Madrasah Education System And Terrorism: Reality And Misconception

Abstract

Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Islamic schools known as madrasah have
been of increasing interest to analysts and to officials involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy
toward the Middle East, Central, and Southeast Asia. Madrasah drew added attention when it
became known that several Taliban leaders and Al-Qaeda members had developed radical
political views at madrasah in Pakistan, some of which allegedly were built and partially financed
through Saudi Arabian sources. These revelations have led to accusations that madrasah promote
Islamic extremism and militancy, and are a recruiting ground for terrorism. Others maintain that
most of these religious schools have been blamed unfairly for fostering anti-U.S. sentiments and
argue that madrasah play an important role in countries where millions of Muslims live in poverty
and the educational infrastructure is in decay. This paper aims to study a misconception of the
role and functions of Islamic traditional religious schools which have been linked with the
activities of terrorism. The study will be specifically focus on practice of the traditional Islamic
school, which is locally called as ‘madrasah system’.