[lbo-talk] Pak clerics reject Pak offer to fund Islamic schools

Sat Nov 1 06:10:07 PST 2003

THE TIMES OF INDIA

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2003

Clerics reject Pak offer to fund Islamic schools

AP

MULTAN : A council of clerics running thousands of Islamic seminaries in
Pakistan has rejected a government offer to fund their schools, a setback to
President Pervez Musharraf's hopes to reform religious education.

"We do not need any government or foreign financial assistance to run our
madrassas (Islamic schools). We have enough funds for this purpose," Hanif
Jalandhri, the head of Wafaq-ul-Madaris-il-Arabia told a news conference.

It was the first authoritative response by Jalandhri's organization, which
controls more then 8,000 madrassas, to a government offer to help fund the
schools.

Critics claim the madrassas are breeding grounds for extremism in this
Islamic nation.

Musharraf's government has been pressing the oranizers of these schools to
standardize their curricula and introduce secular subjects, including
English, sciences ad mathematics, to prepare students for the modern world.
It offered funding to schools that agree.

"We have told the government that we do not need their funds," Jalandhri
said.