Reforming Islamic Education in Afghanistan: Political and Strategic Implications

This seminar welcomes John Butt, a prominent Islamic scholar, founding director of PACT Radio (Pak-Afghan Cross-Border Radio Training Program), and founder of the Jamiyat'al-Uloom'al-Islamiya, an Islamic University in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Originally from the UK, John Butt has lived in South Asia for the last 40 years. He graduated from Darul Uloom Deoband, the pre-eminent Islamic seminary in South Asia - the only European ever to have done so. Since graduating from Deoband in 1984, he has pursued a career in the media, and in 1994 he founded a long-running BBC radio soap opera - "New Home, New Life" - for Afghanistan. He also visits Cambridge, UK, periodically, where he is Muslim chaplain.

Chair: Gilles Boquérat, Head of the India and South Asia Program at Ifri.