Yemen university denies US charge of promoting Islamist extremism

Sana'a promises to increase inspection of religious schools after concerns expressed over al Eman University's past links with radicals.

SANA'A // Students and officials at a Yemen university that has been described by the United States as an institution promoting Islamist extremism have denied the accusation while the government said it would increase inspections of religious schools in the country.

More than 4,000 people from 40 nationalities, including 400 foreigners, study at al Eman University, where the rector, Sheikh Abdulmajeed al Zindani, an influential cleric, is labelled by the US as a "global terrorist". Saleem al Nofali, 21, a Kenyan student of Islamic studies at the university, said: "Many students come to study here because it is free of charge ... it is not true this university is radical. Terrorism is something bad and I wish it ceases to exist." Mr al Nofali, who speaks proudly of the Kenyan roots of Barack Obama, the US president, hopes to gain a visa to the US or the UK to go and "preach the word of God".

The university was established in 1993 and offers free education along with accommodation and meals. According to Hood Abu Rass, the secretary of the rector's office, the university is funded by charities. "Just like missionary charitable societies, the university depends on charities and donations from benevolent people. It is groundless that [Osama] bin Laden funds the university and this has been denied by Sheikh Zindani," Mr Abu Rass said.

It is not easy for visitors wishing to enter the university campus to gain access, with the main gate guarded by armed private security. But the difficulty is getting less as the people in charge are inclined to open up to try to disperse suspicions about the institution situated in the north part of the capital, Sana'a. An enormous mosque funded by the government is under construction on the campus positioned next to a large military compound. Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Mr al Zindani have a close relationship, and the streets of the university are being asphalted at the expense of the government, although it is a private institution.

The US concern stems from a number of former students and lecturers at the institution. Anwar al Awlaki, the radical Yemeni-American preacher believed to have had contacts with Nidal Malik Hasan, the US army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, took classes and gave lectures there in 2004 and 2005. John Walker Lindh, the American who was captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, studied at the university. The university is in general seen as a centre for radical Jihadist ideology - something its teachers deny.

Ismail al Hibli, a lecturer at the university, said: "It is not true that we teach extremism and the university is licensed by and operating under the law of higher education. The university is not teaching Salafist Wahabism only; we are teaching all Islamist doctrines, both Sunni and Shiite." Religious schools are spread all over Yemen belonging to different groups or promoting different doctrines - Wahhabist Salafism, Shiite Zaidism, Sufism, Muslim Brotherhood and others.

The most famous Salafist institution outside the capital is Damaj Institute in the northern province of Sa'ada. In reaction to its presence, prominent Zaidi Shiite clerics established al Shabab al Mumen, or the Believing Youth movement, in Sa'ada in the early 1990s to preserve their doctrine against the growing Salafism in the region. The movement later turned into an armed militia called the Houthis, who have been fighting against the central government since 2004.

Other well-known doctrinal schools include Dar al Hadith in Ma'arib, which belongs to the Salafists, Dar al Mustafa in the eastern province of Hadramut, which belongs to the Sufists and Badr institute in Sana'a, which preaches Zaidism. There is no exact figure of how many religious schools there are in Yemen. But, according to Abdulrehman al Mazlam, the deputy minister of endowment and guidance, the ministry in charge of religious schools and mosques, the number could be as high as 10,000, including 4,600 doctrinal schools.

"We are monitoring and supervising religious schools but we have got plans to include Quran-keeping schools and sharia schools. Most of them are still under the responsibility of the education ministry," Mr al Mazlam said. "We do not have one single curriculum for all these schools but we are setting up a committee from prominent clerics known of their moderation to draft a syllabus for all public and private Quran-keeping schools licensed by the Quran department in the ministry. We are now obliging these schools to teach moderation to protect our students against extremism and radicalisation."

Mr al Mazlam said his ministry would step up inspections of all religious schools to ensure they were promoting moderate Islam. "We are going to generalise our surveillance system which will include regular field visits to these schools. Our job as a government institution is to stop any school, whether government or non-government, from preaching radicalisation ? The mosques [where some of these schools operate] are also committed to promote moderation and tolerance ? In Yemen, we do not have mosques for this or that religious party; they should all preach moderate Islam," Mr al Mazlam said.

Al Murtadha al Muhatwari, the dean of the Zaidi Badr Institute based in Sana'a, said the purpose of monitoring the schools should be to correct mistakes. "I do welcome any watch of my school but it should be done by honest people whose objective is to raise my attention to my mistakes. We do reject any inspection that is meant to frighten and trap us into mistakes," he said. Mr al Muhatwari, an articulate Zaidi cleric, said his school accommodated 1,000 students, mainly during the summer holiday when many institutions compete to attract students. "Our institute follows the Zaidi doctrine but we have no problems in comparing it with other doctrines ... I have no idea of how many Zaidi schools are there but they are few compared to Salafist ones," he said.

Abdulbari Taher, an independent political analyst, said the doctrinal schools had been encouraged and manipulated by the government for its own purposes. "Al Qa'eda has its own relation with the regime and the government has facilitated the growth of the radical Salafist ideology. Jihadist Salafist rhetoric is dominatingly present in the schools' curriculum and the mosques preaching and even the media," Mr Taher said.

He said that reforming the educational system and religious institutions' curriculum was vital for addressing terrorism and radicalisation. @Email:[e-mail]