Modern Political Culture and Traditional Resistance

Everyone has heard about the village Koran school, the maktab, led by the local mullah, where young children get a basic training in reading, writing and religion. This system is prevalent throughout Afghanistan, but in the big cities, where the government-run primary schools were well established, it was fading away. After the partition in 1947 Peshawar replaced Deoband as the centre of advanced studies for traditionalist ulema. Inside Afghanistan, the network of Koranic schools in those villages left standing, remains intact. But without the madrasa, these schools are not enough to perpetuate traditional Islamic culture. Very few madrasa are carrying on the full range of traditional teaching inside Afghanistan. Both traditional clerics and modern Muslim intellectuals are active inside Afghanistan but are confronted with difficulties in perpetuating themselves. The fact that the author makes no reference to Afghan clerics shows that he is ignorant himself; the target of his attack is really Sufism and traditional Persian literature.