Madrasas produce terrorists, says Shia Central Waqf Board chief; demands ban

He wrote a letter to PM Modi and Uttar Pradesh CM, claiming that Madrasas bred terrorists and efforts should be made to shift them into mainstream education.
A madrassa class in progress
A madrassa class in progress

LUCKNOW: UP Shia Central Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi has again ruffled the feathers by seeking ban on madrasas calling them the nerve centres of extremism churning out militants here on Tuesday.

Rizvi has written to PM Narendra Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath claiming that madrasas were aiding to terrorism in the country. He has appealed the PM to convert the state madrasas into mainstream schools which offered Islamic education as an optional subject.

The Shia Waqf Board chief has also addressed a letter to CM Yogi Adityanath seeking the dissolution of UP Madarsa Board and affiliate the state’s madrasas with various mainstream boards including UP Board of Secondary Education, ICSE and CBSE so as to make the country stronger.

“The madrasa students are deprived of getting modern education and they are being cut off from mainstream as the curriculum here does not match the needs of modern world,” he has said in his
correspondence to the PM.

At the same time, Mullas are using these madrasas as money minting machines for they get huge donations from abroad and also from some terror outfits in the name of religious education,” Rizvi has said adding that thus they do no good to the society but add to unemployment in the country. ”Whereas their (Mullas) own children are studying in upmarket convent schools,” he claimed.

He has also observed that the madrasas are mushrooming in almost every city, town and village providing "misplaced and misconceived religious education instead of secular education, has pushed students into religious fundamentalism and radicalisation of Muslim youth ".

However, Rizvi’s proposal has drawn sharp reaction from the community itself. While All India Muslim Personal Law Board spokesman Khalilur Rehman Sajjad Nomani and chairman, Islamic Centre of India, one of the most prominent madrasas of north India, Maulana Khalid Rashid Friangi Mahli ridiculed Rizvi’s views saying that madrasa were the centres imparting basic knowledge of Hadees and tenets of Islam. They claimed that madrasas played a very important role in winning freedom for the country.

Accusing Razvi of insulting the intuitions of religious education, Frinagi Mahali claimed that there was no issue of lagging behind in advance education. “We impart all the subjects keeping in pace
with educational advancements. The infrastructure in madrasas is better than any other mainstream educational institution,” he remarked adding that in such a scenario wherein madrasas were playing the custodian of Islamic education ensuring that students could match with others in advancements as well, those education centres would never lose relevance.

A prominent Shai leader Maulan Yasoob Abbasi too chose to differ with Rizvi saying  that he should not meddle with religion in such a way by questioning the relevance of madrasas.”Politics should be
kept out of religion. When both mingle such ridiculous proposals take shape,” said Maulam Abbasi.

However, chairman, All India Akhada Parishad has welcomed the proposal while the BJP has safely distanced itself calling it Rizvi’s personal opinion. Rizvi, in a separate letter, directed muttawalis (care takers) of all Shia Waqf properties that the unrecognised and unregistered madrasas being run illegally on Shia Waqf properties should be closed down and removed by January 31, 2018. He had given a hint to this directive when as many as 51 girls were rescued on December 30 in a raid on a madrasa in Lucknow and thecaretakerr was arrested for harassing them sexually.

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