Heads of the Class

Abdul Hadi Awang, chief minister of the Malaysian state of Terengganu:
Upon election as chief minister in 1999 on the Islamic Party ticket, Awang sought to impose laws that would punish adultery with stoning to death and theft by amputation. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad invoked the country’s secular constitution to stop the laws from coming into effect, as he had done in the state of Kelantan a decade earlier.

Iran’s ayatollahs:
The spiritual leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini graduated from the Hawza Ilmia in Qom, Iran. All of Iran’s ayatollahs are graduates of the Shiite madrasa system, at the apex of which are the two seminaries in An Najaf, Iraq, and the one at Qom.

Jalaluddin Haqqani, Afghan mujahideen commander:
Haqqani graduated with honors from a madrasa in Pakistan and earned a reputation for courage in fighting the Soviets. The CIA considered him a reliable ally and shipped him lifesaving drugs and medical equipment when he was injured in battle. He later joined the Taliban and is now on the "most wanted" list of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Sheikh Abbas Madani, Algerian cleric and dissident leader:
Madani led his Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) to victory in the first round of Algeria’s first free election in 1991. Algeria’s military canceled the second round, bringing the country’s cautious advance toward democracy to a halt and starting a bloody civil war. Madani has been in prison and under house arrest since, occasionally issuing statements calling for an end to the violence and a return to democracy.

Abdurrahman Wahid, president of Indonesia, 1999–2001:
Wahid was elected president as a consensus candidate after the fall of the Suharto military dictatorship. He studied at madrasas in Indonesia and in Egypt. As head of Nahdatul Ulema (the Movement of Religious Scholars), Wahid advocated a tolerant and democratic interpretation of Islam.

Mullah Omar, Taliban leader (madrasa dropout):
The Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Omar attended two madrasas in Pakistan but did not graduate from either. He left to join the anti-Soviet jihad in his native Afghanistan. In 1995, he organized the Taliban movement to bring post-Soviet Afghanistan’s civil war to an end. After taking power, the Taliban imposed Mullah Omar’s strict interpretation of Islam on Afghanistan, until the fall of Kabul to pro-U.S. forces in November 2001.