Her bespectacled face hidden behind a black veil, Farhat Hashmi’s voice is measured and confident as she mixes motherly advice about diet and child-rearing with solemn guidance about how to be a proper Muslim.
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Tashfeen Malik studied pharmacy at Bahauddin Zakariya University, in Multan, from 2007 to 2012.
That university has come into the spotlight in recent days as one of the few known way points for Tashfeen Malik, the Pakistani-born woman who along with her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, took up assault rifles and, police say, killed 14 people last week in San Bernardino, California.
“You have people who are conservative in all faiths”, said Imran Haq, the institute’s operations manager.
“Nothing that happens in the classroom explains the actions of this woman [Malik] but it can predispose people” to violence, Mushtaq said.
One of Malik’s former classmates at the Bahauddin Zakariya University said she drastically changed during her time there.
As the details about Malik’s connection to the Pakistani school emerged, the Canadian branch of the Al Huda network also defended its teachings, which it said did not preach extremism.
Malik spent more than a year at Al-Huda, taking classes six days a week, the school’s spokeswoman Farrukh Chaudhry told The Associated Press.
Malik was from the province of Punjab but had lived with her family in Saudi Arabia before returning to Pakistan to attend school. Her critics have said she promotes an oppressive form of Islam.
The Al-Huda Institute reportedly appeals to women in the middle and upper classes. She asked many questions in class about religion and at times debated religious matters with teachers and classmates.
“According to our records, this girl didn’t complete the course”, Chaudhry said, speaking over the phone from the southern port city of Karachi where she is based. On evenings and weekends, the school offers adult classes.
Siddique said Malik mostly hung out with female colleagues.
This likely began with her upbringing in Saudi Arabia, continued during her time as a student in Pakistan and culminated with her swearing allegiance to the Islamic State group shortly before embarking on her killing spree. And though conservative Muslims were not unusual there, Malik developed a reputation as someone who purposefully avoided making friends with men and who was deeply rooted in her Saudi upbringing.
The region where the school is located, however, is home to thousands of extremist seminaries, with hundreds linked to al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban. “It was not empowering except in the sense that it was a legitimate way for women to get out of the house and feel like they were part of a larger community through a religious activity instead of a coffee or tea party”.
The statement from Al-Huda, released following the attacks in San Bernardino, underlines that the center publishes their sermons and lectures online. “We are very clear that terrorism is against Islamic teachings … and we emphasize that it is both a civic and religious duty to help keep Canada, and the world, safe from violent extremist ideologies”. “The message is basically that America is the source of the trouble”. The group also has offices in India, Britain and Hurst, Texas, outside of Dallas.
Three professors at the university where Malik studied told Reuters they had been instructed by security forces not to speak to reporters.
“It is in this context that their beliefs have the potential to become dehumanizing, unsafe and harmful for others”, Ahmad said. “At this stage, Tashfeen’s training is all leading back to Pakistan”.
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“For me it is surprising because organisations like Al-Huda are against violence and are quite rational in their social view”, he said.
