Living With Terror Not Living in Terror: Religious Factors Affecting Peace in Pakistani Areas of Sectarian Violence

Abstract

Problem and aim of the study: This study is set out to investigate the impact of misinterpretation of religious education on sectarian violence in District Hangu.
 Research methods: Primary data regarding religious education and its role in sectarian violence was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire. The sample size of 279 respondents from three selected villages of District Hangu was randomly selected through the proportional allocation method. The level of significant relationship of the study variables was determined through the Chi-Square test at the Bivariate level analysis. At the multivariate level analysis sect and education were used as controlled variables.
 Results: Results show that religious education has a significant role in generating sectarian violence as the observed value of 27.617 as strongly significant at a 1% level of significance. Moreover, the findings of the study revealed the relationship between madrasas’ education and sectarian violence as significant ( ≤ 0.05) for both groups i.e., literate, and illiterate.
 Application of the study: This empirical work is useful in policy planning for the institutionalism of religion. Notwithstanding, a policy for formal registration of all religious madrassas is the need of the day. The present study highlights that extremist literature should be banned in madrassas and there should be a proper syllabus for these institutions. The uniformity of religious education including modern education in their syllabus might be beneficial in this regard. Further, it is needed to focus on the development of underdeveloped areas of Pakistan and encourage cross religion and sects’ dialogue.
 Originality and Novelty of the study: In Pakistan, the phenomena of sectarian violence have received limited attention in the literature. The existing empirical work in this area is primarily concerned with the political and social aspects of sectarian violence. Thus, the present study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by empirically exploring the issue of sectarian violence from a religious perspective. In this study, a novel method has been applied to determine the impact of religious education on sectarian violence by controlling the background variables of sect and education of the study participants. Such an application of the novel method is believed to enhance the validity of this study and vividly expose the role of sects in the sectarian violence in the research site.