While the war against Taliban extremists continues in Pakistan, Jonathan Alpeyrie visits the Jamha Erabia Madras to explore how young Muslim boys are being instructed.
Many believe that Pakistan could be the next big threat to world security. With 150 or so nuclear bombs, tensions with its neighbour India, and internal fighting between government forces and Muslim extremists, Pakistan has become a ticking time bomb.
In recent decades, Islam has once more been on the rise, with more extremist adepts willing to wage war on the Western infidels, seen as decadent, and not true believers.
Although most Muslims are tolerant and moderate, an increasing minority are becoming extremist, forming the everlasting bi-polar world, where two blocs are once more interlocked in fighting, both in ideology and armed conflict.
It is once more a conflict between the Western world and the Islamic world, a tradition which goes back to the first Muslim expansion in the first half of the 7th Century AD.
Originally Madrasas were created in the 11th Century in the Muslim world to educate judges, teachers, administrative officials and physicians.
Today, Madrasas have various roles, usually found in the education of young Muslim men and women in the ways Islam needs to be interpreted and used in their daily lives.
In 1948, Pakistan had only 148 Madrasas, today the figure surpasses 40,000. This is a clear and definite sign that the country is leaning towards a true Islamist nation, leaving little room for any other kinds of religious groups within its porous borders.
For the Taliban fighting in the Northern borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan, this is not enough, as they want the country to plunge further into Sharia law and extremism.
The Jamha Erabia Madrasa, in the outskirts of Rawalpindi, the main town attached to Islamabad was established in 1979 by a local cleric and his family. The Madrasa is still under construction in order to add space for more students. Currently, about 30 boys from the age of 12 to 18 are enrolled within the Madrasa, for a period ranging from one to three years, depending on how good the individual student is in learning the Koran.
From 4am to 11am, the young boys follow a strict set of rule dictated by their elders. They pray five times a day and between the prayers the students are expected to learn the Koran by heart.
Tough schedule
Twice a day, the young boys get a reprieve from the tough schedule, when they are allowed to play a game of cricket outside.
The two-year programme within the Madrasa is meant to create good Muslims, which will in turn follow the strict Islamic laws once dictated by the Prophet Mahomet in the 620s AD. No other subject is allowed within the Madrasa. Each boy gets a copy of the Koran, with a simpler more child-friendly version given to for the youngest children.
Each study session lasts about three hours, a time when the students repeatedly recite portions of the Koran, while doing a back and forth motion of the head. This is quite similar in fact, with how the Orthodox Jews learn the Tora. This highly regimented day is meant to create great Muslim men, therefore fomenting a cohesive nation under the one banner of Islam.
Pakistan is a tough nation to rule, with many ethnic groups, not all originally Muslim, in remote regions and mountainous outposts.
Many of the Pashtun tribe live in northern parts of the country, where most of the fighting is confined between the Pakistani army and the Taliban.
Pashtuns are also found in Afghanistan and are probably the least controlled population (as well as the people of Baluchistan in the South West border within Iran).
Education
One Pashtun boy, Abdul Manaam arrived in the Madrasa after being ordered by his parents to leave the troubled Northern region in order to get a proper education in safety. The elders took him even though the eight-year-old has red hair and does not speak Arabic.
This tough new environment is also supposed to bring out the good Muslim in him and Abdul is expected to learn the Koran by heart each day with the rest of his fellow students even though he does not understand the language.
Islam has changed its role in the last three decades from a dormant, less expansionist religion, to the more aggressive and extreme entity.
Whether it is misunderstanding or historical tradition, the relationship between East and West is once more becoming dangerous. So far, small regional conflicts have erupted between Israel and the Arab States, and now Iraq and Afghanistan with mostly American forces. However, the near future is getting darker.
Indeed, with Pakistan potentially losing its grip on its nuclear arsenal, and Iran working hard on getting nuclear weapons, all the pieces set for war are slowly but surely coming together.
The Madrasas are just a portion of this overall strategic map. However, they are one that cannot be overlooked, as a new generation of young Muslims are being taught not to trust the West.
