Madaris Tarbiyyah: Countering extremism in Sarangani

From the Philippine News Agency (Mar 22, 2019): Madaris Tarbiyyah: Countering extremism in Sarangani

Efforts to counter violent extremism among Muslims in Sarangani province continue to gain ground through the provincial government’s innovative Madaris Tarbiyyah program.

Asma Akmad, coordinator of Sarangani’s Commission on Muslim Affairs, said Friday more Moro residents are now aware of violent extremism and are making efforts to counter the problem in the area.

Akmad said such accomplishment was mainly due to the mainstreaming by the provincial government in the past three years of the Madaris Tarbiyyah.

The program engages Moro residents by way of education and capacitating them to prevent the entry of violent extremism into their communities.  

“We have been dealing with it even before extremism became a major issue in 2017,” she said, referring to the five-month siege by members of the Islamic State-inspired Maute group in Marawi City.

She said Sarangani initiated dialogues and awareness campaigns focusing on countering violent extremism after the Davao City bombing in 2016.

Tarbiyyah, according to Akmad, is an Arabic term that means “to nurture one child from one stage to another until he/(she) becomes righteous and obedient.”

In Sarangani, she said the concept is used to empower Moro communities against violent extremism by educating them on “the true teachings of the Holy Qur’an, which rejects all forms of terrorism.”

Akmad said the Sarangani provincial government pursued the program mechanism to ensure the correct interpretation of the tenets of the Muslim religion and its teachings. It eventually launched Madaris Tarbiyyah as a grassroots-driven and anti-violent extremism strategy under Sarangani’s Madaris for Peace Project, she said.

She said the approach focuses on the Madrasah as the primary learning institution of Moros. A total of 49 Madaris centers have already been established in the past three years in six of the province’s seven component municipalities.

For his part, Governor Steve Chiongbian Solon said the people of Sarangani are the ones who can protect the province from the threats of violent extremism.

“Because they use violence, it scares the people. It is terrorism and that’s what we are fighting against,” he said.

The governor said Moro stakeholders have committed to prevent the province from becoming a “playground” of extremists.

In Sarangani, he said the Ustadz, Imams, elders and groups like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are the ones encouraging Moro communities to suppress radical Islam.

Sarangani’s Madaris Tarbiyyah has been recognized as one of the country’s best practices on the prevention of violent extremism. The province was feted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) during a coordination and national action planning conference in Bangkok, Thailand in July 2018.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1065337