WASHINGTON, March 31: Pakistani religious scholars and US experts have developed a model curriculum for Pakistan’s madressahs, combining religious studies with physical and social sciences.

International Centre for Religion and Diplomacy, which initiated the project, says the model is based on best educational practices from throughout the Muslim world.

“The basic idea behind the model is not to force madressah leaders to use a prescribed curriculum, but to offer them an alternative for accomplishing what many of them already want,” says the centre’s president, Dr Douglas Johnston.

“This should be viewed as only the beginning of what will be an ongoing process of madressah-led curricular enhancement,” he added.

According to ICRD, the curriculum model incorporates “contemporary” subjects such as math, civics, and the physical and social sciences, while remaining true to the central religious core. It also includes a strong emphasis on critical thinking skills, human rights and tolerance for other sects, faiths and cultures.

While preparing the curriculum, ICRD also sponsored trips to Turkey and Egypt in which Pakistani government officials and top madressah scholars examined various elements of the religious education systems in those two countries. Similar research on Indonesia, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia also informed the formulation of this model.

The centre is now eliciting feedback from other madressah administrators and faculty through their exposure to the new model in selected Pakistani university training programmes.

The overseas trips also inspired the first madressah teacher training initiative officially sponsored by Pakistan’s National Madressah Oversight Board. ICRD conducted the inaugural session of this training for 29 “best-of-the-best” madressah teachers, representing each of the sects that sponsor these schools.

Another US think tank, the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, played a key role in preparing the Jihadi curriculum that is now being replaced.

During the Afghan war against the Soviets, the Omaha-based think tank prepared special textbooks in Dari and Pashto, filled with violent images of guns, dead bodies and bombs and extolling Jihad.

The books were distributed at madressahs in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

After 9/11, the United States launched a “scrubbing” operation in to purge from the books all references to rifles and killing.