Faulty logic

Ever since it came to light that one of the perpetrators of the May 2015 Safoora (Karachi) sectarian carnage was a graduate from a highly reputable educational institution, apologists for seminaries or madressahs got a new weapon in their armoury of arguments.

Essentially, these people contend that if present or former students of frontline mainstream institutions, not to speak of the lesser ones, can take to terrorism, there is no reason guns should be directed at seminaries for being the breeding ground for such action or mindset. Militants or their masterminds can come from any academic background. So suppressing seminaries or even keeping them under watch will not be fair.

Is their reasoning convincing?

Few, if any, would hold that all the graduates or students of seminaries are terrorists. By the same token, few, if any, would assert that the students or graduates of mainstream institutions can’t be involved in clandestine activities in the name of creed. So blaming only seminaries for proliferation of extremism would be unwarranted. Yet, it is difficult to deny a causal link between religious extremism and seminaries. Such a link, however, would be difficult to establish in case of the mainstream institutions.

Let’s make use of an analogy. A person who consumes alcohol excessively may not suffer a heart attack. On the other hand, a teetotaller may die of cardiac arrest. But from this one can’t legitimately draw the conclusion that there is no causal link between alcoholism and cardiac problems. Of course, factors other than alcoholism may cause the heart to break down. Likewise, involvement of some students of mainstream institutions in terrorism is no reason to give a clean chit to seminaries.

What’s wrong with seminaries? How do they contribute to extremism, militancy and terrorism? To answer such questions let’s look at the mode of thinking that these institutions develop in their students.

Their way of thinking is essentially apocalyptic and rests on the notion that the forces of kufr are bent upon annihilating Islam, and therefore, the two can’t co-exist. It further assumes that anti-Muslim elements are out to obliterate Islamic culture and values in the name of freedom of expression, human rights and fundamental liberties. This narrative makes it the duty of every Muslim to fight these evil forces to frustrate their ‘nefarious’ designs.

The narrative further regards Pakistan as the only ideological state in the contemporary world, created for the propagation of Islam; as such it was meant to be the centre of Muslim unity. The narrative further regrets that, instead of making tangible progress towards Islamisation, society became Westernised, secularised and vulgarised. It became a hotbed of corruption, obscenity, and injustice. The country, therefore, must be purged of the baneful Western influence by setting up an ‘Islamic‘ society – by force if need be.

As a corollary to this narrative, seminaries teach negation, and hence repudiation, of doctrines, rituals and moral standards different from theirs. Hence, those who profess a different creed or practise a different moral standard are looked upon as an incarnation of evil. Men and women who mix with one another are regarded as essentially wicked. Those who listen to music commit a grave sin. All such wicked or impious people have to be reformed – by proselytising or by force.

The education imparted in seminaries, instead of inculcating in students a dispassionate quest for truth or at least enabling them to take to some socially useful profession, teaches them hatred for other creeds. Students are taught that only their creed is based on the truth, while others are the epitome of evil whose elimination is a most sacred duty.

The reward of performing that duty, they are taught, is an everlasting life of pleasure in paradise. Most of the students, owing to their impressionable age, come to believe this stuff. Hence, when they leave their institutions, they have a strong desire to carry out their ‘sacred’ duty. Seminaries also churn out sectarian propaganda in the form of inflammatory literature, which denounces followers of rival creeds as kafirs, who must either be coerced into conversion or exterminated.

Seminaries are a classic example of education by indoctrination, whereby all teaching proceeds from certain ideas assumed to be as true as the axioms of mathematics. This is the reason the students who graduate from seminaries do not develop a scientific attitude. What they develop is the incorrigible habit to defend, justify or impose a set of beliefs about their own creed through polemics or by force.

Seminaries are defended on the ground that they provide free education to tens of thousands of poor children who can’t afford to study in mainstream institutions. Be that as it may, it is also important to see what kind of education they are imparting and what the social cost of this ‘free of cost’ education is.

The notion of free of cost education is also soothing for the state in that one of its essential functions is being taken care of by non-governmental organisations. But the state must be mindful of the cost which the society is paying for its being oblivious of its duty.

It is not that seminaries recruit extremists; rather their graduates have a strong tendency to take to extremism, given the narrative that they are fed day in and day out. Therefore, such steps as registration of seminaries and keeping an eye on the sources of their funding, though necessary, may not be sufficient to curb their effects.

In the end, we may have to choose between having such institutions or not having them at all. There may not be any middle ground there.

But politically, it will be very difficult for any government in Pakistan to close down seminaries as a root and branch remedy. Therefore, keeping an eye on their syllabi and activities may be the most practicable option.

The writer is a graduate from a western European university.

Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com