A leading Pakistani newspaper, reports Memri, calls madrassas “the incubator of personalities that later lead Muslim society to extremism and violence.” Although successive Pakistani governments have had little success in attempting to reform the curricula of these schools, new reformist efforts are afoot and facing powerful resistance. To wit:

Hasan Hammad, the Karachi unit head of Islami Jamiat Tulaba (Organization of Islamic Students), which is the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, said that the government was planning to change the madrassa curricula at the behest of the U.S. He said that any attempt to reform the madrassa curricula will not be tolerated, as the madrassas are Islam’s fortresses.