According to a report produced under Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan, superstitious beliefs are common in Afghanistan’s traditional and conservative society, particularly in more remote rural areas. Portents of bad luck include a crow alighting on a person’s house or sweeping a room at night. Some traditions, however, can have serious consequences for women’s lives. For instance, engaged or newly married women are looked on with particular suspicion as potential harbingers of good or bad luck. Sometimes, the consequences of supposed ill fortune can last for decades. Women are tortured, divorced or abused on the pretext that they bring bad luck to the family. Experts say that such beliefs go hand in hand with ignorance and illiteracy and often lead to both physical and mental abuse. “Superstitious beliefs are another form of violence against Afghan women which can ruin lives,” said Zeba Haidari, head of women’s rights in the regional office of the Afghanistan Independent Human Right’s Commission. “A lack of awareness of their rights among women as well as illiteracy means that they simply accept these superstitious beliefs.”
Comment:
A prolonged war imposed upon the poor and downtrodden people of Afghanistan has only added to their woes; as they suffer due to killings, demolitions of their homes, joblessness, poverty, water and power shortages and other problems. In addition to this, poor Afghan women also face the brunt of age-old un-Islamic traditions and superstitions, which have become widespread for many decades due to the absence of an Islamic system of education, and social system of Islam. Afghanistan was ruled under an Islamic system of governance until the ruler of Afghanistan, Amanullah Khan introduced “reforms” during his reign from 1919 to 1929. He expanded the system of modern education comprising of cosmopolitan schools for both boys and girls in the region, even teaching in some schools himself, as did his queen. Some of his more radical social reforms included changing the weekly holiday from Friday to Thursday, forcing people in Kabul to wear Western uniforms and adopt Western forms of greeting, and banning veiled women from certain public places.
In other words, Afghan people especially women were again thrown into the pit of tradition and custom based tribal legal system, with the introduction of these western laws and systems. As these western reforms were resisted by the Afghan people in the beginning, it took a very long time for them to gain roots. Before that, Islamic judicial and legal system along with the Islamic social system was present and readily helped any woman who was subjected to any un-Islamic practice of tribal prejudice, discrimination or superstition based attitude. Justice was free and speedy under the Islamic courts. Also the education system of Islam strictly molds the Islamic personality of children, thereby making them law abiding, aware and enlightened citizens. Afghan people were enlightened by Islam during the Khilafah of Omar (RA) by Arab Muslims who brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE, and after that they never looked back.
Afghans knew for centuries that there is no place for superstitious beliefs in Islam, for Islam is a creed based on ration and reason. They knew this hadith for centuries that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said:
Abd-Allaah ibn Mas’ood said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: «الطيرة شرك» “Tiyarah (belief in evil omens, superstition) is shirk.”
[Ref: Ahmad (4194), Abu Dawood (3910), al-Tirmidhi (1614) and Ibn Maajah (3538) and Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh Abi Dawood]
Also the Prophet ﷺ said:
Narrated by Abdallah ibn Amar (ra) that The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: «من ردته الطيرة من حاجة فقد أشرك» “Whoever lets tiyarah (superstition) stop him from doing something is guilty of shirk.” They said, “What is the kafaarah for that?” He said, «أن يقول أحدهم: اللهم لا خير إلا خيرك ولا طير إلا طيرك ولا إله غيرك» “To say: Allaahumma la khayra illaa khayruka wa laa tayra illaa tayruka wa laa ilaaha ghayruka (O Allah, there is no good except Your good, no omen except Yours, and there is no God beside You).”
Hence, the introduction of western system of education and culture made the new generation of Afghans unaware of Islamic knowledge and fiqh. This illiteracy increased even more with the decades of continuous wars and destruction of Islamic schools and madrassa system along the lines that Khilafah originally established them, that was meant to impart both scientific and worldly knowledge along with giving the deep understanding of Shari’ah and fiqh to the students. The end result was a division between Islamic knowledge and the worldly knowledge, resulting in the death of intellect and ration, and producing Muslims who had emotional belief in Islam and could not apply Islamic solutions upon their problems of daily lives.
The solution to the problems of Afghan women is therefore, implementation of a complete Islamic system, including its judicial, ruling, social and economic system along with Islamic foreign and education policies. Only Khilafah Rashidah the second, on the method of Prophethood can guarantee the complete protection of Afghan women, men and children and safeguard their rights. Accordingly, we call upon the Afghan women to carry this call for Khilafah (Caliphate) and struggle for its re-establishment.
Ammara Tahir