NY Times Article Praises Turkish Schools in Pakistan
An article penned by Sabrina Tavernise and published in The New York Times yesterday suggests that Turkish schools offer Pakistan a gentler Islam than the vision of Islam conceived by Pakistanis.
According to the article, Turkish volunteer educators who have opened schools to educate children in Pakistan have an entirely different vision of Islam than that of the Pakistanis. "Theirs is moderate and flexible, comfortably coexisting with the West while remaining distinct from it. They promote this approach in schools, which are now established in more than 80 countries, Muslim and Christian," noted Tavernise. The Turkish schools, which have expanded to seven cities in Pakistan since the first one opened a decade ago, offer an alternative approach to Pakistan that could help reduce the influence of Islamic extremists, the New York Times article asserted. They prescribe a strong Western curriculum, with courses taught in English from math and science to English literature and Shakespeare. They do not reach religion beyond the one class in Islamic studies required by the state.
"Private schools can't make our sons good Muslims. Religious schools can't give them modern education. PakTurk [Turkish schools in Pakistan] does both," Allahdad Niazi, a retired Urdu professor in Quetta, a frontier town near the Afghan border, was quoted as saying by Tavernise.
That approach appeals to parents in Pakistan, who want their children to be capable of competing with the West without losing their identities to it. "Whatever the West has of science, let our kids have it. But let our kids have their religion as well," said Erkam Aytav, a Turk who works in Turkish schools in Pakistan. He also said that without science religion turns into radicalism and that without religion, science is blind and brings the world to danger.
Mesut Kaçmaz, a Turkish teacher in PakTurk schools, on the other hand, said violence was a misinterpretation of Islam. "Kill, fight and shoot. This is a misinterpretation of Islam. Praying has never been easy for me in Pakistan. Pakistanis assume I am not a Muslim because I have no beard, and the mosque near where I work once warned me never to return wearing a tie as it is un-Islamic. Behind their words there was no hadith. It is only misunderstanding," he noted.
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