicitly and implicitly provide an impression that madrassahs in South Asia have remained unchanged for centuries, and that no reforms have been implemented since these madrassahs began emerging in the nineteenth century. The implied immutability of these institutions is at times linked to the absence of an Islamic reformation, with little regard to the fact that “many of the religious practices and legal principles that constitute Islam evolved over time and as the product of constant reform and adjustment.”1 The experiences of Pakistan and Bangladesh over more than a half a century show that efforts to reform the madrassahs have been ongoing for some time in South Asia. Success or failure aside, there have been policy interventions from the governments and initiatives from the societies to change the madrassahs . These reforms have been diverse and occasionally contradictory. Despite adopting different approaches, they have, however, some common features, the integrationist mindset being the most important. The goals of these changes— proposed and implemented—have been to create equivalence between general education and that offered by the madrassahs; to introduce nonreligious, occasionally described as “useful,” subjects to the latter, thereby rendering the madrassah students more employable in jobs; and to establish control over reforming madr assahs 191 the sources of funding. All these features (except the last) are perceived to be characteristics of modern education. Thus reforms and modernization are seen as one and the same. At the same time, the experiences of these two countries are also indicative of the complexities of the reform process. The Bangladeshi experience particularly serves as a reminder that the heterogeneity of madrassahs cannot be overlooked in devising measures to address these institutions, for reform purposes or otherwise. Although it is necessary to recognize that madrassah reform is not an externally induced post-9/11 phenomenon, it must also be acknowledged that, particularities notwithstanding, the successes of state-sponsored reform measures have been limited at best. Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on those reform measures, but also to suggest a pathway for future endeavors. Pakistan: A Circular Path of Reform Since the inception of Pakistan in 1947, three organized efforts have been launched to reform the madrassahs: in 1962, in 1979, and in 2001. These efforts have been planned, initiated, and implemented by the government with and without the help of the ulama. All of these endeavors are closely tied to politics in Pakistan, not only because they were initiated by military rulers (General Ayub Khan, General Zia-ul Huq, and General Pervez Musharraf, respectively), but also because political considerations shaped the contents and contours of these reforms, as much as the outcomes. It is fair to say that these initiatives were driven as much by the need of the military rulers to carve out a space within the political landscape as for the purpose of addressing deep-seated concerns about general or Islamic education. Equally important is that the issue of Islamic education and, by extension, the issue of interpreting Islam are fundamentally connected to Pakistani nationhood and thereby themselves constitute a political issue. The First Step—Reforms under Ayub Khan In 1959, within a year of his assumption of power, Ayub Khan (1958–1969) embarked on a plan to make changes in the curriculum and restrict the funding sources of the madrassahs. The primary motivation of the reform measures was to tame the potential opponents of the new regime. The coup d’état that brought Ayub Khan to power was engineered against the backdrop of an intense tussle between those who favored the role of Islam in political life and those who wanted to keep religion outside the realm of politics. The debate with regard to the role of Islam in Pakistani politics and governance had ensued soon after independence in 1947 as the...

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