If Sehwan offered a powerful repudiation of the steel-edged versions of Islam that had been imported into Pakistan under General Zia, the tide was turning against it. Extremist seminaries such as the Red Mosque had proliferated since the 1980s, funded by donations from oil-rich Gulf countries. The seminaries were a magnet for the poor, offering children as young as five free food, clothing and a rudimentary education. Students woke at dawn and learned the Qur’an by heart, rocking back and forth for hours on end, parroting an Arabic that few could understand. Sexual abuse, a horrifically common
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