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Madrasa education is an integral part of the Bangladesh education system. Its origin dates

back to the colonial period and it has continued to operate alongside the general education system sincethe birth of Bangladesh. Although now entrenched in thecountrys educational landscape, madrasaeducation has always had its critics especially following Bangladeshs independence in 1971among

secular intellectuals who are opposed to this very system of education and have repeatedly urged

successive governments to abolish madrasa education and introduce a unified education system.However, such demands never gained either public support or approval from successive Bangladeshigovernments. In the past, the common critiques against madrasa education have been that it is obsolete,

backward and unfit to keep pace with modernity; that it is unproductive in the sense that madrasagraduates are ill-equipped to run public offices and, thus, to contribute to the countrys development; and

that it produces only religious functionaries like mosque imams and kazis (orqadi, Islamic judge)

Madrasas and the MediaThere has been deep concern among the teachers and students of both Alia and Quomimadrasas about the media coverage they have received in recent years. They believe that the media

has always been hostile when reporting on madrasa education. They also believe that the domestic

media coverage of madrasa education is part of the global media hostility toward Islam andMuslims.45The ulama, however, did not remain unconcerned about the negative publicity they

were receiving from the media. Nationally, the ulama as a whole made use of religious speechesand Friday sermons to spread the message that there is no relation between Islam (and, for that

matter, madrasa education) and terrorist activities.46Different groups of madrasa stakeholders alsoorganized seminars and conferences to brief the nation about madrasa education and to dismiss

any links between madrasas and militant tendency.47

Apart from these measures, the Wafaq organized madrasashikwa (education) seminars ona regular basis to clarify the position of the mainstream Deobandi madrasas on militancy and

terrorism.48According to Maulana Jabbar of the Wafaq, all affiliated madrasas were instructed

to remain vigilant about any suspicious activities of their students, so as to prevent anymischievous elements from infiltrating the madrasa or use of madrasa students and madrasa

premises for militant training and activities. The madrasa administrators were also instructedby the Wafaq to carefully scrutinize students backgrounds before admitting them, especially at

the higher level. Like Wafaq, the Bangladesh Madrasha Sikkhok Parisod (BMSP) also alerted itsaffiliated madrasas to keep their eyes and ears open so that no outside elements could infiltrate

madrasas or use their students for militant activities.49A Quomi madrasa administrator confided

that, having heard some radical speeches by a religious leader in the area, he became so muchconcerned about the susceptibility of his students to such rhetoric that he imposed a virtual curfewin the madrasa.

Deprivation, Alienation, and Extremist TendenciesThere is a wealth of literature

attributing the radical and

extremist inclinations of madrasa

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graduates to psychological

frustrations and alienation that,supposedly, arise out of conditions

of socio-economic deprivationand a dearth of adequate job

opportunities. However, first

of all, while madrasa graduatesare not highly paid, theyarein comparison with their n counterparts in the general education systemless likely to remainunemployed after graduation.

There are at least as many jobs available for madrasa graduates as there are mosques and madrasas

in Bangladesh. And, those unable to find jobs in existing mosques and madrasas are likely tosecure a sponsor to build a new mosque of their own or open their own madrasa, for which there

are always some students that need to be taught and donors that are willing to contribute. Further,if the graduates are lucky enough to have family or community connections with the expatriate

Bangladeshi diaspora in the United Kingdom, they may get invited on a religious visa to serve asthe imam of a mosque, for example, in London or Bradford.

Second, it may be the case that most madrasa graduates do not worry much about material

facilities or social recognition, as they seem to have internalized the dichotomization between deen(religious life) and duniya (the material life); they believe that their primary religious obligation is

to worry about the former, and think that the latter should only be of secondary concern. The

deen-duniya dialectics is constantly invoked by madrasa ulama in their everyday conversations;one often hears expressions like: Yeh to duniya ki baat hai; hamain ys sey kiya matlab! (This is

just a worldly matter; we have nothing to do with it) or Deen ki fikr karo; duniya to aani jaanihai (Worry about your religious obligations; this world is only a temporary abode). Hence, the

relative material deprivation that madrasa graduates often face, compared with their counterpartsin general education, is not a matter of much concern for them. The point is not that madrasa

ulama are completely indifferent to material welfare or negligent of family responsibilities; it is,

rather, that they are not, generally speaking, as preoccupied with material gains and comforts asare, for example, the modern-educated middle-classes.52

On the question ofboishomya (discrimination), it is interesting to note that most madrasateachers and students complaining of discrimination are from the Alia system. Compared with

47% of Alia respondents who expressed feeling isolated and marginalized in society, only 17%of respondents from the Quomi madrasas felt this way. From these results, it could be hypothesizedthat it is the proximity to modernity that leads to experiences of relative deprivation and

alienation. One may argue that the exposure of the Alia students and teachers to the modern socialsciences and humanities makes them more aware of their rights to equal opportunity, the lack of

which in the real world then becomes a source of frustration. It is also the case that since Alia

students study almost the same courses that are taught in general education, they think they haveas much claim to government and private sector jobs as the graduates of colleges and universities.The Quomi madrasa graduates, on the contrary, entertain no such notions of their comparable

academic standing with the graduates of the general education; neither do they aspire for jobs that

would require them to compete with college and university graduates.

ConclusionMadrasa education is deeply embedded in Bangladeshi society and educational culture. Madrasagraduates are an integral part of the larger society and contribute in different spheres of

public life. An important strength of madrasa education is that it has a strong support base among

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the common people, who are always ready to come forward and offer all sorts of assistance to this

system of education as it is more akin to their religious beliefs and sentiments. The support thatmadrasas in Bangladesh enjoy is across the political spectrum.

Madrasa graduates come from different social and economic backgroundsfrom rich businessfamilies to the sons of rickshaw-pullers and day laborersand represent different political

orientations. Their political consciousness and worldviews are formed more by their encounter

with the wider world than by their affiliation with madrasas. Apart from the revised Dars-e-Nizami curriculum, the education that Alia students receive is not much different from whatcollege and university students do. The Quomi students, on the other hand, have continued tostudy almost the same books for over a century, and most of what they read is the Quran, Hadith,

theology and law.

In the madrasa environment and curriculum, therefore, students do not have any added reasonsthat may influence their perceptions of, and attitudes toward, the West or the United States. Like

other members of society, they read newspapers,82watch television, and become informed andconcernedabout the developments and upheavals in the Muslim world. Their exposure to the

media greatly influences their perceptions of world politics and the role of the West. In this respect,a madrasa teacher or a graduate student is not much different from an ordinary person from the

general stream of education. To essentialize the madrasa education as the primary or main culprit

for the recent rise of extremism and militancy among some Muslim groups is, therefore, a tenuousproposition, and one that has more to do with the politics of representation than with the reality

of the situation.