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Nosheen Khan is a sophomore in college majoring in philosophy and healthcare administration at a community college.She is an ambitious young women who wishes to be a part of something which will make our planet a better place. She enjoys reading, writing, shopping, watching movies, TV and listening to music in her spare time.She has high yet very realistic expectations from her life and her future. She hopes to see this world become a better place of each day she lives.

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Being a girl and most importantly a young growing Muslim girl still trying to figure out my religion, I have a very high interest in the relationship between the Taliban and the Women in Afghanistan. People all around the world are being oppressed by groups of people, because they feel they are somehow superior to them and many of these issues around the world, in the past and present, are somehow intertwined with religion in some sense. The women of Afghanistan and the Taliban share a very close relationship with each other. They share the relationship of one being the oppressor and the other being the oppressed. In this case the Taliban is the oppressor and the women in Afghanistan are the oppressed ones.

Taliban claims that it is a group of Fundamental Muslims who integrate Islam in their daily lives. They claim they follow what is said in the Quran, Holy book of Islam, and the Hadiths, narration of Prophet Muhammad’s way of living life. They are known to be extremists by many Muslims as well as many other people of different religion, race and ethnicity. The question of why the Taliban is taking away the rights of women and oppressing them is important to study because we need to understand the reason and logic behind the thinking of Taliban which seems to be very different from that of Islam in regards of women. My interest is to write about why is it that the Taliban says to be fundamental Muslims but in regards to women they are oppressing them and taking away their rights. In this paper with my research and resources I plan on proving that after all religion may only be a legitimization technique by the Taliban but the real reason behind the oppression of women may be the need for a male dominant society because clearly the actions of Taliban seem to be always going against women and are very contradictory to the fundamental believes of Islam which the Taliban claims to be following.

“If any do deeds of righteousness-be they male or female and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the least injustice will be done to them” (4:124).Many Muslims, non Muslims, cultures and ethnic groups have misconceptions about Women in Islam. Many people including religious Muslim people believe that Men are somehow superior to women and men are superior in the eyes of Allah. But in the Quran Allah says “For Muslim men and women- For believing men and women. For devoted men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah praise- for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward” (33:35). Allah holds a man and woman equal in his eyes and treats them both equally as to what they do in their lives. Both have the same rewards and punishments for the right and wrong doing they commit but many people don’t understand that. The Taliban seems to be caught in between these misconceptions as well as the misconceptions which were passed down to generations from the Judo-Christian ethic and later adopted by many Muslims. The Judo-Christian ethic “views women as the source of human tragedy because of her alleged biblical role as the temptress who seduced Adam into disobedience to his Lord. By tempting her husband to eat the forbidden fruit, she not only defied Allah, but also caused humankind's expulsion from Paradise, thus instigating all temporal human suffering” . These misconceptions have come down from older traditions, cultures and religions and are also the results of misinterpretation of Hadiths and Quran and because of these negative ideas being spread through societies it has led to the mistreatment of women by the Taliban despite the fact that Islam has given women a very high status honoring them.

"Paradise is at the feet of mothers” is a famous saying by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). By making a statement where the Prophet gave mothers feet, the body part which is on the floor and touching the ground and dirt, the importance of as if the paradise is underneath those feet is putting a mother, a woman, at a very high position because Paradise is where all Muslim ultimately wish to be. An incident which took place in Prophet Muhammad’s life was when a man asked “O Messenger of God, who among the people is the most worthy of my good company? The Prophet (P) said, Your mother. The man said then who else: The Prophet (P) said, Your mother. The man asked, Then who else? Only then did the Prophet (P) say, Your father” . According to the Quran and many Hadiths a mother is given a very high position in the life of every single person in the world. A mother is considered to be the highest of the people in the world. Other then the motherly aspect of a woman the Quran and Hadiths say that a woman should be treated with respect and dignity. It is a saying by the Prophet Muhammad that goes “It is the generous (in character) who is good to women, and it is the wicked who insults them.” The Quran in regards of Women says “for women you feel are averse, talk to them persuasively; then leave them alone in bed (without molesting them) and go to bed with them (when they are willing). If they open out to you, do not seek an excuse for blaming them. Surely God is sublime and great” (4:34). This particular text is addressed to husbands and they are asked to take care of their wives and treat them with respect and love. The mother, wife and daughter in Islam are given a very special and high position and are believed to be "rehmat" or the bringer of fortune and joy in the form of a daughter. And she is a wife; companion to man in all his social, physical and economic endeavors. In Islam women are given a set of rights which no one can take away from them. The basic rights which Islam guarantees women to be entitled to are the right and duty to obtain education, the right to have their own independent property, the right to work to earn money if they need it or want it, equality of reward for equal deeds, the right to express their opinion and be heard the right to provisions from the husband for all her needs and more, the right to negotiate marriage terms of her choice, the right to keep all her own money (she is not responsible to maintain any relations), the right to get sexual satisfaction from her husband, custody of their children after divorce and to refuse any marriage that does not please them . These are the basic rights which Allah has given to the Women in the Quran and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has set many examples of giving women these rights and respecting them. Despite these rights being entitled to the women in the Quran and in Hadiths the Taliban is abusing the rights of these women and suppressing their voices and their existence.

Prophet Muhammad said, "Whoever follows a way to seek knowledge, Allah will make easy for him a way to paradise" . This is just one of the sayings of the Prophet but there are many more sayings and verses from the Quran which encourages all Muslims, both men and women, to expand their horizons and to educate themselves to have a better life and make their society a better place. Even though the emphasis on education and gaining knowledge has been made in multiple different places in the Quran and in the history by the Prophets the Taliban seems to be doing the opposite of what has been said in the Quran and the Hadiths. The Taliban is stopping women from getting an education and going to schools. The lives of girls who try to go to schools are being threatened and harmed. Girls who attempt to go to school have to face consequences which ruin their lives and women who try to educate their daughters or other girls have allegations upon them and punishments which are very severe. One of the many tragic incidents, which happens to girls who try to go to schools and educate themselves so they can get ahead in life and make something of it, was when a group of teenage girls were walking to school in Kandahar, Afghanistan. These girls were peacefully walking and discussing about school when two men on a motorcycle sprayed the faces of the girls with battery acid leaving two girls permanently disfigured and one girl blind . The girls and their families both live in fear of either being killed or having horrible and painful kind of torture inflicted upon them if they dare to step outside and go to a school, college or university to learn and follow what the Quran and Prophet Muhammad said, follow what Islam really teaches them.

Mothers fear that their children will be illiterate and not get an education under the Taliban rule and this will have a deep effect on Afghanistan. A woman who did not wish to be identified commented saying “I wanted my children to be educated, to help their society, their people, and their family. I don't want them to be illiterate and stay at home” .Families have concerns that banning education is not doing any good to the human kind neither is it helping the religion itself and is going against the teachings of Islam. Imam Yahya Hendi, on the council of American Islamic religion, explains that In the Qur'an, women have to learn, have to study, have to acquire knowledge, and have to interact. The Qur'an teaches that the Prophet said this and believed in it, and this is how the Prophet himself lived Islam and a life where Islam was integrated within . Other then education the Taliban is taking away the right of a woman to choose the man she wishes to marry and the treatment she deserves in her marriage and as a woman.

The rights of women to have a marriage of their choice and the right to be treated with respect, dignity and humanity are being taken away by the Taliban. Roshon Gul, a mother, married her oldest daughter, Bibi Aisha, to a Taliban official. One day Gul received the body of her daughter and “What she didn’t expect was the mark of a branding iron” and as she undressed her daughter’s body for burial she “found the wound seared into the soft flesh of Bibi Aisha’s stomach” . Gul then figured out that Aktyar, the husband of Bibi Aisha and Taliban commander, regarded her daughter just like “property” . Allah in the Quran says “Among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): Verily in that are Signs for those who reflect” (30:21). This verse is central because it defines the relationship between the husband and the wife.

Their relation is not just sexual, but also it involves love, mutual care, consideration and respect. But clearly the men of Taliban seem to be forgetting this and forcing themselves upon their women sexually and treating them as if they are animals. They inflict pain upon their wives and beat them and harm them to the point where they die or are so miserable that they have no desire to live. According to an article in the New York Times, “The Taliban came to Kabul as conquerors, but also as men, with men's need. They took brides sometimes by force, but more often with cash” . The Taliban bribed families, desperate for money, or scared the girls and their families that they will face consequences if they did not allow them to marry their daughters. The families because of the greed for money forced their daughters to get married to the Taliban and if the families did not agree to marry their daughters to the Taliban they took girls by force and married them. Even after marrying them without their consent it’s not as if the Taliban, who calls themselves fundamental Muslims, treats these women with respect they instead beat them and dislike the kids if they are daughters. The girls have no one to turn to if they don’t wish to marry the man or when they are being beaten and raped by their own husband. In the case of eighteen year old girl Rosina she was married to a man in his fifties and would beat her. She fled home and refused to go back to his house and when she refused to go back “"[Her] father and brother beat [her] badly with sticks” . If the girls rejected a proposal from the Taliban or tried to run away from their abusive marriage they were sent to time in prison. The Taliban and other men, who have grown stronger because of the practice of mistreating women, impose false allegations upon women. Allegations for committing adultery, illegal sex or jealous husbands, other relatives whom the women or girls refused to get married to or give their daughter too would lie and put these females behind the bars and had to serve a certain amount of years in prison (The Mirror). The Quran asks evidence for if someone committed adultery, murder or a matter of fact any crime. The Quran says “those who accuse honorable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them (with) eighty stripes and never (afterward) accept their testimony - They indeed are evil-doers” (24:4). There has to be evidence in order for somebody to be sentenced to a punishment and be proven guilty. Recently the president of Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai, passed the Shia Personal Status Law which made the Taliban proud because the Law consists of many provisions which are extremely offensive to women. One of the provisions in the law gives the custody rights to only and exclusively to fathers and grandfathers even though the Quran gives women the right of custody of their children after divorce. The article originally also had a provision which stated that “gave a man the right to have sex with his wife once every four nights” but after many protest by women this particular provision was excluded from the Law . Rape according to the Quran is looked upon as disgusting act and an unforgivable act unless someone repents. The Quran strongly forbids relationship outside marriage and says “You shall maintain CHASTITY, not committing adultery, nor taking secret lovers. Anyone who rejects faith, all his work will be in vain, and in the Hereafter he will be with the losers” (5:5) so if any sexual relationship between a man and woman are not allowed then how is it that Taliban does not offer any punishment for those who rape innocent children and strip women of their identity. Even though Quran refers to rape as a very perverted and disgusting act the so called fundamental Muslims only impose on the man who either rapes a ill women or rapes a child a final compensation but do not have any reference to criminal Punishment . The women of Afghanistan are not treated like humans and neither are they treated with respect even though the Quran clearly says in many verses in that a woman should be treated with the upmost respect and not be bothered or harmed. The Taliban suppresses women and does not allow them to work under any circumstances.

Many Women lost their husbands in war or if they were married to a Taliban official their husbands either left them or got married again and had second wives. These kinds of situations left the women to be the only bread earner of the family and support their family because either their husbands passed away or in the case of Taliban husbands they didn’t support them or left them, not divorce them, and got married to other women. This left the women of Afghan with absolutely no support and the Taliban rules not allowing women to work and ask them to stay home led to even more serious issues because if these women were not allowed to work where would they get the money to support their families? The women were not allowed to go out of their homes unaccompanied and could not go out to work even if it was as a cook or cleaner . The Quran allows a women to work if she wishes to and under circumstances where she absolutely needs to work there are no restrictions accept that she needs to be careful about her modesty and work where she would be treated with respect. If these requirements are met then the women can freely work and it should not be looked down upon. Now the question comes up if the Quran allows women to work if they are in the need of money or for a reason as simple as that they wish to work then why does the Taliban oppress the women and take their right away from them? In September of 2008 two Taliban gunmen shot the highest ranking police officer, Malalai Kakar, 41. She wasn’t a big threat to the Taliban but the biggest problem was that she was a working women and because she had been for many years an advocate of the rights of Women . She was everything which the Taliban did not want a woman to be. She stood up for her rights as well for many oppressed women who were too scared to stand up for their rights. The Taliban oppresses these women and does not allow them to work because allowing them to work makes them stronger and makes their existence a reality. The acts of oppression being committed against the women are the shout for male domination.

The misconception and the misinterpretation from the past made its way through cultures and societies and integrated themselves within the society and cultures. This integration process also occurred in Afghanistan and in its culture. The men who were are and will become a part of the Taliban in the future have hatred, dislike and mistrust for women in their hearts, in other words misogyny. Misogyny in the hearts of the Taliban affects the women of Afghanistan on a very huge scale because the men dominate their women socially, intellectually, psychologically and sexually. Under the Taliban you are considered very low unless you dominate your women in your home only then you are considered to be strong and powerful. The men turn to their women and mock, pummel or stab them because that is what gives them a sense of mental satisfaction and this is the only way how the men can be looked upon as dominating and powerful figures in society . Cole in “The Taliban, women, and the Hegelian private sphere” argues that the radical fundamentalism in any religion challenges the emergence of a reasoned public sphere. The Public sphere is a position of power and status in the society. So in the case of the Taliban and Afghanistan, the power of Taliban men is "public, not in the sense of a sphere of society but in that of a status position favoring forms of authoritarian rule, patriarchy, and religious control”.

According to Cole the Taliban, radical and fundamentalist Muslims, look at women as subjective and private and therefore they exclude the women from the public eyes. The Taliban feared that if Women were getting an education, working in a mixed sex office and working will allow the women to be a part of the public sphere giving them status and position. This fear in the hearts and minds of Taliban led to the oppression of women and dragging them to the point where they almost became invisible as if they or their voices never existed. Even after the fall of the Taliban the oppression against women continued to be in its place and progressing. It is not progressing as fast as it was under the Taliban rule and neither is it so harsh upon the women but the mentality and the actions taken by the men of Afghanistan is still somewhat the same. According to Berger’s approach the practices and the mentality of the Taliban still exists even after its downfall because the practices, rules and beliefs of the Taliban have become internalized in the society and has become a natural way of life in the men of Afghanistan. The Taliban took religion and used it as a legitimating technique and through externalization the Taliban was successful in leading an entire society to follows on its footsteps, follow their beliefs of men being superior to men, practices of oppressing women, and carries on their meaning and symbols as the time passes by of the superiority of men and cutting out women from the public life and keeping their voices crushed under the voices of men themselves. According to Berger as the Taliban was in power and slowly the practices and beliefs became an objective reality to the people of Afghanistan and internalizing it into the society so deep that it has now become a way of life for them.

The Taliban used religion to justify their practices and the oppression of women but the evidence provided from the Quran and the Hadiths is proof that the practices and beliefs of the Taliban were wrong and illegitimate. Instead the Taliban used religion to cover up for its need for a male dominant society by keeping the women out of the public sphere, according to Cole. The use of religion allowed the Taliban to take the beliefs and make them acceptable and turn them into practices which would then become something normal for the society in Afghanistan. He would also look at the matter as legitimating their actions using religion to cover up for other motives behind their actions. The legitimization as Berger looks at it, was a very smart and intelligent move by the Taliban because it allowed the Taliban to reinforce social institutions and the plausibility structures to uphold the superiority of men and the practices which were degrading and oppressed the women of Afghanistan so they would be erased from the society and their voice to never be heard in public or in their private lives trapped inside their homes.

• 2010 Spring
• Argument/Opinion