Taliban Enforces Gender Apartheid Against Women in Afghanistan

A painful reminder that imperialism and western interventionism ultimately elevates extremists and devastates the already vulnerable

In Afghanistan, the Taliban's Minister of Education has announced that girls' schools are likely to remain closed permanently, affirming what was allegedly a temporary decision in 2022. Additionally, the Taliban has now banned women from so much as speaking in public.

As a Muslim let me be explicitly clear. This is apartheid, vile, and inexcusable. It is completely contrary to the Islamic tenets of seeking education. Adding to the injustices Afghan women face are the now centuries of imperialism and western interventionism. A return to justice is key to protect Afghan women now, and in the future. Let’s Address This.

Islam’s founder Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) declared, "It is incumbent upon every Muslim male and every Muslim female to attain education." In his Farewell Address, the last public address he delivered before he passed away, he declared, "Do treat women well, and be kind to them, for they are your partners." In doing so he emphatically crushed the patriarchal claim that women are somehow subservient to men, but instead established that women and men are equal partners.

More than words, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) ‪exemplified these teachings with his actions. His first wife was a wealthy CEO named Khadija—and she was also his employer. While the Taliban has forbidden women from attaining education or playing any public role in society, Khadija was a well-known and well-regarded entrepreneur who ran a thriving trading business. Far from condemning such behavior, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) praised his wife Khadija as the example for women to follow—proud, confident, educated, wealthy, innovative, compassionate, all while also choosing to be a wife and mother.

After Khadija died, his wife Ayesha was a premier scholar and jurist. She played a critical role in educating the early Muslims about the religion of Islam in the 44 years after the death of the Prophet. Ayesha also narrated approximately 2,210 hadith, or sayings of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), covering both personal aspects of Muhammad's life but also important topics like marriage, inheritance laws, economic, social, and climate justice, and even about the Hajj pilgrimage. It is no wonder that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) praised her knowledge, saying, "Learn half of your faith from Ayesha," a statement he made about no male Muslim.

In essence, every restriction and form of oppression the Taliban is imposing upon women is not due to the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), but in direct opposition to his teachings.

And adding to this oppression of Afghan women is the immeasurably harmful impact of imperialism and western interventionism. Much has been written by the devastating role Russia played in attempting to invade Afghanistan, and the response from the United States in arming the Mujahideen. Washington Post managing Editor Steve Coll details this extensively in his book, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Indeed, less than a decade before the horrific events of 9/11, who can forget when western media praised Bin Laden as an “Anti-Soviet warrior on the road to peace?”

And still, prior to Russian and U.S. interventionism and wars, the United Kingdom played its part in overthrowing previous Afghan governments in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But we needn’t go back centuries or even decades to see the destructive role played by Western powers in undermining Afghan sovereignty and security from extremism. This is a contemporary atrocity. Before leaving office, Donald Trump made impossible the hope of a safe and secure Afghanistan by forcing the release of at least 5000 Taliban terrorists. As The New Republic reports:

General H.R. McMaster told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday night that Trump, while president, sought to negotiate with the Taliban as U.S. troops began leaving Afghanistan, which undermined the Afghan government. As a result, the U.S. government forced the Afghan government to release 5,000 members of the Taliban.

This demand was not made for some concession or military advantage for the United States. It was a unilateral demand by the Trump Administration and forced upon the Afghan government. Is it any wonder that the Afghan government fell so quickly upon the United States’ withdrawal?

The roughly 43 million people, and 22 million women and girls in Afghanistan are living under gender apartheid. The past attests to examples when Afghan leaders have afforded basic rights to women in Afghanistan. For example, in 1957, four years after becoming Prime Minister, the pro-Soviet Gen. Mohammed Daoud Khan allowed women to attend university and enter the work force. In 1975, Khan proposed a new Afghan constitution that granted women additional basic rights. A volatile series of military coups, followed by the U.S. Government arming the Mujahideen in the 1980s to combat Soviet communism ultimately ensured those rights would never come to fruition. And thus the cycle today is not new, but a repetition of the atrocities imposed upon Afghanistan, and Afghan women in particular, for centuries.

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