In Pakistan, a complex picture emerges of the influence and scope of Islamic religious schools, or madrassas, which are often portrayed as incubators of extreme ideology.

Experts estimate that madrassas number in the thousands in Pakistan and a debate remains as to what influence these schools have on terrorism and instability around the world.

Daniel Markey, senior fellow for India and Pakistan at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. State Department official, said madrassas have always been a part of Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world. They have served as training institutions for Islamic clerics for hundreds of years.

"For every strand of Islam there is a madrassa. There could be 10,000 madrassas in Pakistan," Markey said.

A madrassa can range in size from five students sitting under a tree to a large complex with a mosque and dormitories. The schools also differ widely in curriculum and scope -- from the oft-publicized training ground for extremist fighters to that of a Koran memorization institution or an elite educational system, according to Vali Nasr, adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Tufts University.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and revelations that members of the Afghanistan's Taliban regime attended Pakistani madrassas, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pledged to bring the schools under control.

Samina Ahmed and Andrew Storehlein of the International Crisis Group argued in a July 17, 2005, column in the Washington Post that Musharraf has failed to meet his promise.

"[Musharraf's] military government never implemented any program to register the madrassas, follow their financing or control their curricula. Although there are a few 'model madrassas' for Western media consumption, the extremist ones account for perhaps as many as 15 percent of the religious schools in Pakistan and are free to churn out their radicalized graduates," they wrote.

Controlling the schools via financing is challenging since they often receive funding from foreign sources, which are difficult to trace. In addition, Zakat -- the term for a Muslim charity donation, which is one of the key components of the religion -- is often sent to the schools from local residents, Markey said.

While it is not clear exactly what percentage of Pakistani madrassas may produce extremist fighters, experts agree that the schools exist to fill a void in a badly weakened education system.

"I think if I had to identify one problem with standard reporting on madrassas, it's always this belief that madrassas in general are the problem and I think most Pakistanis would say that they aren't the problem," Markey said. "In a country like Pakistan, the education system [has] been so neglected and hollowed out over decades of under funding and management that they've come in to fill the gap."

While a religious education is valued in Pakistan, some schools do little more than train illiterate students to memorize the Koran, leaving many madrassa students on the edges of educated society with poor job skills.

Madrassas that are used to train sectarian fighters for conflicts in Kashmir and Afghanistan are a significant problem, Nasr said, but madrassas in general are the not the cause of terrorism.

The radical madrassas in Pakistan have been utilized in the past by the military as a supply of fighters for foreign conflicts, such as during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, according to Nasr.

But when the radicalized jihadists launch attacks on the Pakistani public, the military is then forced to turn around and combat them. "It is like playing with cobras: sooner or later they will bite you," Nasr said.

One highly publicized encounter took place in July 2007 at the Red Mosque, a radical madrassa in Islamabad where students listened to theocratic ideology from religious leaders and were instructed to kidnap prostitutes, according to a Washington Post report. A standoff between madrassa students and government forces ended with Pakistani troops raiding the mosque, resulting in the deaths of nearly 100 people.

The real issue for Pakistan is the struggle between democracy and military dictatorship, not between Musharraf and extremism, Nasr said.

Markey believes general Pakistani society is not so radicalized as to allow Islamic extremists to run the country, and that the strength of the Pakistani military is helping keep the radicals in check.

Musharraf is operating a country on a fault line between those who see the U.S.-led war on terrorism as a war against them, and those who view the extremist element in the country as undermining the traditional but moderate practice of Islam, Markey said.

The vast majority of Pakistanis do not fall into either he camp, he added. Varieties of mystical and local Islamic traditions are combined with South Asian culture to produce what many Pakistanis view as their unique brand of Islam.

-- By Quinn Bowman, Online NewsHour