Were too strong,says defiant Pak madrasa head

The Darul Uloom Haqqania campus is a sprawling labyrinth of ashen buildings where young men in black beards and white...

The Darul Uloom Haqqania campus is a sprawling labyrinth of ashen buildings where young men in black beards and white skullcaps spend their days and nights on hard concrete floors learning all 77,701 words of the Quran. Some people call it the University of Jihad.

The fact that some of Haqqanias graduates go on to become Taliban fighters isnt the schools concern,said Syed Yousef Shah,the head of the 3,000-student madrasa. One person may become a journalist,another a driver, he said. We cant control what people do afterward.

Yes,the madrasa gave the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar an honorary doctorate. And why shouldnt it? We did it because hes smart,upright and has many distinguishing qualities, Shah said.

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Under heavy pressure from the US,President Asif Ali Zardari pledged recently to reform the madrasa system,in a campaign against militancy that has included an Army offensive in Swat.

Most Pakistanis had not been too concerned about the burgeoning influence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the frontier and tribal areas. But as militants have moved closer to the capital,the public has become increasingly wary of extremism. That could strengthen domestic pressure to reform madrasas,some analysts say.

Shah isnt worried hes heard it before. He rattles off a string of past national leaders,Pervez Musharraf,Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. They all said they would change us, he said,wearing a gold watch and juggling two cellphones. We are too strong,and it will never happen. This is just talk for the Americans.

The vast majority of Pakistans estimated 20,000 or so madrasas are benign. Several hundred,however,teach extreme forms of Islam that experts say provide a training ground for militancy and jihad. Haqqania,30 miles from Peshawar,is on that list.