News:
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — On 22nd March 2015, an Afghan woman who was beaten to death by a mob was buried in Kabul on Sunday, her coffin carried aloft by women’s rights activists. Hundreds of people gathered in northern Kabul for the funeral of 27-year-old Farkhunda, who like many Afghans is known by only one name. She was killed late Thursday by a mob of mostly men who beat her, set her body on fire and then threw it into the Kabul River, according to police accounts. Police are still investigating what prompted the mob assault. The head of the Interior Ministry’s criminal investigation directorate, Gen. Mohammad Zahir, said no evidence had been found to support those allegations.”We have reviewed all the evidence and have been unable to find any single iota of evidence to support claims that she had burned a Quran,” Zahir said. “She is completely innocent.” He said that 13 people had been arrested in connection with her killing.
Comment:
This incident has sparked worldwide anger against the lynch mob actions of the crowd that burnt this school teacher, who was just about to finish her graduation of Islamic studies, on mere suspicion. This condemnable act happened just few days after two men were set ablaze by an angry mob of Christian protesters in neighboring Pakistan, who were protesting violently against the twin blasts that targeted the Roman Catholic Church and Christ Church during Sunday mass on 15 March 2015. Both acts of violence happened under the rule of secular and liberal Capitalist system, which has professed to protect women rights and human rights by its implementation of the concepts of freedoms, equalities and social justice. However the reality is that this rotten system has not only failed to protect the dignity, honor and life of women but also put her at the disposal of mob justice without any retribution for the crimes of the criminals. Under the judicial systems of both the countries Pakistan and Afghanistan, the criminals are freed if they belong to the elite class and are able to buy their way out of the jail, while the weak and often innocent are punished. The legal system is based on British man-made laws, with procedural complications that delay the court cases to decades. The justice is not only denied but it is costly and mostly results in oppression of the innocent.
The mob culture is replacing the judicial and legal recourse to justice at a fast pace, which is an alarming situation. It usually happens when people have no trust at the judicial system and police and they strongly believe that the criminal will be eventually freed by the police. However this would not have happened if the Islamic judicial system was implemented under the Khilafah, along with all the systems of Islam. We have never heard about a mob inflicting harm to either men or women accused of a crime on the streets of Khilafah state, under the 1300 years of rule on a wide area of the world. Even in Afghanistan, the rights of women were well guarded until the beginning of 20th century under the Islamic judicial system. On the contrary, now after the US led invasion of Afghanistan the acts of violence against the women have increased many folds. According to a member of Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan,” Now the case of violence against women is more than in the time of the Taliban.” And Sonali Kolhatka, Co-director of Afghans women’s charity, says, “There were 23 rape cases in just 2 months, in north Afghanistan. The attacks of violence against women, both external and within the family, have gone up. Domestic violence has increased.”
Under the Islamic system of Khilafah, women were provided all the facilities of free and speedy justice at her doorstep. She was never afraid to complain in the court of Qadhi, as she was always dealt with fairly and justly. Men were afraid to even raise their fingers towards her in a wrongful way, for fear of being punished by the law of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. This system was not based on the whims and desires of man-made laws but upon the laws given by Almighty Allah. The Women Rights organizations, who carried the coffin of Afghan woman upon their shoulders, should rather carry the coffin of the rotten Capitalist system and bury it deep underground so that it never comes out again to haunt the women of Afghanistan and the world again; as it is under this current system, the innocent Farkhandah faced this fate.
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says,
وَمَن لَّمْ يَحْكُم بِمَا أنزَلَ اللّهُ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الظَّالِمُونَ
“And whoever does not rule by that which Allah has revealed, they are the oppressors (Dhaalimun).”
(Al-Ma’ida: 45)
Written for Central Media Office Hizb ut Tahrir by
Ammara Tahir
Member of Central Media Office Hizb ut Tahrir