Haroon Khalid - As the world wakes up to educated Islamic militants, Pakistan needs to secularise learning // Athar Osama & Nidhal Guessoum - Scientific research: Are these the dark ages in the Muslim world?
It was the second day
of Eid and I had traveled with my companion, Iqbal Qaiser, to the village of
Makhdoom Pur Pahuran, almost halfway between Lahore and Multan. We were in search of a
gurudwara, the premises of which were now being used for a government school.
The wooden door of the school was looked. After much effort, we located the
guard and requested him to lead us to the gurudwara.
There were two
missiles at the entrance of the school, named Abdali and Ghori, on the nuclear
warheads that the Pakistani establishment boasts. Before us was the main
gurudwara, raised on the spot where Guru Nanak, hailed as the founder of
Sikhism, preached his message of peace and tolerance. This now housed the
office of the principal. There was a Quranic verse on the
forehead of the building, extolling the significance of education. The boundary
wall going all around the school was filled with the 99 names of Allah and
other verses from the Quran in calligraphy. A section of
another wall was dedicated to Muslim scientists.
Education and
religion: Every day, young and
impressionable children come to this and thousands of other such schools spread
across the country. Here, they are indoctrinated with propaganda about Islamic
superiority and nationalism, premised upon half-baked historical facts.
In textbooks across
Pakistan, historical Islamic characters are depicted as legendary figures who
challenged the demonic rajas or kings of India. Tales of
Muhammad Bin Qasim, Muhammad Ghori, Mahmud Ghaznvi, and Ahmad Shah Abdali are
taught to Pakistani students in subjects as varied as Urdu, Islamiyat, and
Pakistan Studies. Last year, it was reported that some Quranic verses
were also included in chemistry textbook.
The situation is not
much better in private schools. A few years ago, while I was working in one of
the country’s leading private schools of the country I noticed similar
propaganda all over its premises. One board was dedicated to Islamic heroes,
which included all the aforementioned invaders. Devoid of their political
contexts and character traits, they were presented as Islamic warriors fighting
for the cause of Allah.
Another board
proclaimed the benefits of fasting and prayer and said it is alright to beat up
young children if they do not fulfill their Islamic duties. This indoctrination
continues into colleges and universities. According to the laws of the country,
all students have to be taught Pakistan Studies – roughly, the history,
geography, politics culture and demography of the country – and Islamiyat in
school as well as college. This rule applies to public as well as private
institutions and the only exceptions are non-Muslim students, who can opt for
civics instead of Islamiyat.
However, many members
of minority religions whom I spoke to said they prefer to study Islamiyat over
civics. This is because there have been complaints of discrimination during
college admissions against students who have not taken Islamiyat. Others assert
that in an Islamic society where the threat of the blasphemy law looms large,
many minorities like to acquaint themselves with Islam so that they don’t
unconsciously offend the sensibilities of Muslims.
Recently, I interacted
with a Hindu student from Tharparkar, in the Sindh province, residing in
Islamabad who spoke of how Hindus in Pakistan are expected to respect the
sensibilities of Muslims, but the reverse does not hold. In all government
universities, bonus points are awarded to students who are Hafiz-e-Quran –
that is, they have learned the Quran by heart. No such benefit
exists for non-Muslim students with respect to their religious knowledge.
Shaping minds: Over the years, universities and colleges churn
out Islamised students who go on to form the new breed of professors and
administrators that mould the curriculum and the atmosphere of the universities
according to their moral standards.
Recently, the
University of Sargodha banned boys and girls from sitting together anywhere
on the campus. A notification from the university stated that they may sit
together only in groups of three or more. Similarly, the University of Swat had
issued a notification disallowing
students from sitting or walking with the opposite sex inside and outside the
campus. The notice was later withdrawn.
At Punjab University
in Lahore, one of the largest universities in the country, the Jamiat-e-talaba,
the student wing of religio-political party Jamaat-i-Islami that is known for
its sympathy to Islamic militants, has maintained a stronghold for nearly three
decades now. Roaming around the campus, their cadre ensures that the so-called
Islamic environment of the university is upheld. Several private universities
in Pakistan have also boasted of the Islamisation of their environment.
Silencing rebellion:
Some student groups and
liberal professors have tried to fight back and reclaim secular spaces but the
threat of the blasphemy law has quickly silenced these voices. For example, in 2013,
young and talented Fulbright scholar Junaid Hafeezwas
fired from Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, the largest university in
Pakistan’s southern Punjab region, where he was teaching English literature.
Later, a case of blasphemy was filed against him for alleged remarks that he
made on campus and through a Facebook page. He is still languishing in jail as
several lawyers who have represented him over the years have received death
threats. The case has received international attention for its seeming curbs on
free speech and as an example of justice being waylaid.
In 2014, Rashid
Rehman, the renowned human rights lawyer who was representing him, was shot
dead in his office for taking up his case. In the midst of all
this, the government is now contemplating making Quranic education
compulsory up to Class 10.
Growth of educated
militants: It is in this
environment that the Pakistani education system is increasingly producing
students who are sympathetic to Islamic militants, who too espouse a
puritanical version of Islam similar to what is taught to these students
through their formal education.
It is surprising,
then, that the government expresses shock when it comes across people like Saad
Aziz, who was convicted for killing human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud and
perpetrating the 2015 attack on a bus near Safoora Goth, Karachi, which
killed at least 43 members of an Ismaili sect. Aziz was highly educated – he
graduated from the prestigious Institute of Business Administration in
Pakistan.
The July 1 Bangladesh
attacks, in which at least 20 were killed after being held hostage at the
upmarket Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, were also carried out by youngsters who
had studied at the country’s elite schools and universities of the country.
Only after these
recent incidents have experts started challenging the connection between
poverty and militancy. The focus now needs to shift to the education system of
societies that are producing such students. The Pakistani education is premised
on the concept of Muslim nationalism and the superiority of Islam – ideas that
align perfectly with the ideologies of Islamic militants. How can these
societies then expect to battle Islamic militancy?
Haroon Khalid is
the author of the books In
Search of Shiva: a study of folk religious practices in Pakistan and A
White Trail: a journey into the heart of Pakistan’s religious minorities.
It is a well-known
fact that 1.6 billion Muslims contribute a disproportionately smaller share to
the world’s knowledge. This global community – forming the majority population
of 57 countries and spanning virtually every single country of the world – has
had only three Nobel laureates in science in the history of this prestigious
prize. The number of universities from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
member countries in the top 500 universities of the world is only a little
better than that.
Clichés aside, there
is a widely shared view that science in the Muslim world is significantly
lagging behind the rest of the world. This view is partly based on indicators,
such as global university rankings, research spending, researchers per million
people, performance of pre-university students etc. The causes of this bad
performance and potential remedies are hotly debated.
In recent years, a
number of Muslim-majority countries have made strong efforts, particularly with
respect to directing scarce resources for improving science, in general, and
universities, in particular, to change this status quo of decades, if not
centuries, and it is important to see how effective these efforts have been.
Universities are the
bedrock of a knowledge society. In the developed world, these have evolved over
hundreds of years into institutions that specialise in creating and
disseminating knowledge. In the Muslim world, particularly the Arab world,
universities are a relatively recent phenomenon: three quarters of all Arab
universities were established in the last 25 years of the 20th century.
We recently studied
the status of universities in the Muslim world and found that while several
countries have made progress, at least in terms of jumpstarting a culture of
research and publishing, significant issues remain to be addressed. In
particular, it has been found that science education at pre-university level
fares worse in the Muslim world and there is little evidence that the situation
improves when the young men and women join the university… read more:
see also
Thousands of Dalits protest over attacks and discrimination in Pakistan
Tazeen Javed - Pakistan: Aao Blasphemy Blasphemy Khelain
Tazeen Javed - Pakistan: Aao Blasphemy Blasphemy Khelain
Khaled Ahmed - Pakistan: Sleepwalking to surrender (when fanaticism is entrenched as state ideology)
IHEU Freedom of Thought Report 2013: Death penalty for atheism in 13 countries.
