The
Taliban: Believers or Enemies?
by Aisha Harris
Aisha Harris is a Barrister and Senior Crown Prosecutor
at the Norfolk Criminal Courts. She is also the Assistant Secretary of the West
Norfolk Islamic Association, King’s Lynn, England.
In
September 1996, the Taliban took control of Kabul and a large portion of
Afghanistan. They immediately sent women back to their homes, closed all
educational establishments for women, banned them from working, ejected them
(old, sick and infirm) from hospitals, and forced them to be covered from head
to foot when outside the home. At any moment, if not already in place, women
will also need the written consent of the nearest male relative to travel
anywhere. This revolution has the stamp of those other repressive regimes all
over it - Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria. It is what ... the Muslim
Brotherhood, and all other organizations of a like nature want - the complete
subjugation of women and the complete denial not only of their human rights,
but their rights as women of Islam given to them by the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.a.w) 1400 years ago.
From
all the usual Human Rights orientated Western Governments has come what? A deafening silence. Where are the modern Islamic writers
ready to condemn, the Western (and Muslim) feminist writers banging the drums
for women's rights, the United Nations? The total silence merely confirms this
thought - that a human right is what the local dictator says it is going to be!
In
every upheaval throughout history, women and female children are the first to
suffer. In any war, women are seen as fair game by men, there to be raped,
tortured and humiliated for male gratification. Has anyone stopped to think how
sick and perverted such an attitude is - how it makes the perpetrators "non-men,"
and tarnishes all decent, loving men?
In
Pakistan, women are routinely raped by anyone who has a grudge against their
families, and the humiliation of their women-folk strikes at the honor of that
family. Women who have been raped are punished, flogged, and imprisoned.
Despite the fact that there was a female prime minister, the men got off
scot-free. Often the women are then killed by their own families, because of
their dishonor.
In Iran, after the Ayatollah Khomeni's revolution, more than 20,000 young virgin girls
of the opposition were raped by their prison guards before they were executed,
in order to prevent them going to Paradise! What perverted view
of the Prophet's teachings was responsible for that decision? This is not
Islam, neither is what the Taliban are doing. This is about power, and the
misuse of such power to subjugate half of a population.
The
Prophet Muhammad (s.a.a.w) said it was the duty of
every Muslim, male and female, to be educated. He did not say females could
only learn to read the Qur’an, and then stop at the age of eight years. The
Qur’an tells women: "Draw your head coverings across your necks and
bosoms." There is nothing about covering from head to foot. The chador
and veil originate from pre-Islamic Persia, and was a sign of the status of
upper class women. Slave girls did not cover themselves in this way, neither did any other female servant. Indeed, in the Hajj,
no woman is permitted to wear any sort of veil.
As
Islam expanded, the veil / chador was absorbed as part of the culture.
However, it is not, and never has been, part of the Islamic teaching. Clothing
of both men and women is meant to be modest and loose fitting, so that the
detailed outlines of the body are not on show. How often though, do we hear of
men being told to dress modestly and Islamically
(they have to be covered from waist to knee in loose garments), yet they are
seen in very tight jeans and trousers. This is un-Islamic, but they are more
concerned that women should dress to the standards men set.
Only
the wives of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.a.w) were
secluded, and that happened later on in the Prophet’s life to symbolize their
special place in Islam. His first wife Khadijah never veiled, and was never
secluded. She ran an import and export company sending caravans across the
East, employed men including the Prophet, and managed the finances. Seclusion
was never intended for any other women, which is made quite clear in the Qur'an
and the Hadith - women did work in the Prophet's time. They went into battle
and some fought alongside the Prophet, others were battlefield nurses, skilled
in the patching up of wounds and the use of herbal remedies. Yet others ran
their own businesses, such as leather-making. Contrast this with women under
the Taliban’s rule, who are denied vital medical treatment. If they do not want
women to be seen by strange men, then the answer is women doctors and surgeons
and all female clinics and hospitals, not preventing women from receiving
treatment, and thus further denying them a basic human right.
In
the Prophet's time and indeed in moderate forward thinking Muslim countries
today, women are respected and honored. To turn a sick woman out of her
hospital bed is against all the teachings of Islam, which again and again
requires believers to show compassion to those who are sick in any way. Mothers
particularly are revered In Islam. The Prophet Muhammad (s.a.a.w)
said that paradise lies at the feet of mothers, and upon being asked by a new
male Muslim to whom he should show respect, the Prophet replied: "First
your mother, second your mother, third your mother, and fourth your
father." Where is that respect now in Afghanistan and elsewhere?
Female
children are looked upon as second best, and Muslim women have been punished
for producing girl children; the husband forgetting that it is the male who
decides the sex and not the female. Girl children were frequently taken out and
abandoned to die at birth, a practice condemned by the Prophet 1400 years ago,
although it still goes on in less enlightened countries. Men forget that
without women, they would not be here. Every child needs a human womb in which
to grow. The Prophet himself had daughters (his male children dying in
infancy), and he loved them dearly, particularly his beloved Fatimah, about
whom he said: "Whoever hurts her, hurts me."
Do
the Taliban and all the other regimes dedicated to the oppression of women put
themselves above the teaching of the Prophet, and God's Holy Book, the Qur’an?
It would seem so. They are the unbelievers, the un-Islamic, the oppressors, and
the blasphemers. The Shari`ah law is also a
compassionate law, in that for any offence it prescribes no less than four
witnesses, who are unbiased and of good standing, and who have no axe to grind.
Offenders are to be given the opportunity to repent their crimes, before any
punishment takes place. Only as a last resort is the full penalty exacted. The
Taliban and those regimes like them should read what the Shari`ah
says and act upon it correctly, not superimpose their own interpretation. The
level of ignorance of Islam displayed by these people is overwhelming.
Editorial: "Not everyone keeps silent. We in the
UIA and "The Message" have, for decades, been campaigning vigorously
for the restoration of females’ Islamic rights. So have others, including
Muslim feminists, in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, we are in the
minority, and what we have to say does not make the news."
"The statistics on Iran were taken by the writer
from the book "Price of Honor," by Jan Goodwin, which quoted from an
Amnesty International Report in 1986. Some of the other facts were taken from
"Nine Parts of Desire," by Geraldine Brooks – Editor."
[Webmaster's
note: We were unable to independently confirm the statistics cited in
this article. However, we feel that the overall essence of the message should
be heard.]
Posted November 6, 1998. This article was
printed in the April-June 1998 issue of "The Message," a United
Islamic Association (UIA) publication, London, England.