Taliban: A Perfect Islamic Society

On July 16, 1998, the maggot ridden naked corpse of a woman caked with old blood was found in a ravaged back alley of Khairkhana, Kabul in Afghanistan. After hours of investigation, the post mortem revealed that the corpse belonged to a young woman named Shukria, the daughter of Ali Mardan. When she was alive, Shukriya used to take care of her family's tiny tailor shop in addition to raising her four young children. Fifty five days earlier, on her way back from a religious ceremony Shukriya was startled to hear the screeching of brakes as a car spun to a halt in front of her. A gang of about seven Muslim holy warriors of the Taliban, who carried beards the length of which were in exact religious conformance with the Islamic scriptures, grabbed her and dragged her into their car.

The Taliban is comprised of Pakistanis and Afghanis who are considered the true "Mujahideen" or "holy warriors of Allah" because they have established a purely Islamic state which rigidly conforms to the "pious Muslim ideals" which were outlined and set down by the Prophet Mohammed.

The piercing screams of Shukriya as she was gang raped by the holy warriors must have been muffled by the sound of the engine, for not a single passer by dared to protest the crime taking place in front of their eyes. Minutes later as her cries subsided, a thick and dark trail of blood slowly started dripping out of the drivers side door. Suddenly the car veered dangerously and drove off in the distance to an unknown location. No doubt the mangled and violated body of a woman who just minutes ago was the mother of four young children and now a lifeless corpse, must have been unceremoniously dumped by the Mujahideen like yesterday's garbage, only to be found in its festering condition, fifty five days later.

But that's not what's shocking about this incident.

What's truly shocking about it is the fact that Shukriya's story is just one among thousands if not millions such similar stories. Amnesty International, the leading global human rights monitor, in its report on Afghan women declared that:

So desperate is their situation that the majority of women prefer to die by consuming caustic soda or other household poisons. Western aid workers in Afghanistan have reported a dramatic increase in the number of women committing suicide because they can no longer bear the country's stifling Islamic code. The mass phenomenon of Afghani women consuming caustic soda to put themselves out of their misery is shockingly common. The agony of their situation can be gleaned from the fact that consuming caustic soda results in a torturously painful and lingering death. First it burns away the throat, and then slowly the internal organs are burnt. It takes an average of three to four days to suffer out the symptoms which are horribly traumatic.

Many doctors are also reporting the fact that thousands of Afghan women now flock clinics by feigning heart condition. The reason for this drama is to somehow acquire lethal digoxin tablets for the purpose of committing suicide. The increase in female suicide was barely highlighted in last year's United Nations report on Afghanistan. A huge spurt in incidences of women being admitted to mental hospitals with severe depression has become rampant with the Talibanization of Afghanistan. The suicides and mental illnesses are never spoken about in the rigidly fundamentalist Islamic society. International aid agencies have been threatened with dire consequences for daring to say anything about the true situation of women in Afghanistan.

The reason for the utter helplessness of the raped, depressed and abused women of Afghanistan is the Quran. Rape is, if not very difficult, almost impossible to prove because of Islamic law. Prophet Mohammed's divine injunctions of Allah clearly outline through the Quran that a woman's word on rape is not to be taken into account. Proving her innocence is a dauntingly unreachable task. Almost all the rape victims are in fact charged with an adulterous and loose moral character. This is because the Quran clearly says that the testimony of one man is considered as equal to that of two women. This blatant discrimination is amply explained in Quranic Sura 24:1-4. Regarding this issue, the famous Islamic scholar Anwar Shaikh comments:

Many Quranic Surahs exhort torturous punishment for "fornication prone" women. It is primarily due to this inherent disadvantage which weighs down Muslim women, that they fear for their very lives when they are the victim of rape. Instead of having the opportunity to bring the culprit to justice, these women spend the rest of their lives in fear that the deed will be discovered and that the victim herself will have to suffer the punishment for being an adulteress instead of the other way around.

Some of the Quranic Surahs which provide the basis for these type of heinous punishments on women are provided below. These verses have been taken verbatim from the translation of the Quran by the respected Muslim scholar, Abdullah Yusuf Ali:

Here one must note that anybody can point the finger and accuse a woman of "lewdness" meaning illicit sex and all they have to do to seal the woman's horrendous treatment is to get four other witnesses to testify against her. In case of gang rapes, there have even been situations where one of the rapists accuses the woman of "lewdness" and four of the other rapists support this charge with their testimony, in which case by Islamic law, the woman has to suffer the punishment for adultery.

The law for Muslim men who indulge in "lewdness" however is quite different. As long as the men "repent and amend" they are to be let off completely. This is a blatant instance of women being denied the rights that men enjoy in Islam.

The fate of Muslim women has been sealed by this Quranic Surah as it provides Muslim men a clear justification for physical violence against women. The verse is redolent with blatant chauvinism and declares that women should be obedient as slaves to men. What is truly shocking about this Quranic verse is that it clearly implicates that if a man even so much as suspects the fidelity of his wife, he has a right to admonish and physically abuse her by divine approval of Allah! In many cases of rape in Afghanistan, this very verse is used as justification by the victim's husbands to beat and torture her despite her innocence.

This verse clearly illustrates that concubinage and treating non-Muslim women as sexual property is divinely sanctioned by Allah himself in Islam. A non-Muslim woman who is taken captive in war is treated as "Ghanimah" or plunder. The captured Kafir (non-Muslim) women snatched from their husbands can be enjoyed with absolute immunity by the Mujahids (holy warriors of Allah). Not only is it lawful to commit rape on captured women it is in fact a "pure and pious" act which earns the Muslim merit in the eyes of Allah.

Again a clear vindication of Men's superiority over women is being sanctioned by Allah himself in this verse. In effect men have more rights than women in an ideal Islamic society.

The Taliban, in true accordance with Islamic strictures, has forbidden women to work anymore. Considering the skyrocketing rate of widowhood, the women of Afghanistan are left with no choice but to sell their bodies as prostitutes for the sake of a morsel of food. So desperate has the condition of these women become that they force their five to six year old children to beg on the streets. Many of the western aid workers secretly admit that almost half a million of these children are also forced into prostitution to earn tiny amounts of money for their families' subsistence.

If by chance a woman's rape comes to light she is accused of adultery by Islamic law. Most often the punishment for adultery is severe lashing or stoning to death. Over 65% of the Afghani female population is now directly or indirectly involved in prostitution. As prostitution invites the same punishment as adultery, millions of Muslim women carry on their trade in a surreptitious manner. They disguise themselves in rags in order to pass off as beggars. Their clients are usually shopkeepers who have a store room or an attic where they take the woman without any problem. Beggar prostitutes charge about 2 lakh Afghanis which is equal to Rs 250 (Pakistani).

This amount is peanuts considering the cost of living in war tattered Afghanistan, therefore most prostitutes are desperate to find at least three to four clients a day. Most of the prostitutes also become "traveling" types, as they cannot stay in one place for too long, due to fear of detection. The exceptions are those special prostitutes who work in the brothels which have the protection of the Taliban. Hordes of Pakistanis also come from across the border to take advantage of the freely available sexual services.

Even then the situation of Muslim women is far, far better than that of non-Muslim women who are accursed enough to live in Afghanistan. The non-Muslim women and children are treated worse than sewer rats. Considering that Muslim women themselves are being abused so rampantly, one can only imagine how inhumane the treatment meted out to these victims must be. The plight of non-Muslims is unimaginably horrific.

All non-Muslims, including Hindus and Sikhs, living in Afghanistan must abide by the "Ten Commandments'', issued in accordance with the rules of Islamic Sharia. A few pockets in Kabul and Jalalabad, are still inhabited by these unlucky Hindus and Sikhs. The Islamic "Law Ministry" in Kabul has issued ten directives to all non-Muslims, including Hindus and Sikhs, determining their conduct in their daily lives. These orders include such unimaginably discriminatory tenets like the rule that non-Muslims are absolutely not allowed to build any place of worship like temple, church or Gurudwara. Legally, non-Muslims are not entitled to bring any lawsuits against a Muslim at all, regardless of the criminality or culpability of the Muslim! One can only imagine what sort of justice non-Muslim victims of rape and molestation in Afghanistan must receive!

Non-Muslims must follow such incredible rules as displaying a two-meter long yellow cloth atop their house for identification of their status as non believers. The order also bans non-Muslims from living together with Muslims in one house in a direct indication of the untouchability of the non-Muslims. The women of non-Muslim families are prohibited from walking in a street or bazaar without wearing the Islamic "chadar'' to cover them. They cannot wear jewelry made from any metal more precious than iron in a humiliating reminder of their low status. What is most outrageous of all however, is the injunction for non-Muslims to wear dresses which are clearly "different" from those of Muslims. Non-Muslims must wear a MARKED YELLOW OUTFIT in order to ensure identification of their Kafir status from a distance. Non-Muslims CANNOT wear ANY dresses which signify priesthood or other religious denomination.

The status of Kafirs under the Taliban is exactly as Prophet Mohammed had envisioned it. It is in fact in perfect consonance with the suggested treatment of non-Muslims in the Quran. A number of apologists and misled scholars who have been horrified by the Taliban's policies have tried to explain away their practices as "misinterpretations of Islam". The truth however is exactly the opposite. The Taliban of Afghanistan, ably supported by the Islamic purists of Pakistan, is pursuing the establishment of an Islamic society that can be termed as a perfect realization of the Islamic ideals entrenched in the Quran. The Taliban IS the perfect Islamic society. The treatment accorded to women and non-Muslims by the Taliban is exactly as prescribed by the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed. In fact the reign of the Prophet Mohammed was marked by exactly the same type of society.

As Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism raises its ugly head all over the world, its time civilized societies took a long hard look at the Talibanism of Afghanistan, for the situation there foretells exactly what is in store for other countries around the world with a sizable Muslim population.

By refusing to stare the problem in the face, we risk allowing it to become stronger still. If we keep ignoring it, it won't be long before the ability to stop Talibanization in its tracks slips right out of our fingers.