Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #201| Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 9 Feb 2021 › Segment 24 of 37
Why is Pakistan so full of religious extremism?
jumu'ah juma jumma jumah salat al-jumuah friday prayer haraam forbidden fard farz faraid fard ayn fard kifayah fardh aalim scholar jihaad mujahid madrasah madrassa madaris madrassah religious school deobandis deobandWhy Pakistan has so many angry religious people: the CIA and the Afghan jihad
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This segment1:55:56 to 2:04:12 · 8 min 16 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth says religious militancy in Pakistan was boosted by the CIA-backed Afghan jihad against the Soviets and is still mass-produced by madrasa networks.
In more detail
A chat question asks why Pakistan is full of angry religious people when Jinnah was pro-education and secular. Mufti Abu Layth agrees about Jinnah and says much of it comes down to geopolitics: the CIA, to thwart the Soviets, encouraged Muslim states to send mujahideen to Afghanistan, and for a decade sermons, magazines and madrasas promoted jihad, citing verses such as the one rebuking those who cling to the earth. Mufti says this is where Osama bin Laden emerged, and that after the Soviet collapse these fighters turned on the United States, citing Noam Chomsky. He describes large Karachi madrasas such as Jamia Binoria and Jamia Faruqiya producing thousands of graduates who open new madrasas, so that the problem is still being mass-produced.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedWhy is Pakistan full of crazy angry religious people? I thought Muhammad Jinnah was pro-education and pro-secular.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the CIA and the war against the Russians played a facilitating, enabling role in boosting the extremist tradition in Pakistan and the Islamic world, though they are not solely responsible.
“the cia and the war against the russians you see you can't ignore the role that these people played now it's not entirely their fault they're not re solely responsible for the phenomenon but they played a facilitating enabling character”
Category: historical claim
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine1:55:56 to 2:04:12 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
i do not feel any of them are haram okay they operate within a framework and greater statutory regulations that uh protect that framework which therefore removes the uh tahrir which the rulings had that my youth whatever that you know things that lead to bloodshed or altercations and stuff like this you see there are laws in place to protect that now so it doesn't quite work like that so that's
fine um okay let me just check what else have i missed any questions fmc says mufti why is pakistan full of crazy angry religious people i thought muhammad jinah was pro-education pro-secular uh yeah he was actually but um it's sad you see it's because people they're kind of lost and confused and and and really you know you see it's it's a complicated process if i'm gonna be honest
um a lot of it is to do with um not i know it's gonna sound crazy but a lot of it is to do with geopolitics you have to understand that sometimes some things in life may look very simple but there's intricacy to how they evolved so the pakistani nut case not just the pakistani but the nut case tradition throughout the islamic world was really boosted into fast into a fast evolving phenomenon largely
by the cia and the war against the russians you see you can't ignore the role that these people played now it's not entirely their fault they're not re solely responsible for the phenomenon but they played a facilitating enabling character in this play so they promoted you see to stop to thwart the russian and communist advance and threat
they encouraged highly the leaders or the you know the powers that be in the muslim world to um to kind of enable the mujahideen these people who will go on jihad to the russia afghan war and this is where the likes of osama bin laden were born this is where they they emerged from that understanding that in the early 80s and the mid 80s you had huge investment they told pakistan that look open up your borders
let mujahideen go fight they told the pakistani army and the intelligence to supply weapons they paid you know millions of dollars to pakistan uh to supply weapons to the local afghans to fight off the russians but the afghans were good but it wasn't just afghans they they said send more fighters now the pakistani army did probably a bit for them as well but how about voluntary passionate fighters you see because it's a soldier is not a soldier is not necessarily a passionate fighter it's not a warrior a soldier could be somebody that who
just this is my job but then you meet someone who's fighting with zeal one of these people with zeal could take on 20 sometimes 30 of the other people because with that zeal they embrace death they're not afraid to die in fact they are coming to die that is and it's it's the phenomenon in and of itself is so terrifying so you see where would you get these people so naturally the afghans are fighting anyway they were a rough kind of people who
were used to that kind of a train but you get these people through the mujahideen i know this is a holy jihad send fighters so worldwide throughout the arab world speeches began on on why jihad is an obligation you know why you know all these verses started being recited on the members the jummah were all about jihad people were you know when they are told why do you sit down to the earth when allah says rise and go take up arms and they
started reciting all of these things that you know all these verses and this went on for like a decade a decade people tv members magazines articles newspapers uh these people that were getting inspired were opening madrasas which were then teaching people which would then teach opening madrasas there was a huge huge uh effect of proliferation of this cancer and then obviously
russia collapses and america is kind of like all right cool we've had this done and noam chomsky speaks so much about this you know and america is like all right cool thank you you know now it's time we kiss and say goodbye and then you've got all these mujahideen who are like this has gone russia let's turn our attention to the other tahut the united states of america and thus you know frankenstein emerges this new
islamic terrorist so this mindset that evolved in the 80s and it began you know in the in the late 70s went through the 80s this whole thing it is what we're still seeing today you know if you look at these big madrasas in pakistan all the people running it are from that era and then now they've produced like i gave an example even though my mother said that i went to they weren't you know mufti naim he was the principal he wasn't really like a hot head in that sense but he was from that
you know that whole diobandi club was part of that but if you look at like just take that madras as an example not that it was involved in this kind of stuff but i'm just saying as an example this is a major player institute it had at least like three thousand students um jamia binoria the main one which were quite hot-headed right now if you look at jamia binoria a good few thousand students there jamia faruqiya in karachi which was hot-headed a good few thousand students there and remember
this is each batch is not as hot-headed but still they you know it's kind of part of the same deobandi network but it's not as hot-headed but a good few thousand there you know muftis zaruwelis you'd see now this is just one city in pakistan and they're producing thousands and thousands of clones so and these people are going back now what job do you have as a as a alim i'll tell you what job you have your job is you go back and you start a new madrasa
in the village or in the town and this is what happens and you've got thousands upon thousands like this it's just uh multiplies and multiplies and now how do you clean this this mess how do you clean it because it's like the production hasn't even stopped so it's like how do you replace the let alone trying to clean up and provide an antidote you haven't even stopped the problem which is still mass producing so it's it's it's it's a it's a mess man
it's a mess but yeah so i hope i mean that's my thoughts right let's take a look at some of these uh uh every awakening no man's an island you're doing it no man is an island man you're doing it much love for the super chat every awakening narrative seems to have an ascetic phase moses in the desert jesus in the forest prophet in cave buddha under the tree yeah i mean these are like archetypes ain't they that you have uh
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Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-02-09-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/24/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, February 9). Why is Pakistan so full of religious extremism? [Video, segment 2021-02-09-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/24/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Why is Pakistan so full of religious extremism?" Video, segment 2021-02-09-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded February 9, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/24/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-02-09-S24, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Why is Pakistan so full of religious extremism?}}, year = {2021}, month = {2}, date = {2021-02-09}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/24/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/24/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-02-09-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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