London blasts backlash feared on madrassas

Two leading religious scholars fear thousands of religious seminaries in Pakistan could face a backlash in the aftermath of the London suicide bomb blasts. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw voiced concern last week that some seminaries, or madrassas, in Pakistan might have terrorist links after it was revealed that London bomber Shehzad Tanweer had visited religious schools there.
Mufti Sarfraz Naeemi and Maulana Abdul Rehman Ashrafi, regarded as two of Pakistan's more moderate clerics, fear seminaries like theirs will face tighter controls because a dangerous few misuse the term jihad - often interpreted - to propagate violence.
Speaking to Reuters in the rambling, colonial-style building housing his madrassa in Lahore, Naeemi said hatred and militancy played no part in most seminaries' teachings.
"But there are people who are misusing the meaning of 'jihad' and creating a wrong impression about what the seminaries do," Naeemi said.
Madrassas linked to two banned groups - Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad - were among the first to be visited by security agents and journalists who flocked to Faisalabad and Lahore in recent days in hopes of unearthing links with Tanweer.
Both scholars believe the London bombs and events like al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States turned the world against Islam.
And Naeemi, without naming US neo-conservatives or the Jewish lobby, subscribed to what many people would say is outlandish speculation that these acts were part of a conspiracy against his faith.
"It is a sad situation and leads me to believe that the Sept. 11 attack and the London bomb blasts are part of a conspiracy by a powerful lobby in the United States and other foreign countries to discredit Islam and Muslims," he claimed.
Naeemi was among a group of clerics who issued a "Fatwa" in May that strictly forbade suicide attacks on Muslims in Pakistan but said it did not apply to those running freedom movements in Kashmir, Iraq or Palestine.
Naeemi, though, whose chain of madrassas in the past attracted students from Britain, the United States, South Africa and northern Europe, said the number of foreign students had fallen sharply after the government imposed tougher visa restrictions to help erase Pakistan's unwanted image as a hub for international terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Maulana Abdul Rehman Ashrafi has up to 6,000 students, including some foreigners, enrolled in his Jamia Ashrafia madrassas in Punjab. The main branch is located in a sprawling complex east of Lahore.
"I have been to England twice myself and I have found the people there to be very nice and helpful. I am surprised that such a terrible tragedy should occur in that country," he said.
The cleric said his teachings were against any sort of terrorism, and the courses so intensive that students would have no time for any extra-curricular militant activities. Ashrafi said the government should root out the people subverting the meaning of jihad.
Naeemi blames previous Pakistani governments and the Western powers for exploiting religion in order to recruit Muslims to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"The Jihadis of yesterday are today's terrorists. Who is to blame for this situation?" Naeemi said.