Muslims forced to pick between good madarasas & bad

Sanjay Suri , CNN-IBN
Posted on Dec 07, 2008 at 18:57 | Updated Dec 07, 2008 at 19:12

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London: The spate of terror attacks by Muslim terrorists has hurt the image of the traditional Islamic education system.

In the West many believe madarasas have become recruitment centres of fundamentalists. It’s an image of the madarasas the Muslim community has been battling hard to overcome.

“It's important now, more than ever, that moderate Muslims everywhere make absolutely clear their repugnance of what's happened, and do everything they can to demand the suppression of those extremists within their own society, including the madarasas,” says British Conservative Party MP Andrew Tyrie.

According to some experts, it's the politicization of some of madarasas that needs to be checked. They say there is a need to snap the funding that goes into training young minds into terror wielding radicals.

“These madarasas continue to operate because they receive funds from all over the world—they receive funds from Saudi Arabia; the Shia madarasas receive funds from Iran,” says Marie Lall, a Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs.

Many believe that the most effective solution to end terrorism is to help ordinary Muslims assert that radicalism and terrorism are not the legitimate expression of their religious belief.

“Right now there is a significant percentage of Islam that believes radicalism and terrorism are legitimate expressions of their religious belief, and to change that is going to have to come from within Islam,” says Bob Ayers, a former official of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.

There is growing concern that it is no longer enough for Pakistani moderates to say the right thing, and stop there. They need to act, and the first step would have to be against madarasas handing out lessons in murder, or at least preparing their students—as they are called—ideologically for acts of violence.

More on: Madarasas, Islam, Muslims, Education