Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir central president Nurul Islam Saddam has said a deep conspiracy is under way against the education system of Alia madrasas. He said there had been a plot to build a “brownman generation” by weakening madrasa students’ morals and corrupting their faith, through slipping Darwin’s theory and, in Bengali, the writings of authors such as Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra and Rabindranath Tagore, whom he called anti-Islamic poets and writers, into the textbooks.
He was speaking as chief guest on Sunday morning at a reception and cultural programme for first-year Alim students at the Shaheed Abdul Malek auditorium of Tamirul Millat Kamil Madrasa in Tongi.
Nurul Islam Saddam said that until four or five years ago, the madrasa education board produced more GPA-5 (A+) results than the other education boards, and its pass rate was higher too. “But the present government and the previous fascist government have plotted in various ways to turn students away from Alia madrasas,” he said. Part of that plot, he said, was to make the Alia madrasa curriculum match that of schools and colleges, so that Alia madrasas now teach exactly the same books as schools and colleges.
Speaking as the main discussant, Supreme Court senior lawyer Advocate Shishir Monir said that in 2010, students from Tamirul Millat and other madrasas were not allowed to enrol in the English and economics departments at Dhaka University. “Even after doing well in the admission test, madrasa students were not allowed to study economics or English literature, because the madrasa board teaches 100 marks of Bengali and 100 marks of English at Alim level. We filed a case over it,” he said.
“If the current standard of madrasa education can be improved and modernised a little more, Bangladesh’s madrasa students will be good enough to conquer the world, Insha’Allah. There is no reason to dismiss them,” he added.
Addressing the madrasa students, he said: “In the politics that is coming to this country, I believe party and family politics will go. Twenty years from now, the prime minister of Bangladesh will come from among you, Insha’Allah. So now is the time for everyone to prepare together. It is a time to keep a cool head and to work harder.”
The event was presided over by Moinul Islam, president of Shibir’s Tongi Model unit, and moderated by unit secretary Murtaza Hasan Fuad. Special guests included Manarat International University vice-chancellor Dr Abdur Rob, Tamirul Millat Kamil Madrasa principal Dr Hefzur Rahman, Shibir central publications secretary Amirul Islam, and lyricist, composer and singer Moshiur Rahman.
In the second part of the programme, singer Moshiur Rahman and the Turag Shilpi Gosthi performed Islamic songs, which thousands of students enjoyed.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report