A Pakistani Minister has courted controversy after he called madaris (religious schools) as “universities of ignorance”, drawing strong reaction from seminaries in the country which demanded his removal. “These universities of ignorance, to whom we give donations and (animal) hides, are giving an ideology of hatred and conservativeness to society,” Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed said recently.
His remarks created a storm among hardline groups, which ran some of these madaris, terming the minister as an “apostate”. They took to streets to demand his sacking. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif today defended Rasheed in the National Assembly and said his remarks were aimed at only those schools which were spreading hatred and were also involved in militancy.
The defence minister said there were more than 20,000 seminaries in Pakistan but only about 3-4 per cent assist miscreants or directly facilitate terrorism. Asif said the groups putting up banners or announcing religious edicts against Rasheed were not doing a service to Islam. He said Rasheed already apologised and offered a clarification. “Now the controversy should come to an end,” he said. The religious schools are a touchy issue in Pakistan and any criticism of these schools results in protests by the students and owners of these schools.