Pakistani women learn intolerance in all-female madrassas'

Again and again Pakistan turns out to be the Islamic-centric, sharia compliant society we in the West desperately wish it wasn't.  The training of women in the jihadist arts is a new twist on feminism, sure to bring out the best in the students.  I am also sure Western feminists and their leftist "useful idiots" will soon be on the march, demanding the same rights of free choice for Pakistani women as they do for Western females.  Oh wait, that would be intruding on a culture, and as all cultures are equal in behavior, values and ethics we cannot tell them how to act.

The logical outcome of these madrassas' is that we will see more female jihadists doing what was formerly mans work: homicide bombers.


This is Islam.


From Reuters/Yahoo June 15 by Rebecca Conway

Pakistan's female madrassas breed radicalism  

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Varda is an accountancy student who dreams of working abroad. Dainty and soft-spoken, the 22-year-old aspires to broaden her horizons, but when it comes to Islam, she refuses to question the fundamentalist interpretations offered by clerics and lecturers nationwide.

Varda is among more than a quarter of a million Pakistani students attending an all-female madrassa, or Islamic seminary, where legions of well-to-do women are experiencing an awakening of faith, at the cost of rising intolerance.

In a nation where Muslim extremists are slowly strengthening their grip on society, the number of all-female madrassas has boomed over the past decade, fueled by the failures of the state education system and a deepening conservativism among the middle to upper classes.

Parents often encourage girls to enroll in madrassas after finishing high school or university, as an alternative to a shrinking, largely male-orientated job market, and to ensure a girl waiting to get married isn't drawn into romantic relationships, says Masooda Bano, a research fellow at the British-based Economic and Social Research Council.

But, like Varda, many students at the 2,000 or so registered madrassas are university students or graduates looking for greater understanding of Islam, as well as housewives who, like others in Pakistani society, feel pressured to deepen their faith.

Pressured to deepen their faith.  By whom, and in what way are they being pressured?

"I listened to what they said and I thought this is the correct thing to follow, and I wanted to learn more about my religion," said Varda, who was encouraged by her neighbors to sign up to a part-time course at the Tehreek-i-Islami madrassa.

Asked about the killing of a governor earlier this year because he opposed the country's controversial blasphemy law, Varda, without hesitation, said Salman Taseer's murder by his own bodyguard was the right thing to do.

"If people ... call themselves Muslims and they are members of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, then they should not be criticizing this law," she said.

"I am sorry to say this, but this is what he deserved."

TARGETING THE FAMILY

Pakistan, a politically unstable nuclear-armed country which al Qaeda and the Taliban also call home, has been drifting toward religious militancy since the 1980s under the rule of president General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq.

Zia, who enjoyed enthusiastic support from the United States against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, nurtured Islamist militants and used American cash to turn a society that had previously been moderate and tolerant toward hard-line Islam inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.

Weak governments over the ensuing years have not helped stem the radical tide, and anti-Americanism remains strong.

Pakistan's madrassas for boys are notorious for creating militant fighters with their hardline, perverse teachings of Islam. Experts say the female schools are just as dangerous, even though their students tend to be better educated and more affluent.

Female madrassas "targeted women because they know that is the place to plant the seed, because it will go far," said Kamran Bokhari, Middle East and South Asia director for global intelligence firm Stratfor.

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