DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Friday said the government had adopted a deceptive attitude towards seminaries.

“Madressahs and their students are being deceived in the name of mainstreaming, similar to what the British did,” Mr Fazl told a seminarian graduation ceremony at the Jamia Maariful Shariah here.

The JUI-F chief said that when the government couldn’t provide jobs to graduates of its own colleges and universities, how it would ensure employment for students from seminaries.

He said that religion was preserved within madressahs, with international forces bent on depriving the Muslim nation of religious studies.

Mr Fazl alleged that the West, state institutions, bureaucracy and parliament were conspiring against seminaries.

“These forces want to deceive us, but the religious scholars have thwarted their attempts,” he said.

The JUI-F leader said that the division between modern formal and religious studies was a legacy of the British Raj from the undivided India.

He said that when the Aligarh College was established in 1857, Quran, Hadith and Fiqh were removed from its curriculum so that future generations could call themselves Muslims but remained without religious knowledge.

Mr Fazl said that the religious scholars accepted that challenge and founded seminaries to thwart that attempt.

“We cannot abandon the traditional chain of religious studies. We will not allow the madressah system to fall victim to any conspiracy and will continue this mission with full determination,” he said.

The JUI-F chief said that those who couldn’t provide jobs to people with modern formal education were trying to deceive religious scholars in the name of bringing them into the mainstream.

He said that tactic was employed by the British Raj in the undivided India, which was opposed and countered by scholars themselves.

Mr Fazl said that the world forces were targeting madressahs to sabotage the protection of Islamic education.

He said that the JUI-F was a trust of their ancestors and those who followed the path of collectivism and truth should remain associated with that group.

The JUI-F chief emphasised the significance of consultation in state affairs and said the caliphs always engaged in consultation.

“Success lies in consensus and not individual decisions,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2025