Pakistan revolutionized by moderate thought

Combating Pakistan’s plight in the education sector is but one of the reasons for this bold Turkish initiative. The particular educational movement of PakTurk mirrors the work done by Christian and Muslim Peace Corps, evident in other countries. However, it is also aiming to erase what Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk put forward in destroying the Muslim caliphate in the early 1920s.

PakTurk’s founder, Fethullah Gülen, has millions of supporters in the Muslim world, the majority of whom are found within Turkish borders. He believes among other things that, like the presence of God’s vicar on Earth in the pope seated in the Vatican, Muslims should also have a symbolic head within its earthly domain, that of a caliphate, first erected by the Abbasid and Umayyad dynasties during the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

The schools in Quetta, as well as Karachi and Islamabad, are trying to once again make the Arab world a forum where learning is at the forefront of concern.

Optimists believe this to be similar to the time when a beacon of light in the Dark Middle Ages was provided by the likes of Avicenna and Averroës, and al-jabr allowed mathematicians to solve geometric and algebraic models.

An interesting article in the New York Times on May 4 highlighted a trailblazing, controversial effort that is occurring in Pakistan.

It is work that is trying to combat what the Times reports as a less than 10 per cent literacy rate in Balochistan and specifically Quetta. The work defies what an influential world leader, who turned his back on the east and the Muslim caliphate, stated nearly 90 years ago.

The concept is called PakTurk. It is a brand of education-cum-religious teaching towards the aim of eradicating what is slowly developing in parts of fundamentalist Pakistan.

Begun by a Joseph Smith-type prophet in the body of Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gülen, this politico-heavyweight is beginning to amass a following similar to that of Smith’s Mormon movement in the U.S.

PakTurk is encouraging poor families throughout Pakistan to allow this type of education to be bred upon their children to combat the allure of free food, education and an upbringing within the madrasahs.

Posted by robbiets2000
Robert Terpstra is a freelance journalist, having filed reports in 42 countries. His op-eds appear weekly in four countries spanning three continents focusing on south Asian current affairs and domestic issues in Pakistan - the content to foment a book due...