ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a country that has more than 20,000 religious schools, Pakistani

investigators say the madrassa where Tashfeen Malik studied the Koran doesn’t stand out as being
especially radical or linked to past violence.
But experts here can’t say the same about every other madrassa in the country. Religious schools provide
Koranic teachings to 3.5 million children and young adults in Pakistan, and officials and analysts think
that a small but significant number of these institutions act as incubators of radicalism.

Malik’s killing of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. — in an act carried out with her husband — has
refocused attention on the roots of Islamist extremism here.

The Al-Huda Institute, where Malik studied, is relatively obscure and not known for being
confrontational, although four female students at its affiliate in Ontario did leave Canada to try to join the
Islamic State, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

But observers trace some of the strong currents of religious radicalism in Pakistan back to similar
institutions. Critics argue that the government has fallen short on its promise to police the madrassas and
that the most extreme among these institutions have allowed a radical and violent view of Islam to grow
here, even beyond their walls.
Tashfeen Malik studied the Koran at a madrassa in Pakistan. (Uncredited/AP)
If Malik was radicalized in Pakistan, it was because she was exposed to ways of thinking that these schools
have helped to promote.

“They require people to isolate themselves from modernity — television is wrong, eating McDonald’s is
wrong, mixing with [the] opposite gender is wrong,” said Mosharraf Zaidi, an Islamabad-based columnist
who specializes in education issues. “And once you establish that isolation, then dehumanizing people is
easy . . . and if you leave someone there, you have left them on a cliff.”

Wednesday was the first anniversary of a Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar that killed more than 150
teachers and students. The attack galvanized the government and public around a significant military
response as well as reforms to clamp down on extremist views. Madrassas were not excluded.
[Pakistan is focus in hunt for clues to California shooter’s radical turn]
In January, the government released a 20-point action plan, which included the “registrations and
regulation of madrassas.” But even though much of the plan is now being implemented — helping to
reduce the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan this year — the government remains conflicted over
how aggressively it should, and can, confront the country’s powerful network of Islamic religious leaders
and teachers.

With Islamic study a key characteristic of Pakistani society, government officials say they are struggling to
differentiate legitimate faith-based teachings from those that spew intolerance or actively recruit
militants.

“Only a few madrassas can be dubbed as fomenting extremism, which nurture terrorism,” said one senior
Interior Ministry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely. “Muslims
go to mosques and madrassas to pray and for religious education, and they send their children, too, but
that doesn’t mean they are getting radicalized.”

Yet many security analysts are far more pessimistic about the nature of the threat.

Muhammad Amir Rana, a terrorism expert who helped draft the government’s response to the Peshawar
school attack, said madrassas pose a “very serious threat” because they set their own criteria for who or
what should be considered “enemies of Islam.”

“Terrorism has different shades,” Rana said, “but madrassas have been the nursery.”
Abdul Hameed Nayyar, a retired Pakistani physics professor who has extensively studied madrassas, said
even moderate Islamic schools mix religion with politics and spend considerable time on topics such as
jihad.

“They teach this kind of anger, an anger that many perhaps keep under control but others are not able to
keep control over, and that anger comes out in the form of jihad,” Nayyar said.

[From pharmacy student to suspected San Bernardino terrorist]

Anti-Soviet bulwark
Although Pakistan’s religious seminaries predate the country’s founding in 1947, the numbers grew
significantly during the 1980s.

At that time, the United States and Saudi Arabia were pouring money into religious education in Pakistan
in support of the Muslim rebels resisting the Soviet invasion of neighboring Afghanistan. Later, in the
1990s, some madrassas served as pipelines for militants associated with Pakistani-backed insurgents in
Indian-ruled Kashmir.

It wasn’t until after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that Pakistani madrassas became a major source
of international concern. In response, Pakistan began assessing how many madrassas had opened here
over the previous three decades.

Today 26,000 madrassas are registered with an umbrella organization, Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Madaris.

Some Interior Ministry officials think that 9,000 others may be unregistered.

One ministry official estimated that 2 to 3 percent of Pakistan’s madrassas can be linked to the
radicalization of students. Over the past year, the government has closed about 100 of these over
suspected links to militancy.

Nayyar, however, estimates that 5 percent of Pakistan’s madrassas “are very active in jihad.” An additional
20 percent to 25 percent, he said, stand ready to provide logistical support to groups engaged in armed
conflict.

[FBI: San Bernardino attackers had been radicalized ‘for quite some time’]
“It is this collection that could be there for jihadis if there is a need,” Nayyar said. “They could be given
places to hide and be the ones actually taking care of jihadists.”

On a recent visit to a madrassa in Mardan, in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province,

both students and administrators seemed well aware that their way of life is under heightened scrutiny.

The Darul Uloom-e-Islamia al-Arabia madrassa has 1,400 students, about 600 of whom live on-site for
round-the-clock exposure to religious education.

The madrassa is affiliated with the Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam, from which groups such as the Taliban
have historically found their greatest sources of support.

“There is common perception that madrassas are a hub of terrorists and they are giving terrorists training,
but I don’t even know how to use a pistol,” said Ijazullah Khan, 24, a seventh-year student. “It’s just been
my childhood desire to join religious school and get Islamic education.”

Maulana Tayyab, the administrator, also recoils at suggestions that madrassas fuel terrorism.

Still, Tayyab concedes, three of his students were recently arrested on suspicion that they had links to
terrorist groups.
“We have a clear policy that we will not support anyone arrested or found involved in terrorism,” Tayyab
said. “We disown them.”

Yet Tayyab’s definition of terrorism may not match the Western interpretations of the word.

“The fight between right and wrong is continuing,” he said. “How can we stop teaching jihad, as it is
mentioned in the holy book?

“These madrassas have a history of fighting against the British in India, and the [Soviet Union] was
defeated by these students and teachers,” Tayyab continued. “Now the U.S. and West feel threatened by
madrassas, but we will protect ourselves.”

Military unease
For Pakistani leaders, trying to evaluate the diversity of teachings in the schools, while assessing the
threat that any one school may pose, isn’t easy.

After the Peshawar school massacre, the government asked madrassas to submit information on their
sources of funding, spending practices, and the identities of all students and teachers.

But many of the madrassa leaders resisted, saying the process was intrusive and harassing. The data
collection was suspended in September, said Mufti Muhammad Israr, a religious scholar who runs a
madrassa in northwestern Pakistan.

In recent weeks, there also have been signs of an emerging split between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s
government and the Pakistani military over the issue.

In early November, the army’s chief spokesman issued a series of tweets that questioned the government’s
commitment to implementing the national action plan.

One security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to
the media, said frustrations over the lack of serious madrassa reform are feeding the military’s unease.

“It has to be done by the Interior Ministry, and it can’t be halfhearted,” the official said. “But they are
afraid because they think there will be a backlash. They are afraid of the mullahs.”

When it comes to madrassas, said Zaidi, the columnist, “the genie is so far out of the bottle, any real
attempt to be assertive is going to backfire.” He noted that Pakistan’s own laws are infused with some of
the same Islamic principles taught in madrassas.

“This forces people to confront elements of their own values and belief system,” Zaidi said. “You have a
conservative Muslim walking up to an extremely conservative Muslim saying, ‘Hey, this is too much.’ But
the way the state has also defined itself as Muslim, and all laws are supposed to be Muslim — that makes
it very difficult.”

Haq Nawaz in Mardan, Pakistan, and Shaiq Hussain and Zahid Gishkori in Islamabad contributed to
this report.