Pakistan has been engaged in the project of madrassa reform since the early days of its nationhood. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, successive Pakistani governments have introduced a series of reforms aimed at regulating and reforming the madrassa sector, but the repeated failure of these efforts suggests the presence of some…

Islamic education is a central pivot of Pakistan's educational system; it is taught as a separate subject and purposefully included in many other subjects. The State uses Islam to manage public morality and national identity and there is a 'functionalisation' (Starrett, 1998) of religious education. A culturally lived tradition is transformed into…