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It Wasn't Just About Statues
By Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
Minaret of Freedom Institute
07/11/2001
I have been writing articles for IslamOnline for almost one year now. In all that time only one submission of mine was rejected. Three months after IslamOnline published my critique of the Taliban's destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan (Ahmad 2001), an article on the Taliban persecution of Muslims in Afghanistan was rejected on the grounds that the Taliban had been bashed enough. Now that the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan with its concomitant civilian damage has restored Muslim sympathy for the Taliban, perhaps I can be permitted an honest examination of the fact that the Taliban have not only defaced ancient Buddhan statues, but have persecuted flesh and blood human beings, including Muslims.
Since I have criticized unjust elements of U.S. foreign policy in this column in the wake of the terrible suffering Americans suffered at the hands of the September 11 terrorists, fairness demands that since pointing out Afghanistan's suffering from the U.S.'s ill-targeted response to the as-yet unknown planners of that terrorism, it should not exempt one from issuing a frank examination over the unjust aspects of the Taliban's domestic policy.
The Taliban proposal last June that perhaps 2000 Hindus then still in Afghanistan should carry a piece of cloth identifying their status as a minority provoked gasps of recognition of techniques employed by the Nazis to identify "inferior peoples" of their realm. (Of course, there still has been no similarly widespread recognition and contempt as yet of similar Zionist techniques, like assigning Palestinians license plates of a different color.)
The dubious "Islamicity" of such branding seemed to be clear even to the Taliban, despite Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai's characterization of the student-dictators as "naďve and inexperienced" (Constable 2001a). Suhail Shaheen, then spokesman for the Taliban's embassy in Islamabad hastened to deny the reports (Constable 2001a) and asserted that the Hindus are merely being issued, at their own request, identity papers so that they may be excused from wearing beards or attending mosque when questioned by the roving bands of religious enforcers unleashed on the country.
All Muslims, regardless of whether they believe identifying clothing requirements are in keeping with, or at odds with, the duty of Muslim rulers to defend the rights of protected minorities, should recognize that this matter is only the tip of an iceberg. The Taliban accord discriminatory treatment of all who dissent from its interpretation of the
Shari'a (Islamic law), including the Shi'a and those Sunni Muslims who still adhere to the traditional Afghani practice of Islam as opposed to the imported dicta of the Taliban.
The Taliban claim, for example, that their ban on women drivers constitutes enforcement of "Afghani tradition" (Constable 2001a) is an absurdity of colossal proportions. Until now, no country but Saudi Arabia, the erstwhile teachers of the Taliban, banned women drivers. The Taliban have simply adapted the Saudi defense of its ban on women drivers (which appeals to tradition rather than religion), substituting "Afghani tradition" for the words "Saudi tradition."
Use of distinguishing marks on clothing to brand non-Muslims is not part of the Shari'a. One of the few times it was used was by the insane Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (996-1021). He persecuted not only Jews and Christians, but Muslims as well, and his destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher helped to bring about the crusades (Williams 1980).
Hints that the Taliban, like the madman al-Hakim, would not restrict their persecution to non-Muslims were already in evidence when I wrote my original article. Last spring, government security guards armed with automatic weapons entered a
Shi'a shrine where thousands of Muslims had gathered to celebrate the Taliban-banned Persian New Year. Despite the fact that the celebrants had acquiescently omitted animal sacrifice from their observances, the religious police later chased them away (Constable 2001b). Sunnis who dare to observe the Mawlid-an-Nabi (the Birth of the Prophet [SAW]) should expect similar treatment sooner or later.
There is a severe internal contradiction in the Taliban's policy toward religious minorities. On the one hand they profess that the identification of minorities is for their own protection in order to exempt them from
Shari'a laws imposed on Muslims. Yet, if they intend to exempt the Hindus from Muslim law, why did they order Hindu women to veil?
American Muslims have been properly concerned about the image that Taliban policy projects of Muslims and of Islam. When the Taliban were criticized for the destruction of the statues of Bamiyan they scorned the West for caring more about stone than about human beings. Their dilettantish ventures into the development of Islamic jurisprudence demonstrates that they have as little understanding of the human heart as they have of the
Shari'a. One wonders how they might have felt had the Soviets demanded that Muslims in occupied Afghanistan wear green cloth on their clothes?
It has been justly charged that, to a large degree, the problems experienced by the Afghanis are exacerbated, if not actually perpetrated, by foreign intervention. One can agree with this point and still hold that the Afghans themselves must work out the resolution of these problems. Yet, it is incumbent on all Muslims to criticize the interpretation of Islam the Taliban have put forward in order to prevent their actions from undermining the cause of Islam in the rest the world.
Recent developments underscore rather than contradict this point. In any case, Allah (swt) has commanded "O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God even as against yourselves or your parents or your kin and whether it be [against] rich or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts [of your hearts] lest ye swerve and if ye distort [justice] or decline to do justice verily God is well-acquainted with all that ye do." (20:135)
References
Ahmad, Imad-ad-Dean 2001. "The Iconoclasts of Afghanistan,"
IslamOnline (3/12/01)
Constable, Pamela 2001a. "Taliban Diplomat Defends Decrees on Hindus, Women," Washington Post (June 1) A27.
Constable, Pamela 2001b. "Religious Minorities Tread Carefully Under Taliban Rule,"
Washington Post (April 1) A27.
Williams, John Alden 1980, "Islamic History," Encyclopaedia Brittanica: Micropedia (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica) v. 9, 932.
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