Understanding Madrasahs

HOW THREATENING ARE THEY? Madrasahs, the religious schools that educate millions of students in the Muslim world, have been blamed for all sorts of ills since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Critics have denounced them as dens of terror, hatcheries for suicide bombers, and repositories of medievalism. As Samina Ahmed and Andrew Stroehlein of the International Crisis Group wrote in The Washington Post after last July's London bombings, "Jihadi extremism is still propagated at radical madrassas in Pakistan...