Sunni scholars who left Afghanistan hope Islam’s tolerant message survives Taliban

CAIRO, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Clerics from Egypt’s ancient seat of Sunni study Al-Azhar, who spent years teaching in Afghanistan and were planning to open an education centre for girls, hope their tolerant message of Islam will survive the return of the Taliban.

The 1,000 year-old institution had opened a mission in Kabul in 2007, promoting what its clerics describe as Islam’s peaceful tradition in a country where guerrillas have used religion as a justification for fighting for decades.

The 23-person mission was repatriated to Egypt after being briefly stranded in Kabul when the Taliban swept into the Afghan capital last month.

“There must be a presence for Al-Azhar in the country of Afghanistan, in order for us to communicate with the Afghan people and youth, to spread Islam’s tolerant message,” Shawki Abuzeid, the 58-year-old head of the mission said in an interview in Cairo.

Al-Azhar hosted 700 male Afghan students in Kabul, and over the years thousands have gone on to further religious and Arabic language studies at Al-Azhar university in Cairo. The mission also gave lectures and sermons, and contributed commentary in Afghan media.

It had been preparing to open a newly-built education centre for girls. Abuzeid expressed hope that the Taliban would fulfil a promise to let girls and women study.

“The Taliban are from the fabric of the Afghan people, and as I heard from the media and from our contacts with professors and heads of universities and some important figures, the thinking changed and they value women, and they said they will educate them but in a way compatible with Islamic law.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM REUTERS

Afghanistan: Christians Call For Help As New Reports Of Persecution Surface

(ICC) — According to Mission Network News, Christians in Afghanistan are calling out for prayer and asking Christians around the world to advocate on their behalf. This call to action comes as new reports of persecution surface for Afghan Christians trying to escape the country.

Following the withdrawal of the United States and NATO allies, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in a stunning collapse of the country last week. Fear and uncertainty surround the future of Afghanistan under Taliban rule and many minorities, including Christians, fear the imposition of the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Sharia law.

Since the U.S. announced its intention to withdraw from Afghanistan on April 13, the Taliban quickly took control of the country. Last week, Taliban forces entered Kabul, effectively asserting complete control of Afghanistan.

In a document prepared for the United Nations by the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, the group warned the Taliban was targeting “collaborators” despite promising there would be “no revenge”.

“There are a high number of individuals currently being targeted by the Taliban and the threat is crystal clear,” Christian Nellemann, who heads the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, told the BBC last week. “It is in writing that, unless they give themselves in, the Taliban will arrest and prosecute, interrogate and punish family members on behalf of those individuals.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM EUROASIA REVIEW

Muslims pray for Taliban forbearance

The withdrawal of our troops was the right thing to do, as Afghans must decide their own future. 

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban negotiator who was released by Pakistan at President Trump’s request, said in his first statement that the real test will begin now: meeting the expectations of the people and serving them by solving their problems. 

This is the key point that we hope and pray all parties, first and foremost the Taliban, take to heart and prove with actions. 

 The Quran enjoins believers to “stand out firmly against injustice, even as against yourselves” (4:135), and “let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from being just” (5:8) 

More:Who provided Afghanistan intel?

These are principles that, centuries prior, created a society where rich and poor, friend and foe, man and woman, Muslim and non-muslim, ruler and ruled, were treated justly and fairly. When the Prophet Mohammed returned to Mecca victorious after years of oppression and persecution by the Meccans, he said to them: “On this day, there is no blame on you. Go. You are free.” Among the individuals who he explicitly forgave was Hind, a woman who hired an assassin to kill the Prophet’s Uncle. Prophet Mohammed forgave her and let her go free with no revenge or punishment. This is how the Taliban can, and must start the process and maintain throughout. Serve the people, solve their problems and do not oppress them. 

FULL ARTICLE FROM PALMBEACHPOST.COM

Taliban vows to ensure women’s rights under Islamic law. What does that mean?

n his first news conference after the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul, the group’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said repeatedly that the group would respect women’s rights, “within the framework of Islamic law.”

What does that mean?

Islamic or Sharia law is based on the Muslim holy book, the Quran, and on rulings by Islamic scholars around the world. It acts as a code of conduct in all areas of life for Muslims, governing everything from business to daily routines and personal beliefs and practices.

But it is interpreted in a wide variety of ways — there is no single, agreed upon code of Sharia law.

The interpretations range from that used by ISIS to justify the horrors of their brutal Califate, to modern Islamic feminists, who see Sharia as a system that ensures equality for all.

Taliban leaders have suggested that they’ll impose a less harsh version of Sharia law on Afghanistan now than they did when they were last in power, from 1996-2001.

A group of women hold a street protest calling on the Taliban to protect their rights, in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 17, 2021.SHAMSHAD NEWS/VIA REUTERS

During those five years of rule, the group was condemned internationally for enforcing a medieval version of Islamic law, which included punishments such as public hangings, whippings and stonings.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CBS NEWS

Caritas: ‘Wait and See’ How Taliban Affects Humanitarian Work in Afghanistan

Women in Kabul, Afghanistan, mourn inside a hospital compound after a suicide attack Dec. 28. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack that has claimed more than 40 lives and wounded dozens more. (CNS photo/Mohammad Ismail, Reuters)

By Inés San Martín

ROME (Crux) — As the Taliban reclaim power over Afghanistan, a question in the mind of many rank and file Catholics is how can they help. Yet the situation is still so convoluted, even Caritas Internationalis, the largest network of Catholic charities is grappling to answer the same question.

Crux spoke with the head of this papal charitable organization on Tuesday, two days after the Taliban took over Kabul and officially took over the government of this Middle Eastern country, to discuss what can this NGO do during the crisis.

[Related: Caritas Italy, Jesuits Suspend Activities in Afghanistan]

The short answer is “wait and see,” since one of the biggest issues to address is to guarantee that Caritas, through local NGOs, can, in fact, help.

“We’re heading to a worsening of the humanitarian crisis, where I don’t know if humanitarian workers will be allowed to work freely, particularly women,” Aloysius John told Crux.

“The work of charity can always be a means for dialogue, and this is the way we have to look at it,” he added. “We’re waiting to see what we can do, but we have some experience on this and we will continue to do our best in order to bring support to the people.”

John spoke with Crux over the phone on Aug. 17. What follows are excerpts of that conversation.

Crux: How would you describe the situation in Afghanistan right now?

John: The situation in Afghanistan today is something we were able to envisage a long time ago when the US decided to withdraw its troops. Today, the Afghan people have been left to their own, alone, and there is a huge, two-fold crisis: On the one hand, there is a political crisis, and on the other side, a humanitarian crisis.

We’re heading to a worsening humanitarian crisis, where I don’t know if humanitarian workers will be allowed to work freely, particularly women.

An internally displaced child from the northern provinces of Afghanistan, who fled with his family due the fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces, sleeps at a public park in Kabul Aug. 10, 2021. (Photo: CNS/Reuters)

Our main concern today is to see what we can do for the people on the move, what we can do from a humanitarian point of view, as the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen in Afghanistan.

People today are leaving en masse, so there will be an important increase in displacements and it will be very difficult to control this, and we also have to see what can be done to guarantee that people have access to basic services.

An estimated 99% of the population is Muslim. Why is Caritas, a Catholic NGO, worried about the humanitarian crisis in this country?

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE TABLET.ORG

Who are the Taliban and how will they govern Afghanistan this time?

After their lightning conquest, there is little to indicate the group will moderate their strict Islamic beliefs

Who are the Taliban?

The Taliban were born out of the mujahideen fighters who opposed the Russians during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began in 1979. Founded by Mullah Mohammad Omar, a local imam in Kandahar, in 1994, they were initially formed of a small group of madrassa students who were angry at the depredations of the warlords in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Their influence rapidly spread over the following two years.

What do they believe?

The Taliban are often portrayed as employing a narrow interpretation of Islamic sharia law inspired by the Deobandi fundamentalist school. However, by 1998 – during their first period in power, which ended with the US-led invasion following the 11 September 2001 attacks – the Taliban issued their own harsh and sometimes esoteric interpretation of Islamic life equally inspired by the Pashtun tribal code, the Pashtunwali.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE GUARDIAN (UK)

Whose Islam? The New Battle for Afghanistan

Finding common ground on the role of Islam is the most decisive task in the peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

By Borhan Osman

Mr. Osman is a senior consultant on Afghanistan for the International Crisis Group.

KABUL, Afghanistan — As the major warring parties in Afghanistan sit down for peace talks in Doha, Qatar, an old, unresolved debate is emerging as the central question: What should be the role of Islam in Afghanistan? A humid seaside resort on the Persian Gulf, where the delegates are gathered, has become the unlikely venue for a search for answers acceptable to most Afghans.

The Taliban, who fought for decades to establish an Islamic political system, struck a deal with the United States in February that calls for American troop withdrawals conditioned on the Taliban engaging in peace talks and promising not to allow the country to be used by transnational terrorists.

They started the peace talks on Sept. 12, aware of the difficulty of persuading other Afghans and the international community to accept their understanding of Islam. The Taliban also seem to have reached a conclusion internally that their 1990s model of government is not tenable today.

When the Taliban seized territory across Afghanistan in the 1990s, the group founded a new “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” but they consulted almost none of the country’s diverse political and religious groups. The result was a style of government which enforced at gunpoint the norms and lifestyles of rural southern Afghanistan on the entire country. Imposing an extremely austere lifestyle on Afghans, banning women from work and education and ignoring the pleas of the international community, turned the Taliban into an international pariah.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

Islam Requires Muslims to Protect Christians

Five years ago, I lost close friends in one of the most gruesome terrorist attack on Pakistani soil. In twin attacks on two Mosques in Lahore, 88 Ahmadi Muslim worshippers were killed at the hands of the Taliban. It was a painfully bloody day. This last weekend, I woke up to sad news from Pakistan that made me relive some of that pain.

Fourteen worshipers were killed, and more than 70 were injured, when two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up outside churches in the Youhanabad neighborhood of Lahore, Pakistan.

These attacks on Pakistan’s Christian community are not a sporadic event. They are a part of a very tragic trend. Just over a year ago, another suicide attack at a Peshawar church claimed 78 lives. Not long before this, an angry mob torched over a hundred houses in Lahore’s Joseph Colony, following blasphemy allegations against a Christian man. Another Christian couple — Shama and Shahzad — were recently lynched and burnt alive in a kiln on similar blasphemy charges. As in the Joseph Colony rampage, this mob violence was also led by a local cleric.

While Pakistan’s minority communities are frequently attacked by religious extremists, the state does very little to protect them. Even in the rare instance that the perpetrators of such attacks are caught alive, they get away with a mere slap on the wrist. Pakistan’s ruling party, the PML-N, is especially notorious in sponsoring hateagainst minority communities in an attempt to appease extremist elements that serve their vote bank. In fact, we now know that the Punjab Government under Mr. Shahbaz Sharif reportedly carried out negotiations with al Qaeda.

The reaction from the masses in Pakistan is not very encouraging either. The majority continue to remain apathetic to the ongoing persecution of minorities. The few that speak up are threatened and intimidated into silence. All this, while the Islamic faith requires that all Muslims stand up to such injustice.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST