Madrasahs, Extremism and National Security

Photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe, via Deseret News

RIZA YEHIYA-13/2019

The nexus between Madrasah education and Islamic extremism have been in the global discussions ever since the emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This phenomenon emerged in Afghanistan in the Post-Soviet Occupation era where those who fought against the Soviets got engulfed in a bitter civil war between factions upon the exit of the Soviets. This brought lawlessness and anarchy in the country. It was about this time that the Taliban (plural for taleb, which means student) hitherto were never engaged in politics, appeared on the scene to put an end to anarchy and stabilize the country.

Whether Taliban were right or wrong is another discussion, the entry of Taliban into politics and governance is a historical factor to be seen in the backdrop of Soviet invasion, the Afghani liberation struggle and Western funded armed mercenaries. Discussions on the nexus between Madrasah and extremism found currency after 9/11 World Trade Center attacks in New York which culminated in the United States and their coalition forces attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.

The narrative of the nexus of Madrasah and extremism is relevant and is confined to Afghanistan only but not to Iraq.  Taliban who resisted American invasion of Afghanistan were madrasah (schools & university) students. Contrary to this, the Iraqis who resisted American invasion were their regular army. Therefore, Madrasah does not appear in discussion in Iraq. Other than in Afghanistan, nowhere is to be found traditional madrasah students in militancy, instead, it was college educated and products from secular schools and universities evidently in militancy. Interestingly, none of the 9/11 attackers were madrasah educated, neither were the Easter Sunday attackers in Sri Lanka.

Ever since 9/11 and the American invasion of Afghanistan, Madrasahs all over the world became western targets, islamophobia was spun around it – scare mongering ordinary people about the role of madrasahs in society by an Islamophobic western media. Whether in the case of Afghanistan or any other country for instance, fending off foreign invasions are obligatory not only to the armed forces but also to other capable citizens. What will be the role of the patriotic and nationalistic student populace in a country at the time of a foreign invasion? Would they not join the mainstream society to fight for their country against foreign invasions? How come students, the life blood of a nation be termed extremists and terrorists when they participate in their patriotic war against invasion? Islamophobia and the western media spun nexus of madrasahs with extremism as an isolationist strategy to tarnish the image of potential defenders of a nation against western geopolitical strangulations.

Islamophobia and Madrasahs

Since 9/11 and in particular since 2009 end of war in Sri Lanka, attribution of nexus between madrasah and extremism got traction in local discussions with the emergence of Buddhist extremist forces in Sri Lanka. Since then, this negative image has seeped into the psyche of our people without any evidence to the substantiate this. With the Easter Sunday terror attack, this perceived fear has transformed into panic mode. This as a result is effectively diverting attention from intelligently probing who is behind the Easter Sunday attack to things that are not connected therewith. This is a very dangerous situation where perception is used instead of empirical evidence to fight a threat to national security. Fighting terrorism requires holistic understanding of the terrain of conflict. Contrary to this, attention of the people is deliberately diverted by the islamophobes and geopolitical strategists who potentially may be part and parcel of the total game plan of geopolitical strangulation of Sri Lanka thereby victimizing madrasahs and polarizing Sri Lankan communities making them fear each other.

What is a Madrasah?

Madrasah in Arabic, is a school. In traditional Muslim societies like in Sri Lanka, in spite of the anglicization of the society by British colonialism, schools especially Muslim religious schools are called Madrasahs. The category of these madrasahs ranges from madrasah for children under 15 who are imparted the rudiments of the Islamic faith and Arabic reading capacity which enables them to recite the Qur’an. Mowlavi Madrasas or Arabic Colleges  impart knowledge in Islamic sciences to produce Mowlavis or Muslim religious scholars and Imams,similar to Pirivena education to Buddhist monks. Madhrasahs can be categorized as follows:

Qur’an Madrasah: This is for under 15 students imparting the rudiments of the faith, teaching how to do the rituals and the recitation of the Qur’an. This is equivalent to Daham Pasela. Children in these attend school and attend madrasah in the evenings.

Hiflul Qur’an Madrasah: This is a school for memorization of the Qur’an where basic Arabic phonetics and rules of memorization and recitation are taught. These are generally attended by children to youth below 20 years as part-time courses at their conveniences.

Mowlavi Madrasa or Arabic Colleges: These are colleges of Islamic higher studies equivalent to Pirivena. These madrasahsproduce Mowlavis and Imams serving the community, mosques and officiating religious functions. Generally, these are 4-6-year full time residential courses catering to age ranging between 15 to 21 years. There are schools for boys and girls who join full time education after completing grade eight or completion of GCE Ordinary Level Examinations. Few madrasahs which also function as orphanages do admit children from the age of six where formal general education is imparted up to GCE Ordinary Level whilst parallelly Islamic education is imparted.

Of the three categorizations above, Qur’an madrasahsare generally conducted in the Mosques for boys and girls and in some cases where there are no community facilities, these are conducted at homes of the tutors conducting these classes. Similarly, Hiflul Qu’ran Madrasahsare conducted mostly in mosques. Other than these two, the Mowlavi Madrasaor Arabic Colleges are large facilities normally accommodating between 50 to 500 students at the time. Most of the programmes are residential and largely these are attended by children of poor families and orphans who have no family supports. Some madrasah may levy a small fee but to a large extent these are subsidized by philanthropy from the community.

The quality of education in a Mowlavi madrasa varies depending on the financial and economic capacity of the organization that is managing them. The more capable and organized madrasahs enable students to complete general education up to advanced level status whilst parallelly imparting knowledge in Arabic language and Islamic sciences. The poorer madrasahs fail achieving key performance indicators in quality management. There are also madrasahs whose alumni have reached academic excellence reaching Master’s Degree and PhD levels and some go on to achieve professional qualifications. 

Mosques and Madrasahs

Mosques and madrasahs are centers of spiritual upliftment and education. Historically, madrasahs were an integral part of the mosque where the community congregate five times a day for their daily prayers. Therefore, it is unlike a Buddhist or Hindu temple which attract large gathering only on special occasions. Mosques are attended by the community five times daily, full time meditation during the last 10 days of Ramadan, for the conducting of funeral prayers, Friday Jumma praye, Ramadan & Hajj festival prayers and wedding ceremonies. All these attract large crowds on a regular basis requiring large spaces for congregation. Therefore, wherever Muslims live, mosque and madrasah are pivotal centers sustaining community life.

Recent Growth of Madrasahs and Mediocre International Schools

The perception of the many when considering the recent growth of madrasahs points to their fear of supposed Arabization or Islamization of Muslim society. Contrarily, the reality is that quite a lot of Muslim children particularly in urban areas hail from poor families and due to living in rented residences do not get government school admissions owing to very high competition. In Colombo alone, according to studies, nearly 5,000 children do not get admission to government schools. As a result, a sizable number of Muslim children are forced to go to mediocre international schools or madrasahs as a last choice or end up receiving no formal education. Often these children, quite a lot of them attend international schools or end up as dropouts due to the inability to pay academic fees. Those going to madrasas too end up as dropouts due to access and poor quality of education. The successive governments have failed to respond to this problem that is threatening communities and the nation at large by failing to equip the citizens befittingly.

The failure of the free education system to ensure equality in access and quality, is depriving one segment of population the right to education for no fault of theirs. Consequently, responsibility for destroying the social fabric of the country must be borne by the government and political leadership. Unwittingly, this phenomenal growth of madrasahs and mediocre international schools producing isolated citizens should not be blamed on the Muslim community or misconstrued as Islamization. It is a failure of responsibility of successive governments and political leadership to contribute to citizenship and nation building. Their failure, marginalizing a segment of the society contributes to undermining the economy and social sustainability in the country.

Urbanization and Megapolis Development

The rapid pace of urbanization and the megapolis development that is taking place is a welcome developmental drive but seemingly social and economic impact on marginalized communities are possibly left out of the calculation. Urbanization and megapolis development are reshaping demographics in society by breaking and segregating communities, where the rich and affluent live in particular areas and the poor in other areas. This phenomenon is greatly impacting access to education and is creating an unequal society. This will also render rich areas becoming unserviceable by the low income workers due to the increasing cost of access undermining facilities management of the city. This will in turn polarize communities and deprive the poor from receiving equal access to education and other opportunities. It is observable that due to new residential condominium developments in affluent parts of the Colombo City, popular schools are under pressure with surging applications seeking school admissions. Geographically their catering radius or their serving catchment area is shrinking due to this. This deprives large segments of urbanites from accessing quality education. Similarly, development of housing for the low income groups concentrated in other parts of Colombo where demographics are increasing and the serving capacity of schools are diminishing. This denies a vast majority of the poor from access to education. The under privileged and in particular the majority poorer segment of the Muslim community who are living below poverty lines have no collaterals to support with credentials required for school admissions. Because of this, they are deprived of the right to education and are blamed for sending their children to madrasahs, thereby contributing to a supposed Islamization of society.

Thus, should there be a link between madrasahs and extremism, it is important that empirical evidence in respect to this is produced.  Policy makers should not marginalize a community and deprive their rights to educational opportunity on flimsy grounds.  Sri Lanka needs a robust nation building programme that respects diversity, reciprocates dignity and homogenizes society as Sri Lankans. We   need an inclusive society that accommodates diversities of race, religion  and economic statuses. We need to build a sustainable nation that is capable of withstanding external geopolitical threats which use social polarization as a tool for destruction of our nation.