Updated August 6, 2009 11:42:34
To many foreign observers, Pakistan is the global centre of extremist Islam, and its madrassas – or religious seminaries – are where the violence starts. However, this kind of scaremongering hides a more complex reality.
Presenter: Mustafa Qadri in Pakistan
Speaker: Professor Qibla Ayaz, Peshawar University; Abdul Ghani, organiser of education conference in Islamabad; Azi Hussain, International Centre for Religion and Diplomacy in Washington DC
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QADRI: There are believed to be 2 million madrassa students in several thousand seminaries throughout Pakistan. But exact figures are hard to verify because most operate independent of government supervision. Although madrassas have ominous connotations in the West…