Islamic Fundamentalism And The Subjugation Of Women

Essay, Research Paper

Islamic Fundamentalism and the

Subjugation of Women.

On September 27th, 1996, the extremist militia, the Taliban, seized control of the capital city of Afghanistan, Kabul. Up until that day, women and girls in Afghanistan could go to school, work, and walk freely. Then the Taliban issued decrees banning woman and girls from receiving education, entering the workforce or leaving their homes without a close male relative as an escort, wearing a burqa. The Taliban violently plunged the occupied territories of Afghanistan into a brutal state of gender apartheid in which women and girls have been stripped of their basic human rights. The Taliban claims religious reasoning behind this gender apartheid, using the Muslim faith as their backing, though many critics denounce this logic, saying that The Qur’an condones no such thing. Woman in Afghanistan have become but a shadow of real people. Not only can they no longer enter the workforce or attend school, they cannot choose what they wish to wear, or call to friends in public for fear of being beaten, stoned or killed. The female sex has truly been enslaved by the Taliban, however what rarely comes to light, is that males in Afghanistan have also had strictures of dress and conduct imposed on them. These conditions have roused quite a varied response from the Western World. Western-born Muslims who practice Islam identify with some of the Taliban’s strictures, even wearing the burqa or hajib in Canada. Others who do not know the Muslim faith, are outraged that woman can be subjugated so completely and that the rest of the world can sit back and watch it happen complacently. Human rights atrocities are committed towards women everyday by the Taliban in the name of their religion and their god.

When the Taliban first revealed themselves to the general public, they gave the world the impression that they had come to rid Afghanistan of its problems. At first, all recognized the Taliban as a legitimate Afghan force that had bright ideals of ridding Afghanistan of disorder and

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crime. However, as time passed, the true nature of the Taliban was revealed. Soon, the Taliban became known as a militia that used a mixture of false Islam, Opium, and foreign money. Members of the Taliban claim to be students of Islam, and their only desire is to see Afghanistan come under Islamic rule. Their movement began in September of 1994, in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. At that time, they say Kandahar was plagued by groups that robbed, killed, and raped the populace. One man by the name of Mullah Mohammad Omar wanted to end these reprehensible acts, and so founded the Taliban as a means to combat it. Today, the Taliban is something perverted from that original dream. Their leaders have gone as far as to lay allegations that the government led by President Rabbani was illegitimate and unislamic, therefore blasphemy. They even branded the famous Mujahideen Commander Ahmad Shah Masood a criminal. Wherever the Taliban conquered, destruction and oppression has followed. Author Asta Olesen summed up the Taliban’s activities saying that many thousands of people had died, and anarchy had reigned because of the Taliban’s imposition of excesses against the female gender as well as the rest of the civil population (295). So far, they have destroyed historic artwork in Herat, burned villages, committed atrocities against the Shias of Afghanistan, closed schools for girls, banned women from work, started an opium boom, and oppressed men not belonging to their group. In Kabul, they even gathered up hundreds of young men to use as human mine shields. The Taliban may have begun as a movement to reform human rights atrocities, but has instead descended into a group who generates its own human rights violations.

The religion of Islam teaches that men and women are equal in the sight of their god. The Muslim faith also tells us that “individuals should not be judged according to gender, beauty, wealth or privilege” (Mustafa 480). The Taliban believes that woman belong in seclusion in the home, where no man may see them and lust after them. They believe that God has dictated they should remain secluded to gain religious enlightenment. The Taliban Governor of Herat was quoted by Peter Marsden as saying: “It is a matter of pride for all Afghanistan that we have kept our women at home…no other country gives women the rights we have given them…[they] have the rights that God and his messenger have instructed, that is to stay in their homes and gain

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religious instruction in seclusion” (98). Critics of the Taliban however refute the idea that the Qur’an supports such ideals. The representative of the Jamaat-i-Islami political party gave the viewpoint of his party by saying that contrary to what the Taliban believes, the Muslim faith demand that women be educated, and that they ought to be allowed to work provided they observe the Islamic norms of dress and conduct (Marsden 99). The role of women in the Muslim faith changes according to what political party is in question. The Taliban believes that women should be out of sight as much as possible, and when it is necessary that they be in public, that they be shrouded completely. According to the Taliban, women should exist only as shadows, never speaking, rarely seen. Other less fundament groups who follow the Muslim faith sa