December 24, 2018: CODE PAKISTAN held a consultative dialogue in Karachi today with a group of religious scholars and youth on co-creating entry points for madrasah engagement.
The participants of the discussion were of the view that there was a considerable amount of negative misperception about the madrassahs among the public and the decision-making circles. They expressed their desire to be treated as an educational institution doing a service to the community by providing free education to hundreds of thousands of children studying in madrassahs. They argued that problems related to registration of madrassahs, the opening of their bank accounts, and equivalence of the degrees awarded by them were some of their major concerns.
Some of the participants of the dialogue also complained about excessive questioning by the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) from madrassah administrations. They added that madrassahs were patriotic institutions and should not be targeted by government agencies for any anti-state activities conducted by any of its graduates. Some participants were of the view that only madrassah graduates should be allowed to teach Islamic studies in government schools and colleges because they knew more about Islam than the Islamiat or Arabic graduates of universities.
Some participants of the dialogue also alluded toward the internal problems of madrassahs related to teachers, student, and curricula. The participants of the dialogue highly welcomed activities aimed at promoting greater inter-sectarian interaction among madrassahs and between madrassahs and mainstream educational institutions. They suggested joint workshops involving students of madrassahs of various sects as well as those of mainstream educational institutions.
The participants of the consultation included the following prominent religious scholars: Dr. Faiz ul Abrar, Professor at Karachi University; Maulana Arif, Deputy Mohtamim, Jamia Anwar ul Uloom Karachi; Maulana Mohammad Nouman, Teacher, Jamia Anwar ul Uloom Karachi; Maulana Sajid Mohammad, Jamia Anwar ul Uloom Karachi; Maulana Rasool Bukhsh Qadri; and Maulana Zia ur Rehman, Jamia Abu Bakar Karachi.