Reclaiming the Other Taleban

The dilapidated building near the mosque in the center of Mazar-e-Sharif does not seem like one of the finest religious institutions in Balkh province. The Sheikh Marghiani madrassa provides an Islamic education to approximately 100 students, but the classrooms look more like mountain caves than seats of learning.



The poor state of the school is witness to the Afghan government’s lack of attention to religious study, say those who attend the institution.



Enayatullah lives with eight other students – “taleban” in the original sense of the word – in a room approximately three metres square. The floor is covered in a ragged mat, and the electric fan turning in the middle of the room does little to dispel the heat. Sweat is pouring down the faces of the students, most of whom are from the south of Afghanistan and sport long beards and traditional attire along with the trademark white turban of the “taleb”, as they listen to Enayatullah read from a religious text.



“We have more contact with the people than with the government, since we depend on them for our daily bread,” said Enayatullah.



The 35-year-old student intends to go to Pakistan soon to continue his religious education, because, he says, there are no adequate facilities in Afghanistan.



“Many of my friends went to Pakistan last year,” he said. “They learned a lot and the facilities are better than here.”



Although precise figures are not available, thousands of religious students go abroad every year, mostly to Pakistan, to complete their religious education. And it is in Pakistani madrassas that these students get radicalised, say government officials. If religious fundamentalism is to be combated, then the government must find a way of keeping the taleban at home.



Qari Habibullah, now studying at the Sheikh Marghiani school, spent four years at a madrassa in Pakistan.



“Most of my friends joined the Taleban or al-Qaeda after graduation,” he said. “Many religious students join the Taleban because they are not sure they can get jobs in Afghanistan.”



The Taleban began as a protest movement by religious students against the abuses of the Afghan warlords who dominated the country in the early Nineties. The word taleb refers to any religious student, and taleban is simply the plural.



In Afghanistan, the struggle is now on to keep the taleban from turning into Taleban.



According to Habibullah, there are a number of groups in Pakistan which encourage religious students to join the Taleban and fight against the foreign presence in Afghanistan.



“I too was asked to join the Taleban,” he said. “But I asked my family and they wouldn’t give me permission, so I came back to Afghanistan.”



Habibullah blames the Afghan government for the radicalisation of religious students. Gesturing angrily at the room’s poor furnishings, he said, “Religious students live like beggars in Afghanistan. The government is to blame if they ally themselves with the Taleban or al-Qaeda.”



Religious schools do not currently come under any government ministry, and are commonly supported by public donations.



But now the ministry of education has a programme to upgrade religious studies by building new schools throughout the country.



At a recent groundbreaking ceremony for the Imam Hanifa religious school in Kabul, Minister of Education Hanif Atmar outlined the government’s plans. The project will proceed in two phases, first by building upper-level religious schools in all 34 provinces, at a total cost of 30 million US dollars, and later by building a network of ordinary madrassas across Afghanistan. Each school will have facilities for the live-in students to eat and sleep as well as study.



Unlike in the past, the religious schools will come under the umbrella of the education ministry, and the idea is that they will serve as a breeding ground for a new kind of Muslim scholar.



“We are considering having modern education and foreign languages in addition to religion,” said Deputy Education Minister Mohammad Sediq Patman. “We want our scholars to be better Afghans as well as better Muslims. But our students will have freedom in their studies; the government will not put pressure on them.”



The government has invited international scholars from Muslim countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to enhance the quality of instruction in the madrassas.



“The certificates given to scholars after graduation will be accepted by foreign countries, not just in Afghanistan,” said Patman.



This is an important point, since many religious scholars graduating from Afghan madrassas do not receive a diploma that is valid abroad.



“We study for 15 to 20 years in Afghan religious schools, but after that we are given a diploma that is not even accepted in other parts of Afghanistan,” said Mohammad Jawaid, a taleb in Mazar-e-Sharif. “We are only accepted as maulawis [religious scholars] among peers who have known us since we started our education.”



Things will now change, insists Patman.



“Our graduates will not only work in mosques, they will also have opportunities in to get jobs in government organisations once they getting their certificate from local religious schools,” he said. “We are trying to keep our religious students from leaving for neighbouring countries, where they are exposed to different political ideas. This is essential for Afghanistan’s security.”



The new government programme has attracted the attention, and the approval of religious scholars throughout the country.



Maulawi Abdul Qaher teaches Islamic studies in a Mazar-e-Sharif madrassa, and has 30 taleban. “We are very pleased, because this is the first time in the history of Afghanistan that religious schools are to come under the umbrella of government,” he said. “Religious schools have received none of the aid money that has come to Afghanistan, and scholars have been marginalised. So both scholars and students have lost faith in the government.”



Mullah Maqsood, a resident of Sar-e-Pul province who has just returned home from his madrassa in Quetta for the Eid holidays, was also pleased.



“I really don’t know when our provincial school will be built, but I am very glad that religious schools are being built in Afghanistan. I wouldn’t have gone to Pakistan if I knew there was to be a school in our district. But I can’t leave my current madrassa until things are clearer.”



Abdul Qadeer Salehi, who heads an Islamic association in Afghanistan’s north, was sceptical of the new programme, saying that it was more an exercise in international politics than a genuine attempt to improve conditions for students.



“The government’s real objective is to use the madrassas as part of an anti-Pakistan policy,” he said. “If the government sincerely wants to reconstruct religious schools and not to misuse them, then our religious students will not leave the country. But it seems unlikely to me that the government is acting honestly.”



Qayoum Babak, a political analyst in Mazar-e-Sharif, agrees.



“There is fighting in the south, and they say the roots of the violence lie in Pakistan, so the government is compelled to implement a decisive policy,” he told IWPR.



“The government wants to tell those who now go to Pakistan that opportunities will be provided in their own country. But the situation will become even more dangerous if the government cannot live up to its promises. Religious students will despair of getting any help in Afghanistan and will flock to Pakistan and other Muslim countries.”



Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.