Saleem Ali

The siege of the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Pakistan has ended but there are lingering questions about the causes and ultimate consequences of this unfortunate incident which might possibly have been prevented by earlier action. Several Pakistani governments countenanced the extremism of this group for years and tried to placate their behavior in the interest of winning favors with the Islamist parties. Occasional arrests were made but then perpetrators were released on mild assurances. Arms and ammunition accumulated in the compound and then the government claimed it was too dangerous to engage the group. The authorities could have exerted nonviolent pressure on the institution far earlier on by cutting off communication, power and water but they decided to be reactive rather than proactive. In many ways, this siege was reminiscent of a fanatical hold-up by the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas more than a decade ago which ultimately led to the death of dozens of women and children. The Waco siege showed us that prevention must occur at a much earlier stage when weapons are being accumulated by such groups. Once the matter reaches a siege stage, there are no winnable options since suicidal fanatics are in question. While the Waco raid was also assailed by the news media and was the motivation for Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma bombing, in retrospect there were few options that the Clinton administration could have pursued at that point.

The Waco comparison shows that non-Islamic fanatics are also capable of many horrors. Yet the reality is that mainstream churches in America condemned the extremist’s behavior and largely distanced themselves from the group. In contrast, Pakistan’s Islamist politicians and clerics offered very mild condemnation of the mosque’s fanaticism and only recently did the Wifaq-ul-Madaaris (federation of madrassas) suspend the membership of the Lal Masjid seminaries. The media-savvy Maulana Abdul-Rashid Ghazi continued to give interviews to Western news outlets with aplomb. In one recent interview with the BBC, Maulana Ghazi, the vice-imam of the mosque, dismissed comparisons with the Taliban by stating that unlike the Afghan strains of Islamists, they were in favor of educating women. Yet what this education entailed, few cared to ask or question and by each passing minute the group was further emboldened.

Three years ago, when I interviewed the clerics at Lal Masjid for a research project, they were quite adamant that the most fundamental purpose of educating Muslims was to claim political ascendancy in the world. The confusion over what this “ascendancy” really means continues to bedevil policy-makers in the West. First we had the cavalcade of reports expressing concerns about Muslim schools soon after 9/11. However, this was followed by numerous revisionist accounts from a panoply of experts (including one study by the World Bank) who claimed that all this concern was in vain. Perhaps, they argued, there were only a few madrassas we needed to be worried about? We seem to revel in a world where contrarian commentary is given much credence even when it is not supported by all the facts.

As I personally watched the events in Islamabad unfold, the issue became much clearer and far more sinister than the revisionists had assumed. An exchange of gunfire between militants at the madrassa and government rangers outside the building quickly escalated and within hours the environmental ministry building was randomly attacked and set alite. Scores of people on both sides had been killed. Yet the perpetrators of the arson as well as numerous other acts of vandalism across the city were not just from the madrassa itself but from an entire network of seminaries spread out across the city. In a country where one-third of the population has cellular phones, it is quite easy to mobilize action when a network of militancy exists as it does with the madrassas.

It is high time that we become more aware of the perils of extremist educational institutions which have a far broader base in Pakistan than we care to admit. The only way to address the problem is for Muslims countries to independently monitor and control madrassa vigilantes, while ensuring curricular reform. Muslim governments must make it clear to all clerics that the most important verse in the Quran is Surah 2 Verse 252 which states quite clearly that “there is no compulsion in religion.” Those militants who are not willing to tolerate alternate views and assume the writ of the state without consensus from the public are nothing more than thugs. Tolerating the intolerant is a recipe for disaster.

The good news is that there are now emergent organizations that are attempting to combat this fanaticism. For example, The Council on Islamic Education, based in California is also trying to professionalize the curriculum in Islamic schools and promote greater tolerance and context to Islamic texts by differentiating between jihad (a just struggle for rights) and hirabah (unjust war) through a detailed training program. According to the training manual: “The jurists prohibited hirabah because Islam places an absolute value on public safety and protection as God-given human rights. Hirabah is punishable by the most severe penalty mentioned in the Qur'an, where it is called fasad in chapter 5, verse 33, meaning in this case mayhem and destruction.” The Islamic Cultural, Educational and Scientific Organization (ISESCO) based in Morocco is a nascent pan Muslim-organization deserves greater support at an international level.

The challenge of preventing cooptation of Islamic institutions by external interests for political conflict, while preserving their independence and social service is reaching a critical juncture in Pakistan and across the Muslim world. A multifaceted strategy is essential to tackle this challenge – one which accepts the empirical insights that are provided by research and avoids sensationalistic or sanguine accounts of the problem.

Saleem H. Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont. His book titled Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan is currently under review