By A. Faizur Rahman
The passage of a law in Afghanistan asking Muslim women to unconditionally submit to the sexual whims of their husbands once in four days is a shocking piece of legislation that seeks to dehumanise women reducing them to mere chattels devoid of human rights. Although this law applies only to the Shia minority, it is outrageous that the Afghan mullahs thought it Islamic to legislate on a private relationship which is confined to the four walls of a bedroom. To add insult to injury the 300 women who were bold enough to protest against this inhuman law were pelted with stones and called “dogs” and “slaves of the Christians.” One fails to understand why motives should be attributed to a democratic protest. How can the moderate Muslims who have always been part of the larger Muslim society suddenly become agents of the West “which is out to destroy Islam?” The truth is that it is the bigoted Talibanised Muslims who are destroying Islam through their misinterpretations and intolerance for progressive ideas. It is they who need to be treated for their fossilized mind-set.
It is strange the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai, which was installed by the US and its allies to replace the Taliban, is doing exactly what the Taliban would have done if they were in power. If this was what was in store for Afghanistan why were the Taliban replaced at all? In fact, the entire region seems to be relapsing into medievalism with Pakistan signing a deal with the terrorists of the Swat valley to implement their version of the shariah which is symbolized by the brutal and arbitrary public flogging of an young girl without establishing her guilt in a proper court of law, to say nothing about the recent refusal of a Saudi judge to annul the marriage of an eight year old child to a forty seven year old man.
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