ISLAMABAD, July 28: Madaris and mosques across Pakistan annually collect over Rs70 billion (US $1.1 billion) in donations, both in cash and kind, as against the official Zakat collections of only Rs4.5 billion (US $75 million), a study on Madaris by International Crisis Group (ICG) said.

About 94 per cent of the charitable donations made by Pakistani individuals and corporations go to religious institutions and causes, ICG said in the study “Pakistan: Madrasa, Extremism and the Military.”

The study, which covered all the socio-political and religious aspects of Madaris, also traced their genesis in Muslim struggle during the colonial era way back in the early 19th century. The study also shed light on the sectarian strife in Pakistan and its links to madaris of different denominations.

Though most of the donors do not support the politics of the religious parties collecting donations, they find Islamic education and preservation of Islam the most worthy causes for giving charity to.

“Pakistanis display a curious lack of interest regarding the actual performance of an organization when determining to whom they should give,” it noted. The half of Zakat donors did not know or care how their money was used.

Zakat, according to the Qur’anic injunctions, cannot be used for mosques or educational projects like madaris. The Zia’s government, it recalled, ignored Islamic injunctions against using Zakat money for mosque and education and its own Zakat ordinance of June 1980 to extend selective financial help.

During the Zia’s rule when Zakat was used as a tool of state patronage, 100 madaris had initially been identified for Zakat distribution, mostly of Deobandis, including Darul Uloom Haqqaniya of Akora Khattak and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) madaris in the NWFP, the main supporters of the Afghan Jihad.

In a summary attached to the study, the ICG expressed doubts on the intent and the will of military government to set Pakistani society on a sustainable course that would lead to political pluralism and religious tolerance.

“On a key test — reform of madaris, Pakistani religious schools that breed extremism of many hue — the military government thus far has acted weakly,” it added.

About a third of all children in Pakistan who get education attend madaris. Over a million and a half students at more than 10,000 seminaries are being trained, in theory, for service in the religious sector. But their lack of modern civic education and poverty make them a destabilising factor in Pakistani society.

It said that pledges made by Musharraf government to reform these madaris have not been backed by decisive action or a credible plan.

On the proposed madaris ordinance it said that it did not envisage real intervention in the madaris system because the clergy was opposed to it.

In a set of recommendations it called for the establishment of a madaris regulatory authority under the ministry of interior. It also suggested a number of functions, including a comprehensive survey of the madaris sector for the purpose of mandatory registration and classification within six months to be performed by the proposed authority.

It underlined the need for carrying out curriculum reforms in Madaris within six months to introduce vocational training programmes.

It demanded banning of all madaris affiliated with banned militant organizations and prosecution of their leaders under the existing criminal laws if they were involved in incitement to violence.

It further said that a nationwide Financial Intelligence Unit should be created as a subsidiary of the banking regulatory authority, to prevent money laundering in the formal banking sector and to curb the hundi system and other informal financial transactions.

In yet another recommendation it asked the government to keep strict tabs on foreign students who seek admission to Pakistani Madaris and permit their enrolment only if such religious education was not available in their home countries or they have otherwise been carefully screened by both their home authorities and the appropriate Pakistani authorities.