Society

14 May 09

Dr Masooda Bano's work will focus on the birth and dramatic rise of female madrassas in Pakistan

Oxford University researcher, Dr Masooda Bano, has been awarded one of the Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘Ideas and Beliefs’ fellowships to start a research programme into how religious beliefs can become radicalised.

Her research will focus on the birth and dramatic rise of female madrassas in Pakistan and, in particular, the female madrassa ‘Jamia Hafza’ in Islamabad. Jamia Hafza staged an armed resistance against the state in 2007 to defend the role of Shariah law in modern times.

The three-year fellowships, which have a total funding of £5.5 million, are part of the Research Council’s Global Uncertainties Programme. The programme, which involves all seven UK Research Councils, aims to understand how ideas and beliefs interact with five global phenomena - conflict, crime, environmental degradation, poverty and terrorism - to cause global uncertainties. Fourteen new fellowships will form the Research Council’s Global Uncertainties programme.

The new fellowship will allow Dr Bano, from Oxford’s Department of International Development, to look at why female madrassas are gaining ground, teaching conservative religious values and orthodox conceptions of women’s roles, at a time when the state and development agencies have been making concerted efforts to promote liberal ideas on gender roles.

The project will consist of three major studies starting with ethnographic research in 25 leading female madrassas  across the four provinces of Pakistan. Dr Bano will document the socio-economic profiles of the students, their motives for enrolling and explore the how their idealised conceptions of womanhood are promoted through a madrassa  education.

The second study will examine ‘Jamia Hafza’, the female madrassa  attached to the Red Mosque in Islamabad, where 100 students died defending Shariah law during an armed struggle with the state. Female students who played an active role in the resistance, and the parents of those students who died, will be traced and interviewed about how they view the struggle and the impact it had on their own religious convictions. A central part of the research is to look at whether the use of military force as a strategy checks militancy or whether it makes believers more radical in their views.

The third study will focus on those involved in military operations that are aimed at combating religious militancy. Officials of the military brigade, who were targeted in suicide attacks during the Red Mosque operation, will be interviewed about their experience.

Dr Bano said: ‘The female madrassas  provide a lens to study the uncertain interface between traditional values and beliefs, and global influences that often results in further radicalisation of the traditional beliefs. Being focused on Pakistan, a nuclear armed country at the centre of global concerns about Islamic militancy, should mean that these research findings have major policy significance.’