CS: The Myth of Madrasas

Easy targets of prejudice and witch-hunts, linking madrasas to terrorism is an entrenched conspiracy theory

Arshad Alam Delhi

A few years ago, sociologists Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey published a study ('The Madrasa myth', New York Times, June 13, 2005) on the social background of terrorists. Profiling 75 terrorists, they found that 53 per cent had college degrees. Of the most famous ones, 9/11 masterminds Khalid Sheikh Mohammad had studied engineering in North Carolina and Mohammad Atta had a degree in, of all things, urban preservation!

In their study, the authors pointed out that there were two PhDs who had joined the call for jehad. In fact, only nine had madrasa education, the ones behind the Bali bombings. And even in this case, the masterminds were college-educated, including two university professors.

Closer home, most members of SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) invariably have modern education. SIMI was formed within a modern institution, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), and not in a traditional madrasa. This empirical de-link between madrasas and terrorism, however, has had no effect on 'security experts' for whom madrasas remain the breeding ground for terrorism. To their disappointment, even the Muslim-bashing BJP government, while in power, could not establish any link between madrasas and terrorism. However, despite evidence to the contrary, the Deoband madrasa felt the need to hold an anti-terrorism conference and publicly claim that madrasas do not produce terrorists.

The argument that Indian madrasas produce terrorists is partly due to an insufficient and simplistic understanding of this school system and the reluctance to question the political economy of madrasas. It is argued that since madrasas are not open to wider scrutiny, there must be something fishy going on within its walls.

This conjecture is partly valid since madrasas do not open up easily to outsiders. There are two reasons for this. Madrasas have come under negative spotlight since 9/11, making them wary of interacting with the outside world as they do not trust what might be reported about them. The second reason is much more secular. Most madrasas are run like family businesses. Often, the founder of a madrasa also manages the finances of the institute without any transparency. Questions about sources of funding and other such topics are thus most unwelcome.