They were not allowed to attend classes in campus and their interest was termed as ‘un-Islamic’ but they braved the odds and are now on the verge of getting their degrees.

With the Islami Jamiat Talaba student wing of the hardline Jamaat-e-Islami declaring the holding of music courses in Punjab University as ‘un-Islamic’ and ‘vulgar’, the students had little option but to attend classes in the basement of the Alhamra Arts Council in Lahore.

However, the first batch of MA (Music) students, including two girls, did not give up.

The Jamaat activists, who vowed not to allow the holding of music classes in campus and time and again protested against the launching of the music course, called the varsity's Art and Design Department ‘darul kufr’ or house of sin.

But the Punjab University is not giving up either. It has enrolled the second batch of students, which too is getting used to attending classes in the Arts Council's basement. Shaista Sirajuddin, Dean of the Institute of Arts and Humanities at Punjab University, said, "Equating performing arts to vulgarity reflects a narrow, ignorant and utterly uncultured mindset. Such courses are needed to culture the creative minds of young students".

Two years ago, when the university decided to launch the course, women students carrying the Quran and placards protested outside the Vice Chancellor's office and accused the administration of promoting vulgarity.

The student group warned the university of dire consequences if the musicology department was launched.

The varsity had been toying with the idea of launching the music course for long, but the final push came from the chancellor who wanted to initiate culture-oriented courses as part of President Pervez Musharraf's policy of ‘enlightened moderation’.

And though Punjab University has had a history of backtracking and submitting to retrogressive influences, this time it meant business. Of the 22 students who applied for the course, 10 were selected for the two-year masters' programme.

"The government is imposing secular and un-Islamic values on youth, especially students, by exercising its will through retired generals. The government is promoting obscenity under the banner of enlightened moderation," a Jamaat's student leader said shortly before the launch of the course.

However, this is not the first time music courses have been launched at the university. Music was taught at the varsity till the 1950s when the classes were discontinued.

With the university not offering a bachelor's course, it was difficult to choose students. So the university decided on the next best criteria, selecting students who had either developed an interest in music at an early age or those who simply understood minor complexities of 'sur'.

The faculty comprising practitioners of classical music, including Rustum Fateh Ali Khan, son of popular classical singer Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, Jamshed Chishti, a ghazal singer and a master in Persian literature, keyboard player Irshad Khokhar and tabla player Raza Shaukat, have incorporated folk and sufi music as well as the philosophy and psychology of the subject in the curriculum.