Two teenage American boys finally arrived in Atlanta recently after being forced to spend four years in a radical Pakistani religious school that recruits for the Taliban.
Noor Elahi Khan and his younger brother Mahboob were tricked into traveling to Karachi by their Pakistani-American father, a taxi driver from Atlanta. He enrolled them in the Jamia Binoria, a school famed for its connection to the Taliban and other radical Pakistani jihadi groups.
For nearly four years the boys were taught rote memorization of the Qur’an and the narrow sectarian outlook of their school. Their case became known only when Pakistani-American filmmaker Imran Raza discovered them in 2005 while filming; he later undertook their rescue.
The story of the Khan brothers illustrates a little-known problem that is much bigger than these two boys.
The brothers are “the tip of the iceberg,” says Erika Pertierra, who, with Raza, produced a documentary film about the boys called “Karachi Kids” (the scenes of the boys are moving, although the film is overwrought). Eighty other Americans are currently studying at Jamia Binoria, according to its headmaster. As many as 600 Americans may be studying in Pakistani madrassas (the term for religious schools), Pertierra says.
What will these students do, one must ask, when they return to the United States?
After 9/11, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf pledged to modernize the curriculum of the schools. His project didn’t make much of a dent. One of the 2005 subway bombers in London, a Pakistani-Briton, briefly studied in a madrassa. When that became known, Musharraf pledged to deny foreign students visas, a pledge not kept.
The scope of the madrassa problem is smaller than some believe, but still very worrying. Only 1 percent to 3 percent of Pakistanis study in madrassas full time, according to data in Christine Fair’s benchmark 2008 study, “The Madrassa Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan.”
Some terrorism experts, such as Peter Bergen, say involvement of madrassa graduates in the worst anti-Western terror attacks has been rare. The World Trade Center hijackers were mainly well-educated Saudis.
Yet those figures don’t give reason to relax about Pakistani madrassas — or the Americans who study there.
Fair fears that, as the numbers of suicide bombers increase in Afghanistan, recruitment may shift more to Pakistani madrassas.
She also worries that some U.S. students in madrassas may become ripe targets for recruiters. “If you need someone who could get into the U.S. easily,” she says, holders of U.S. passports in Pakistani madrassas fit the bill.
How should U.S. officials address this problem? The answer is tricky: Parents can choose their children’s education, and the Khan boys’ father wanted it to be along traditional religious lines.
Meantime, Noor Elahi Khan has lost four years of high school and has few good options. Film producer Pertierra is seeking a way to get Noor the education he’s missed. She’s also started the South Asia Foundation for Education Reform to raise awareness about the need for reform of radical madrassas, and about the American boys there. You can learn more at www.safereform.org.
©2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She can be reached at trubin@phillynews.com.
