Dhaka, Bangladesh - Bangladesh's madrasas have no links with militants blamed for a spate of bombings, said the head of one of the best-known Islamic schools in the country, adding that arrests of teachers and scholars was persecution.
But Moulana Shah Ahmadullah Ashraf also told Reuters on Wednesday that he thought suicide bombers in Iraq were "heroes."
Police have arrested more than 250 people for the August 17 blasts across Bangladesh, which killed two people and injured about 100. Authorities say those arrested include many teachers and students from Islamic schools, or madrasas.
"Our students have never been involved in any extremist or terror activities," said Ahmadullah, head of the Jamiya Nuriya Islamia madrasa at Kamrangirchar, near Dhaka.
"We produce Islamic scholars, but not bombers, because killing of innocent people is forbidden in Islam," he said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the 500 or so almost simultaneous blasts last month, but copies of a leaflet found at most bomb sites carried a call by a banned Islamic militant group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, for the introduction of Islamic rule in Bangladesh, a Muslim democracy.
"We have no links, nor do we support bombing and killing of innocent people as this is against the teachings of Islam and its Prophet Mohammad," said Ahmadullah, adding the government was persecuting and harassing Islamic scholars and students.
Police believe some militants involved in the bombings have come from privately run orthodox religious schools, known as Qaumi madrasas, like the Jamiya Nuriya.
"It is a wrong conception that Qaumi madrasas run training centers for Islamic militants, but definitely we train believers to keep their hearts and souls ready for any sacrifice for the religion of Islam," Ahmadullah said. "But Islam has a strong stance against violence and terrorism."
But he added: "Islamic militants who are fighting and even detonating suicide bombs in occupied countries like Iraq are dedicated heroes of Islam."
Suicide bombers have killed thousands of people in Iraq. In one of the most devastating attacks, a suicide bomber lured a crowd of day laborers to his minivan in Baghdad on Wednesday and blew it up, killing 114 people.
Another suicide attack in Baghdad on Tuesday killed 15 people.
Madrasas, particularly those in Pakistan, have come into focus in the West after the July bombings on London's Underground.
Three of the four bombers were young British Muslims of Pakistani descent, and officials say one of them spent two months in
Afghanistan last year and four months in Pakistan at an Islamic school.
Bangladesh has about 15,000 Qaumi and 9,000 Aliya (government registered) madrasas with a total of more than six million students. The number of madrasas grew by more than 22 percent in past five years.