Zia and
Akhtar Abdur Rahman, the leader of ISI, supported the construction of
madrassas, Islamic religious schools, along the border to educate young Afghans, with their number in all of Pakistan increasing from 900 in 1971 to about 33,000 by 1988.
[9][12] Many of these had been financed by patrons from
Saudi Arabia and other
Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
[12] Saudi religious ideology was introduced in these institutions.
[2] Many senior leaders of the Afghanistan Taliban had attended the
Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary in
Akora Khattak in Pakistan, and it supported the Taliban.
[13][14] The seminary was run by
Maulana Sami-ul-Haq of the
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, who is often referred to as the "Father of the Taliban".
[13][15] It blended Islamist politics with the teachings of the conservative
Deobandi movement.
[2]