They attract millions of poor Pakistani children with the simple promise of free education, meals and housing. For pious families, they offer Islamic teachings rooted in ancient tradition.
But for the Pakistani government and Western counterterrorism officials, religious seminaries known as madrassas also pose a potential threat. The institutions have long been accused of contributing to violence and radicalization, supplying recruits to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant groups.
Now Pakistan’s Islamic schools are at the center of an intense political conflict — a conflict that threatens years of hard-won progress toward bringing seminaries under the government’s regulatory umbrella.
The conflict goes back to 2019, when the government enacted a comprehensive review requiring madrassas to register with the Ministry of Education. The effort, intended to increase accountability for institutions that have historically operated with minimal state oversight, was strongly supported by the Pakistani military but met with fierce resistance from Islamist political parties.
In October 2024, the largest of these parties, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, secured an agreement with the government to drop the registration requirement. Under the agreement, madrassas would be registered as they were before 2019, under a colonial-era law that regulated charitable, scientific and educational groups. That law provides little oversight curriculum, activities or funding.
In return, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam agreed to support unrelated constitutional amendments to judicial appointments that started a storm of controversy.
However, as the end of the year approached, the Government still had not implemented the change. She cited concerns that a return to the older system could undermine efforts to combat terrorism, weaken oversight and violate international obligations to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
The delay has sparked threats of anti-government protests in Islamabad, the capital, adding to challenges for the government in the midst frequent marches of supporters Imran Khan, the ousted prime minister.
“We are firm on the agreed terms of registration of madrasas and will ensure that they are respected,” Maulana Fazlur Rehman, head of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, warned in parliament last month. “If the Government steps down, the decision will not be made in Parliament, but on the streets.”
Late last week, the government finally approved a new registration provision, allowing madrassas to choose between modern supervision and a colonial-era framework. The move effectively jettisons 2019 efforts to reform religious schools in favor of short-term political stability.
When Pakistan was created 77 years ago, there were dozens of madrasas. They became famous and grew significantly in the 1980s, when American and Arab funding turned them into recruitment centers for Islamic volunteers to fight Soviet forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Today, there are about 30,000 madrassas in Pakistan.
Pakistan has come under increased pressure to regulate religious schools since the September 11, 2001 attacks, he said. Abdur Rehman Shahan expert on madrasa issues affiliated with Tongji University in Shanghai.
“The War on Terror after 9/11 and similar events 2005 London bombings it has raised global concern over the lack of effective monitoring of madrassas,” said Mr Shah.
After the militants attacked military school in northwestern Pakistan in 2014, killing more than 145 people — most of them children — madrassa surveillance has become a focus of counterterrorism efforts. Security agencies used GPS to map schools and conducted raids and interrogations targeting seminaries suspected to be linked to militants, Mr Shah said.
In 2019, the government established a new regulatory framework to curb the influence of Islamist parties on seminary boards that manage madrasas. More than 17,500 madrassas attended by 2.2 million students are registered with the Ministry of Education, according to official data.
Registration simplified visa processing for international students, as madrassas attracted increasing interest not only from the Pakistani diaspora but also from students in African and Southeast Asian countries.
However, many seminaries, particularly those affiliated with Islamist parties, including the largest and most prominent in the country, have resisted integration into the formal system, citing fears of government interference in religious education.
After the government agreed last October to scrap the requirement to register with the Ministry of Education, officials were hesitant to move forward in part because of increased scrutiny by the Financial Action Task Force, a global watchdog based in Paris.
The working group has set Pakistan on its “grey list” from 2018 to 2022 for deficiencies in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing — a designation that often leads to reduced foreign investment and increased financial oversight.
“The main requirement of the FATF was to combat the financing of terrorism, specifically targeting individuals and entities designated by the UN, including their madrassas,” he said. Sanaa Ahmedassistant professor of law at the University of Calgary investigating illicit financial flows and terrorist financing.
In order to fulfill the requirements of the working group, in 2019 Pakistan took control of several madrassas linked to banned militant groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
But after more than two decades of heightened scrutiny of madrassas, education experts say the effort is overlooking a deeper crisis: the country’s struggling public education system, which is failing to meet the needs of millions of children, especially those from low-income families.
Pakistan has the second highest number of out-of-school children in the world, with 22.8 million between the ages of 5 and 16 not attending school — 44 percent of this age group, according to UNICEF.
Madrasahs, supported by private donations, partly fill the gaps in the public system. For many poor families, they are the only viable option.
On a recent day, in a modest building in a low-income neighborhood in southern Pakistan, the air was filled with young voices reciting verses from the Koran.
Inside, hundreds of young men – some barely in their teens – sat cross-legged on woven mats. Their heads, covered with cotton knitted caps, were bent over Islamic books, their fingers tracing the Arabic script. Some memorized scriptures.
Madrassas emphasize Islamic theology, often with sectarian leanings, and Arabic, a language not spoken in Pakistan. Although not all schools are associated with militancy, many promote a narrow interpretation of Islam, emphasizing doctrinal purity and defending Islam against other faiths.
Critical thinking and open dialogue are not the primary focus. The resistance of madrassas to the inclusion of subjects such as computer science or mathematics leaves graduates ill-equipped for the modern labor market.
For many families, it is not poverty, but religious belief that makes them enroll their children in madrasahs.
“I could send my children to private schools to learn computers and science, but I send them to a madrasa because I want them to study Islamic education,” said Abdul Wahab, a real estate dealer in Karachi, southern Pakistan.
Like many pious people in Pakistan, Mr. Wahab believes that a child who memorizes the Koran will bring blessings to the family, including the promise of taking 10 others to paradise in the afterlife.
Despite concerns about radicalization, madrasa administrators say they are being unfairly blamed for militancy. “There are many people who go to liberal schools and are radicalized,” said Qari Shahid Gul, a madrasa teacher in Karachi.
He quoted Saad Aziz, a graduate of a prestigious business school who was sentenced to death after admitting his involvement in several terrorist activities, including with the murder of 45 members of the Ismaili sect of Shiite Islam.
“Terrorism must be curbed, but scapegoat madrassas are not the solution,” said Mr. Gul.
