Are the Taliban running an Islamic government, or one that just hates women?
Back in 2021, just nine days after the Taliban had reconquered Kabul and taken control of Afghanistan once again, I wrote a big piece in The New European (paywall) on the global interpretation of sharia or Islamic law. (Click here for a pdf of the piece.)
I was qualified to write on the subject, having done a PhD that examines the philosophical underpinnings of various strands of thought in the Islamicate world, as well as having learnt about and lived within Islamist cultures and countries over the decades. I had also lived and worked in Afghanistan.
The New European article ended as follows: “They [Saudi Arabia] haven’t changed their traditional or preferred school of law but the Saudis are clearly embracing the pragmatism seen in other countries that use Sharia. What this might mean for the Taliban 2.0 is hard to predict. But it’s clear that in 2021, no one, not even Saudi Arabia, applies Sharia in the way the Taliban did in the 1990s.”
The piece specifically mentioned the rights (or lack of) afforded to women in Afghanistan during the country’s first period of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001.
Well, now we’re three years into the Taliban’s second stint in power and the situation of Afghan women is becoming a shameful and tragic world curiosity. It is unique and bizarre, compared to anywhere else on the planet, including countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, where a classical Sharia system is used. The plight of Afghan women is unique in any of the nearly 50 Muslims states that apply Sharia to state laws in some form or the other.
In the third year of their rule in Afghanistan, the Taliban have pretty much erased women. A 114-page manifesto released last month makes the pitifully small reality of Afghan women’s lives, hopes and dreams clear.
- As things stand, Afghan women are not to receive any education beyond the sixth grade.
- They cannot be employed outside the home.
- They cannot be seen in public parks or anywhere else outside the home.
- They cannot travel long-distance without a male relative.
- They cannot leave home without a burqa, which covers them from head to toe.
- Across Afghanistan’s urban centres, advertisements featuring women’s faces have been torn off billboards and all other surfaces.
- Reporters on the ground say the heads of female mannequins in shop windows are erased by aluminium foil.
- And now, the ultimate erasure. Women’s voices must no longer be heard outside the home. The woman’s voice is outlawed in Afghanistan.
The depth, breadth and scale of physical, psychological and mental harm being done to Afghan women is enshrined by the Taliban as “Islamic laws”. A spokesman has said that these Islamic laws “are inherently applicable within its (Afghanistan’s) society”. Quite so, if this were really Islamic law?
Sharia, which was put together some centuries after Prophet Muhammed’s death in 632, is meant to be a moral system that brings order to the world. It was not conceived as an instrument of torture. While its interpretation may, sometimes, have allowed for inequity, even brutality, the practical implementation in nearly 50 Muslim countries shows that it’s not usually employed as a tool to oppress half the population. I.e., women.
So are the Taliban running an Islamic government, or one that just hates women? And shame on China for conferring official recognition on an entity that enshrines gross human rights violations in its policies as well as the day-to-day business of governance.
Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com
