By Amjad Ali
Akora Khattak, Pakistan, Dec 20 (EFE).- Pakistan’s so-called “University of Jihad,” which has several of the world’s most famous extremists among its alumni, has been feeling the brunt of Pakistan’s rigid immigration controls, which makes it very difficult for Afghans to enroll.
The Darul Uloom Haqqania is an extensive madrasa or seminary in the conservative city of Akora Khattak, about 110 kilometers from Islamabad, which has educated more Taliban leaders than any other school in the world.
Many of them are now part of the Taliban government in Afghanistan or make up the ranks of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), dubbed as the Pakistani Taliban.
Some 4,000 young men with long beards and white turbans are currently enrolled in this center, including 400 Afghans who joined just before Islamabad imposed a visa requirement for Afghans.
However, fresh enrollments are expected to be affected due to the new immigration policy – also a part of Pakistan’s efforts to curb the rise of terrorism -, which includes mandatory visas for Afghans in the country and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants.
“Those (Afghans) who were enrolled before (the policy), their enrollment is continuing but in the coming year because of the new policy their admissions will be impacted,” Abdul Haq Sani, an administrator of the seminary, told EFE.
Haqqania also caters to more than 500 Pakistani girls, who come from their homes everyday to study and then go back, unlike the male students who are provided accommodation and food at the hostels, free of cost.
According to Sani, son of the seminary’s vice chancellor Rashidul Haq Sami, this institution promotes women’s right to education, unlike the Taliban leadership at Kabul, which has banned education beyond sixth grade for girls since coming to power two years ago.
Students at the madrassa memorize the Quran, study Islamic law, Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqah), traditional Islamic spirituality, Quranic interpretation, and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed (Hadith).
The current syllabus consists of four stages – the first three take a total of eight years to complete, and in the final stage students specialize in a number of “advanced” topics, such as the sciences of Hadith, Fiqah and others.
The seminary runs on donations, although in 2017 it received public funding of about $2.8 million from the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Since its inception in 1947, the madrasa has produced a long list of Islamist leaders and fighters, including Mullah Omar, who founded the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Haqqania follows the Sunni Deobandi movement that emerged in India at the end of the 19th century against British colonialism.
The Deobandi branch, while insisting on following the sharia or Islamic government, supports global jihad as the sacred duty to protect Muslims around the world.
Among Mullah Omar’s teachers was the so-called «father of the Taliban,» Sami ul Haq, in charge of the seminary from 1988 until his assassination in 2018. Haq has been quoted describing Mullah Omar as an «angel» and one of his star students.
The seminary rejects claims that it produces jihadists, but does not shy away from its links to the Taliban.
Many of the students adopt the madrasa’s name as a symbol of pride, such as in the case of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the head of the infamous Haqqani network, and now Afghanistan’s interior minister.
The Haqqani Network, once considered one of the most dangerous in the world, was responsible for kidnapping foreigners, as well as for perpetrating suicide attacks and bloody targeted killings in Afghanistan during the period of US invasion (2001-2021).
“We don’t ask our students to go for jihad after they have studied here but if someone would want to go, we cannot stop them,” Sani said.
The students of the seminary have over the years associated with the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s army was accused by the international community of providing shelter and resources to the leaders of the movement during the US invasion.
At the same time, good relations between the Pakistani government and Islamist fighters served to create channels of communication during the end of the war and the pullout of NATO forces.
However, relations became strained after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan after the US pullout in 2021.
It is now the Pakistani government that blames the Afghan government for not doing enough on its territory to control the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban group that has its stronghold in a territory bordering Afghanistan.
“It’s sad, Pakistan should have improved relations with its neighbors but (they) deteriorated,” Sani remarked. EFE
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