Our friends in Dubai

From the NYT (h/t EBoZ, who reads it so I don't have to):

Roadside bombings of American troops in Iraq were occurring with unnerving regularity when military investigators made a disturbing discovery: American-made computer circuits sold to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates had turned up in the bomb detonators.

That finding set off a clash with Washington last year when the Bush administration cited the diversion of the computer circuits to Iran, and eventually Iraq, as proof that the United Arab Emirates were failing to prevent American technology from slipping into the wrong hands. Administration officials said aircraft parts, specialized metals and gas detectors that have a potential military use had also moved through Dubai, one of the emirates, to Iran, Syria or Pakistan.

The diplomatic face-off, which drew little public attention, prompted the United States to threaten tough new controls on exports to the United Arab Emirates, an ally. The nation had invested billions to become a global trading hub and had begun a campaign to burnish its image in the United States after the uproar in 2006 over a proposal to allow a Dubai company manage some American port terminals.

The administration backed down only after the emirates promised to pass their own export control law. But it is unclear that much has changed nearly a year after the confrontation.

...American officials have been increasingly alarmed about trade in the United Arab Emirates since 2002, when the Commerce Department sent an inspector, Mary O’Brien, there. From her spot checks of factories, freight forwarders and other companies that had ordered American products subject to export controls, Commerce officials say, it was clear that dual-use goods, including computer equipment, were being diverted on a grander scale than imagined.

An entity said to be a woodworking shop, for example, had ordered a sophisticated American machine for making metal parts. The device, Ms. O’Brien knew, could also shape components for a missile system. The supposed factory contained almost no sawdust, and the few employees could not explain how they intended to use the machine.

“This is not right,” Ms. O’Brien said she had said to herself, convinced that she had turned up her first “briefcase business”— open for inspection, but closed for good as soon as she walked out.

She pressed a Dubai pistachio wholesaler on why he had bought an American infrared camera, which can detect living objects in the dark, and where it had gone. Later she found he had arranged its return from Iran, where it had apparently been diverted, while stalling a follow-up inspection.

In nearly 40 percent of her inspections in four years, she found that regulated items were missing or that the recipient would not cooperate. Many of those companies were placed on a list, warning American exporters to be careful when selling to them.

“This was a huge sieve,” said Lisa A. Prager, a former top Commerce export control official. “Almost nothing that said it was going to U.A.E. was staying in U.A.E.”

Read the whole thing. It is an increasingly rare example of real reporting, even if it comes a couple of years after the fact.

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More Gallup dishonesty

The authors of "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think" continue to produce articles with bits and pieces of their worldwide poll of Muslims with furious spinning to make Muslims look as much like Westerners as possible. This is not surprising - co-author John Esposito has written a number of apologetic books for Islam, including "Islam: The Straight Path", and the other author Dalia Mogahed is Muslim herself. The idea that this book would be objective is laughable, and I've already shown some dishonesty in how the authors present their findings.

A new op-ed by the authors in the Los Angeles Times illustrates their dishonesty as well:

For instance, Gallup found that 72% of Americans disagreed with this statement: "The majority of those living in Muslim countries thought men and women should have equal rights." In fact, majorities in even some of the most conservative Muslim societies directly refute this assessment: 73% of Saudis, 89% of Iranians and 94% of Indonesians say that men and women should have equal legal rights.

Notice the sleight-of-hand - changing the question from one of "equal rights" to one of "equal legal rights" when asking people in Muslim countries. When Muslims are referring to legal rights, they are not thinking about religious rights. Which means that if you would ask Muslims whether women should be able to have up to four spouses as men are allowed to, the answers would not be the same as to the question they asked. Yet if they really supported equal rights as Esposito and Mogahed claim, then they would by definition support polyandry as much as polygamy.

What about Muslim sympathy for terrorism? Many charge that Islam encourages violence more than other faiths, but studies show that Muslims around the world are at least as likely as Americans to condemn attacks on civilians. Polls show that 6% of the American public thinks attacks in which civilians are targets are "completely justified." In Saudi Arabia, this figure is 4%. In Lebanon and Iran, it's 2%.

Again, in this case it appears that how the question is asked is far more important than the supposed answers. Since the authors show that 7% of Muslims condoned 9/11, and other polls show that a far higher number condone attacks on Israeli civilians, the cherry-picking of the answers from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iran proves only that the people answering the poll are more likely to support individual, real world attacks against civilians than some abstract concept of attacking civilians. The fact that there are no Americans publicly celebrating Muslim deaths is proof enough that the methodology for this question was flawed.

Looking across majority-Muslim countries, Gallup found no statistical difference in self-reported religiosity between those who sympathized with the attackers and those who did not.... On the other hand, not a single respondent who condoned the attacks used the Koran as justification. Instead, they relied on political rationalizations, calling the U.S. an imperialist power or accusing it of wanting to control the world.

The authors create a division between politics and religion that is nonsensical in much of the Islamic world. Islam is more than just a religion; it is also a political movement, and the absence of Koranic justification for 9/11 does not necessarily indicate one way or the other that terror-supporters are less religious.

In other words, all that the poll indicates is that the level of religiosity does not indicate a propensity to terror. The implication from the authors that the more religious tend to be more against terror attacks is not borne out, based on the limited information given here.

If most Muslims truly reject terrorism, why does it continue to flourish in Muslim lands? What these results indicate is that terrorism is much like other violent crime. Violent crimes occur throughout U.S. cities, but that is no indication of Americans' general acceptance of murder or assault. Likewise, continued terrorist violence is not proof that Muslims tolerate it. Indeed, they are its primary victims.

This is astonishingly dishonest. Terrorism, by definition, is political, and can only thrive when the political environment - in this case, the Muslim and Arab cultures that permeate these lands - allow it. Comparing it to violent crime is an incredible distortion, and one that has absolutely no basis in any of the polling numbers given here - it quite literally made up.

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Saudi mufti a bit miffed at idea of inviting Jews to kingdom

Last week, Saudi King called for dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims to much publicity.

Moderate Arab commentators complimented the move, but it was clear that "dialogue" to them was a one-way street:

Saudi newspaper commentaries suggested the king's motives were addressing militant violence inside Muslim countries and tension between Muslims and the authorities in Europe.

"The dialogue could clear up some facts about our religion, far from the distortions that extremists and fanatics have caused," wrote Saudi daily newspaper al-Jazirah, referring to militant violence in Saudi Arabia and the region.

Nothing about learning anything about other religions, only about lecturing about Islam. As usual, to Muslims, "dialogue" means the same thing as "Islamic indoctrination."

Now,the Saudi mufti has made it very clear that the idea of having rabbis in Saudi Arabia is pretty sickening to him:

Saudi Arabia's grand mufti Abdelaziz al-Sheikh has rejected an attempt by the government to open interreligious dialogue with Jewish rabbis.

According to a report by the official Kuwaiti news agency Kuna on Wednesday, the mufti refused to accept any visit by rabbis to a conference on interreligious dialogue, expected to be held in the kingdom's capital Riyadh.

I guess no Jews will be visiting their old digs at Khaybar anytime soon.

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Today's Gaza news you won't see anywhere else

The Palestinian Arab press has been increasing in its reporting of corruption and strong-arm tactics by Hamas in Gaza lately, seemingly to increase its revenue (beyond the $150 million a month that the PA provides to Gaza.)

Today, Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is involved in drug trafficking and car thefts in Gaza. In addition, they report that Hamas is levying arbitrary fees on auto-repair shops in ways that look more like protection racket payoffs than taxes. Its court systems are adding large fees for judgments. In addition, Firas Press reports that Hamas is adding "tolls" on roads, pretty much stopping people and asking for money, a different amount each time.

The impression is that Hamas is building a police state with its terrorists doing whatever is necessary to extort money from the citizens it pretends to care about.

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Hamas apparently is taking credit for Mercaz HaRav massacre

Hamas released a statement announcing its accomplishments for March, 2008:

Military Communiqué

Al Qassam statistic for March,2008

34 martyrs ; 89 Qassam rockets ; 534 mortar shells towards Zionist targets ; 12 Zionist were killed; other 79 were injured

First: Al Qassam martyr :

Rafah	Khanyounis	Gaza	North strip	South-Gaza	Total
5	3	10	14	2	34

Second: Resistance activities:

Qassam	Mortars	R.P.G	Bombs	Fire	Sniping	Clashes
89	534	18	7	21	8	22

Third: Zionist losses:

losses	injures
12	79

Day and date	The Zionist losses
Saturday 1st of March,2008	4 Zionist were killed
Thursday 6th of March,2008	8 Zionist were killed

Settlement	Rockets	Settlement	Rockets
Sederot	36	Natif Eitsra	4
Meftahim	10	Nahal Oz	4
Kissufim	2	Eirtz	10
Nir Eishaq	5	Zionist vehicles	18

And Islamic Jihad came out with their own numbers:
18 killed versus 2 "Zionists"
216 rockets and mortar shells

Hamas' rocket numbers are low if you assume that they are taking credit for all groups' rocket attacks, so they must only be talking about their own rockets - the total Qassam count for March was over 200.

Which implies that they are taking credit for only the Israelis killed by Hamas as well.

And since they list 8 "Zionists" killed on March 6, this means that Hamas is taking credit for the Mercaz HaRav massacre (they denied initial claims of responsibility and the only group to officially take credit was the unknown "Galilee Freedom Batallions".)

Of course, this report includes out and out lies - four Israelis weren't killed on March 1, and the total number of Israelis killed in March was 11 (they might be including the Qassam victim from February 27.)

Still, this is apparently the first official, if backhanded, claim of responsibility for the massacre.

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UN Human Rights Council's corruption is complete

One of the bedrocks of human rights is the right of free speech. The UN recognizes this and its old Commission on Human Rights as well as its newer Human Rights Council has appointed a "Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the promotion
and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression."

This job includes:

a) to gather all relevant information, wherever it might occur, of discrimination against, threats or use of violence and harassment, including persecution and intimidation, directed at persons seeking to exercise or to promote the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression as affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, where applicable, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, taking into account the work being conducted by other mechanisms of the Commission and Sub-Commission which touched on that right, with a view to avoiding duplication of work;

b) as a matter of high priority, to gather all relevant information, wherever it might occur, of discrimination against, threats or use of violence and harassment, including persecution and intimidation, against professionals in the field of information seeking to exercise or to promote the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression;

c) to seek and receive credible and reliable information from governments and non-governmental organizations and any other parties who have knowledge of these cases; and to submit annually to the Commission a report covering the activities relating to his or her mandate, containing recommendations to the Commission and providing suggestions on ways and means to better promote and protect the right to freedom of opinion and expression in all its manifestations.

This past Friday, however, the UN's Human Rights Commission added a new job responsibility to this Special Rapporteur:

To do the exact opposite.

The amendment passed by the UN Human Rights Council in its rush to adjourn Friday told its expert on freedom of expression to report on people who abuse their free speech rights to espouse racial and religious discrimination.

The measure, proposed by Egypt and Pakistan, passed 32-0 with the support of Islamic, Arab and African nations. European nations and some other countries abstained.

This Special Rapporteur is now expected not to defend free speech, but to defend those who try to stifle free speech. It is amazing that he hasn't yet suffered from whiplash.

Now, what does the UN Human Rights Council consider "abuse" of free speech?

The previous day, the same UNHRC passed (21-10) a resolution urging states to prohibit the "defamation of religions" in a resolution that referred specifically and repeatedly to Islam and no other religion.

We all knew that the UNHRC was a corrupt joke of an organization, but at least up until now it could at least pretend to be guided by principals, even as it applied them in a ridiculously biased manner. Now the perversion is so complete that it is demolishing its very own basis.

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Hamas seizing Fatah members' land in Gaza

The Palestine Press Agency (Arabic) is reporting that Hamas has decided to start "taking inventory" of the land and other property that belonged to Fatah members who had to flee for their lives during the Hamas coup, as a first step to formally seizing them.

Hamas has already taken over many PA-run organizations and offices in Gaza, such as the court system and finance offices.

Apparently, taking land is not considered "ethnic cleansing" when Arabs do it to other Arabs.

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AFP bias of the day

AFP "reports:"

The World Health Organization lashed out at Israel on Tuesday for denying or delaying travel permits for critically ill Gaza Strip residents, saying the right to health appeared to be optional for Palestinians.

Ambrogio Manenti, who heads the WHO's West Bank and Gaza office, said case studies of patients who died while waiting for permits to travel to Israel for treatment "show nonsense, inhumanity and, at the end, tragedy".

"The right to health appears to be optional for Palestinians," he added.

...Between October 1 and March 2, 32 patients died in Gaza after the permits they requested were delayed or refused, the WHO said.

The number of patients who were denied permits rose from just over three percent in January 2006 -- when the Islamist Hamas movement won Palestinian parliamentary elections -- to almost 36 percent in December 2007.

"From a health perspective this is something unacceptable. I think my organisation should stigmatise this behaviour," said Manenti.

But Captain Shadi Yasin of the Israeli military liaison office for Gaza insisted the WHO report was "completely wrong."

Israel "gives high priority for all urgently needed treatment in Israel and the West Bank for Gaza people and for the entry into Gaza of medicine and medical supplies," the spokesman said.

AFP includes details (not shown here) of two cases where Israeli actions supposedly led to the deaths of Gazans. But it does not go into details of Israel's side of the story, besides a general denial.

The German news agency DPA covers the same story and adds a few sentences you would never see in the AFP version. Something called "context:"

The denial of permits rose from 3 per cent in the beginning of last year, to nearly 36 per cent in December, Manenti pointed out.

In absolute terms, nearly 670 Gazans were nevertheless treated in Israel in December 2007, compared to an in fact smaller number, under 360, in December 2006.

...A 22-year-old female Palestinian suicide bomber on her way for treatment in Israel killed three Israeli security guards and a civilian at the Erez border crossing between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip in January 2004. The woman had told the guards she had a metal plate in her leg to circumvent the metal detector.

A similar suicide attack was thwarted at the Erez terminal in June 2005, when a 21-year-old Palestinian woman tried to cross into Israel using her medical travel documents, but soldiers found a bomb belt on her.

So, three facts that AFP couldn't bring themselves to mention but DPA did: in absolute terms, Israel is treating more Gazans than ever; and that on at least two occasions Gazans used their freedom to travel to Israel as a means to try to kill as many Israelis as possible.

Another fact that neither of them managed to mention is that Egypt also shares a border with Gaza and that Egypt has been far more reluctant to treat sick Gazans than Israel has. It is unclear whether WHO even mentions Egypt as having any responsibility for this problem.

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Saudi Vice, episode 14: Death is preferable to immorality

Yesterday, Saudi Arabia was host to another exciting, high speed car chase, courtesy of our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, otherwise known as the Muttawa.

Apparently two young couples had the audacity to travel in a car. It is unclear why exactly this is "haram" under shari'a law, but Allah knows best, and so do the Muttawa.

So our heroes, naturally, went in full pursuit with their signature white Toyota SUV:

Eyewitnesses said that they saw a commission SUV with two agents and a security officer inside following a white Ford until it crashed into a small farm with the four people inside. As the Ford was still absorbing the force of impact, the Commission’s agents fled the scene, they added.

An eyewitness said after the car had crashed into the farm, he waved at the Commission’s agents to stop but they ignored him, prompting him to report the incident and the license plate number of the SUV to the police. Another eyewitness confirmed that he saw the commission SUV at the scene of the crash as it happened.

A police source said that the eyewitnesses reported seeing the white Toyota SUV at the scene right after the crash and provided its license plate number.

Chief of Madina Traffic Department Col. Siraj Kamal said that early information and eyewitnesses’ accounts suggest that the commission SUV was in hot pursuit of the victims’ car. If the information and reports are confirmed, the case will be referred to authorities concerned, he said.

Firefighters extracted three bodies from the wreckage of the vehicle, said Madina Civil Defense spokesman Col. Mansour Al-Juhani.

The driver, 30, died of internal bleeding one hour later in hospital, said director of King Fahd Hospital in Madina Mutwakil Hajaj.

The four were not identified.

To be fair, the Muttawa deny any involvement despite the eyewitnesses. They also denied any involvement last month when eyewitnesses saw them chase another couple to their deaths.

Our heroes' body count has really been piling up in the past year, as the Saudi Gazette helpfully enumerates:

The Commission’s agents have been recently accused of involvement in many death cases.

Last week, a 29-year-old man jumped from the third-floor window of an apartment to his death while allegedly trying to avoid arrest by the Commission in Adama District, Dammam.

Earlier in March, a young man and a woman allegedly fleeing from agents of the Commission were killed when their speeding car smashed head-on into a truck on the Madina-Tabuk Road. Investigations in the above two cases are still under way.

In May 2007, the Commission’s agents in Riyadh were involved in a murder case during a forced entry into a house and the beating to death of Salman Al-Huraisi, a citizen, who allegedly possessed and sold alcohol. In June 2007, in Tabuk, the Commission’s agents spotted a 50-year-old family driver, Ahmed Al-Bulawi, driving with a woman in his car. They stopped the car, arrested the two and took the man to one of the Commission’s interrogation centers, where he died. The court ruled that the Commission’s agents were innocent in both death cases filed against it.

So the Muttawa death count is now at 9 in the past 10 months. Not bad, because, to the Commission, extremism in the defense of Sharia is no vice.

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Moses, Khidr and free will

Saudi Gazette includes an Koranic story in today's issue:

THE story of Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) with Khidr, mentioned in Surah Al Kahf, the Cave (65:82), is one of the most important didactic stories in the Qur’an.
The story begins when Moses was delivering a sermon and one of his followers suddenly asked him “Who is the most knowledgeable person on earth” and Moses (peace be upon him), immediately answered him: ‘I (am the most learned).’ Allah admonished him for this answer and told him that there was a man who was more knowledgeable than he was and ordered him to search for that man to learn from him, “So they found one of Our servants, on whom We had bestowed Mercy from Ourselves and whom We had taught knowledge from Our own Presence.”
We will notice that Moses’ relationship with Khidr is that of a student and his teacher that should be based on politeness, obedience, respect and patience and this is clear from Moses’ first question, “Moses said to him: “May I follow you, so that you teach me something of the (Higher) Truth which you have been taught (by Allah)?” Khidr reminds him during his stay with him that he has to be patient indicating that he (Moses) would see things that require a lot of patience, “He (Khidr) said: “Verily you will not be able to have patience with me! And how can you have patience about things about which your understanding is not complete?”
Moses declares that he would stick to his promise, “Moses said: “You will find me, if Allah wills, (truly) patient: nor shall I disobey you in aught.”
But what Khidr did was beyond the toleration of Moses; he scuttled the boat of the poor people who helped them, killed a boy for no reason and then built the wall (which was about to fall down) in the village that refused to offer them some food.
Then Khidr explained these mysterious events to Moses “This is the parting between me and you: now will I tell you the interpretation of (those things) over which you were unable to hold patience.
As for the boat, it belonged to certain men in dire want: they plied on the water: I but wished to render it unserviceable, for there was after them a certain king who seized every boat by force.
As for the youth, his parents were people of Faith, and we feared that he would bring them to grief by obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to Allah and man). So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection. As for the wall, it belonged to two orphan youths, in the town; there was, beneath it, a buried treasure, to which they were entitled: their father had been a righteous man: So your Lord desired that they should attain their age of full strength and get out their treasure - a mercy (and favor) from your Lord.
I did it not of my own accord. Such is the interpretation of (those things) over which you were unable to hold patience.”
The moral lessons that we can elicit from the story include the following:
• A student’s relationship with his teacher has to be based on obedience, respect and above all patience because gaining knowledge requires a lot of patience on the part of the learner.
• There is wisdom behind every event that takes place in this world, but we might not understand this wisdom immediately. Nothing happens haphazardly on earth.
• Knowledge has no limit and you always have to know that if you are very knowledgeable, there is someone who is more knowledgeable than you are.

I quoted the entire article so no one would think I took it out of context.

This story really is in the Koran (chapter 18, verses 62-85) although Khidr is not named.

Is no one in Islam bothered by these verses? Here is the actual translation of the episode of Khidr murdering a boy:

[18.74] So they went on until, when they met a boy, he slew him. (Musa) said: Have you slain an innocent person otherwise than for manslaughter? Certainly you have done an evil thing.
[and Khidr later answers...]
[18.80] And as for the boy, his parents were believers and we feared lest he should make disobedience and ingratitude to come upon them:
[18.81] So we desired that their Lord might give them in his place one better than him in purity and nearer to having compassion.

al-Khidr murdered a boy, not because of any sins he committed, but because he "knew" that the boy was going to be disobedient and his parents would be better off with a replacement child.

One can forgive the 8th century mentality of children being disposable, but the entire concept of free will - which is supposedly integral to Islam - is being thrown out the window here, as the boy is punished for sins he has yet to commit. Khidr knew prophetically that the child was predestined to be "disobedient" (this translation makes it sound more like he was guessing, though) and it was considered a kindness to kill him now. Meaning that this child had no free will.

Is it not strange that Moses is being scolded for his impatience and his being upset at the killing, but the cold-blooded murder of an innocent child is celebrated as a triumph of wisdom?

This story may illuminate more about Islam than the Saudi Gazette intended.

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NYT notices that Hamas really hates Jews

A milestone in mainstream journalism, as the august New York Times recognizes that Hamas' rhetoric is not only the Western-acceptable, rabidly anti-Zionist type but it includes real Jew-hatred:

In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew.

“Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,” Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. “They have been traitors to all agreements — go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us.”

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the “Crusaders,” or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as “the brothers of apes and pigs,” while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children’s programs praise “martyrdom,” teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 “road map” peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.

Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, routing Fatah, Hamas sermons and media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hezbollah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon.

Intended to indoctrinate the young to its brand of radical Islam, which combines politics, social work and military resistance, including acts of terrorism, the programs of Al Aksa television and radio, including crucial Friday sermons, are an indication of how far from reconciliation Israelis and many Palestinians are.

While it is refreshing to see the NYT face some facts, even now it skittishly avoids the biggest fact of all - that more Palestinian Arabs support Hamas than Fatah and that Hamas handily defeated Fatah in the last elections.

(h/t EBoZ)

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Today's madrasahs: "Young minds are not for thinking"

A nice article from Foreign Policy that highlights the differences between madrassahs in decades past and today. Excerpts:

As a 9-year-old boy, I knelt on the bare floor of the neighborhood madrasa (religious school) in Karachi, Pakistan, repeating the Koranic verse, “Of all the communities raised among men you are the best, enjoining the good, forbidding the wrong, and believing in God.”

Hafiz Gul-Mohamed, the Koran teacher, made each of the 13 boys in our class memorize the verse in its original Arabic. Some of us also memorized the translation in our own language, Urdu. “This is the word of God that defines the Muslim umma [community of believers],” he told us repeatedly. “It tells Muslims their mission in life.” He himself bore the title hafiz (the memorizer) because he could recite all 114 chapters and 6,346 verses of the Koran.

The madrasa I attended, and its headmaster, opposed the West but in an apolitical way. He knew the communists were evil because they denied the existence of God. The West, however, was also immoral. Westerners drank alcohol and engaged in sex outside of marriage. Western women did not cover themselves. Western culture encouraged a mad race for making money. Song and dance, rather than prayer and meditation, characterized life in the West. Gul-Mohamed’s solution was isolation. “The umma should keep away from the West and its ways.”

But these were the 1960s. Although religion was important in the lives of Pakistanis, pursuit of material success rather than the search for religious knowledge determined students’ career choices.

And so it was for much of the four decades before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001... A few weeks after September 11, I visited Darul Uloom Haqqania. Taliban leader Mullah Omar had been a student at Haqqania, and the madrasa, with 2,500 students aged 5 to 21 from all over the world, has been called “the University of Jihad.” The texture of life in the madrasa still has elements that represent a continuum not over decades but over centuries. But at Haqqania, I saw that the world of the madrasa had changed since I last bowed my head in front of Hafiz Gul-Mohamed.

In a basement room with plasterless walls adorned by a clock inscribed with “God is Great” in Arabic, 9-year-old Mohammed Tahir rocked back and forth and recited the same verse of the Koran that had been instilled into my memory at the same age: “Of all the communities raised among men you are the best, enjoining the good, forbidding the wrong, and believing in God.” But when I asked him to explain how he understands the passage, Tahir’s interpretation was quite different from the quietist version taught to me. “The Muslim community of believers is the best in the eyes of God, and we must make it the same in the eyes of men by force,” he said. “We must fight the unbelievers and that includes those who carry Muslim names but have adopted the ways of unbelievers. When I grow up I intend to carry out jihad in every possible way.” Tahir does not believe that al Qaeda is responsible for September 11 because his teachers have told him that the attacks were a conspiracy by Jews against the Taliban. He also considers Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden great Muslims, “for challenging the might of the unbelievers.”

Maulana Samiul Haq, headmaster of the Haqqania madrasa, is a firebrand orator who led anti-U.S. demonstrations soon after the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. When I asked if he thought it appropriate to involve his 5- and 6-year-old charges in political demonstrations, Haq remarked, “No one is too young to do the right thing.” Later, he added, “Young minds are not for thinking. We catch them for the madrasas when they are young, and by the time they are old enough to think, they know what to think.” Students and teachers carried militant Islamic ideology from one madrasa to another. On one of the walls of the madrasa of my youth, someone had written the hadith “Seek knowledge even if it takes you as far as China.” Across the road from the madrasa at Haqqania, some of Tahir’s classmates have written a different hadith: “Paradise lies under the shade of swords.”

Tahir’s teacher carries a cane and can often be brutal. One madrasa in Pakistan has resorted to the practice of chaining students to pillars until they memorize the day’s lesson. But compared with life in a squalid refugee camp, the harshness of the madrasa probably is a blessing.

Muslim states are now calling upon Western governments to support madrasa reform through financial aid. The proposed recipe for reform is to add contemporary subjects alongside the traditional religious sciences in madrasa curriculum. But madrasas will probably survive these reform efforts, just as they survived the introduction of Western education during colonial rule. Can learning science and math, for example, change the worldview shaped by a theology of conformity? I asked Tahir if he is interested in learning math. He said, “In hadith there are many references to how many times Allah has multiplied the reward of jihad. If I knew how to multiply, I would be able to calculate the reward I will earn in the hereafter.”

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