‘Madrasah reform’, which disappeared from the national agenda after Gen Pervez Musharraf quit the scene four years ago, resurfaced at the launch of a book, Madrasah Reform and State Power in Pakistan, here on Monday. Author Sultan Ali's remark, at the outset of his researched work, that “reforming madrasahs in Pakistan actually means reforming the entire society” interested the scholars and experts invited to the launch by the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (FNS), a political foundation of Germany.

“We did not initiate his research,” FNS director Olaf Kellerhoff informed the gathering introducing the author. FNS was approached to help publish the book, which it did, he said.

Dr Hugh van Skyhawk, who supervised Ali's MPhil thesis at the Quaid-i-Azam University, traced the history of madrasah system as it evolved in the Indian subcontinent over the centuries. British colonialists were amazed at the Muslim people spurning modernity and standing “aloof in pride and poverty”, he said.