Pakistan Ulema Board cleanses over 300 textbooks of ‘extremist content’

In this photograph taken on August 14, 2020, customers browse books at a bookstore in Lahore, Pakistan. (AFP/ File)

• Muthahida Ulema Board recently reviewed content of books for grades 1 to 5 
• PM’s aide says new content promotes tolerance, kindness for other religions

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has cleansed more than 300 textbooks of “possible extremist content” and replaced it with material that promotes “tolerance, harmony and treating other religions with kindness,” the Pakistani prime minister’s aide on religious affairs said on Saturday. 
Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi’s statement comes weeks after the lynching of a Sri Lankan national in the eastern Pakistani city of Sialkot over blasphemy allegations. 
The shocking and deadly mob attack on Priyantha Kumara, who worked as a manager at a Sialkot factory, prompted days of soul searching in the country, with the prime minister and other top leaders declaring “zero tolerance” against such incidents and calling for a “comprehensive strategy” to tackle mob attacks. 
Blasphemy has been a sensitive issue in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where scores of people, including a governor of the Punjab province, have been killed over such allegations. 
The Muttahida Ulema Board recently reviewed the content of textbooks that were published for a uniform curriculum enforced by the government from grades 1 to 5.  
“The board has successfully reviewed content of 307 books of different publishers from class one to five and these books have completely been cleared of possible extremist content and do not have any kind of extremism or radicalism,” Ashrafi told Arab News. 
“Now these books have content which promotes tolerance, harmony and treating other religions with kindness according to Islamic teachings. We have also included content related to religious places of other religions like mandars, gurdwaras and churches.”  
He said the main idea behind the move was to convey the message that though Pakistan was a Muslim majority nation, people from all religions lived there peacefully: “We have to peacefully live together and respect each other’s beliefs and values.” 
Ashrafi said if students from other religions did not want to study Islamiyat as a subject, there would be no compulsion for them to do so.  
He said the Muttahida Ulema Board had taken these steps after the government asked it to review textbooks from all publishers, instructing that the practice should continue in the future.   
“We will review books of higher classes as well to ensure that the curriculum does not promote extremism,” the PM’s aide said. “We are also working with law enforcement agencies and interior ministry to identify published hate material and eliminate it. There are many cases registered against publishers of such material.” 
Similarly, he said the Muttahida Ulema Board had for the first time congratulated the Christian community on the birth anniversary of Hazrat Isa (Peace Be Upon Him) and offered to facilitate them in their ceremonies. Ashrafi’s comment was a reference to a press conference held by the board members on Friday, where they sent Christmas greetings to the Christian community.
“We will also apply this tradition to other religious minorities like Hindus and Sikhs on their religious events to promote religious harmony in Pakistan,” he said. “We have to work collectively at the national level to eradicate the menace of extremism from our society.”