Hifazat-e Islam chief Shah Ahmed Shafi’s remarks on women’s education will not affect the state state policy, says Law Minister Anisul Huq.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday (Jan 15), he described Prime Minister’s Sheikh Hasina’s move to recognize top Qawmi madrasa degree — Dawrah-e-Hadith — as equivalent to post-graduate degree as a ‘very positive’.
“Shafi is an elderly person. With all due respect, I want to say that he should avoid making remarks, which will go against the development spree of the country. His statements will not affect the government’s policy,” said Huq.
Describing the radical Islamist outfit chief’s remarks as his “personal opinion”, the minister said that ensuring women’s rights is one of cornerstones of the Hasina-administration’s policy.
On Friday (Jan 11), Shafi made the audience of an Islamic congregation give him their word that they will not allow their girls to study past fourth or fifth grade.
The 99-year old, who runs the Al-Jamiatul Ahlia Darul Ulum Moinul Islam madrasa in Chattogram’s Hathazari, solicited promises on the matter from the attendees of the institution’s annual gathering.
He, however, claimed later that his statement was ‘distorted’ and that he was against co-education, not women’s education.
“We want women in the country to be educated because a child cannot be properly educated if the mother is not,” Shafi said in a statement the next day.
He urged the creation of a separate education system for women which would allow them to maintain ‘Pardah’ through segregation.
“There all the officials will be women. We will urge our women to receive education in that kind of system,” the statement read.