Adil Najam
This photograph was published in Daily Times, January 12, 2009. The caption read:
“Women are not allowed in the market,” reads a banner displayed at the entrance of a market in Mingora. Taliban have banned the entry of women in markets and ordered the killing of women who violate the ban. Most shop owners have sold or shut down their businesses because of falling sales following the restriction.
What would have made this tragic depiction comical had the context been different is that from the picture this is clearly a textile and cloth market – the type of market where, in Pakistan, you would expect most customers to be women!
Arjun,
It is also a statement of fact that Hindus burned their widows at the pyre and female infanticide in India is the highest in the world after China. Does not make it representative of Hinduism any more than your examples make them representative of Islam.
@Arjun
I would never think of trying to explain to a Hindu or a Christian or a Jew what “true” Hinduism, Christianity or Judism is. Yet, I find it amazing (and annoying) that people of other religions are so very eager and interested in explaining to me what my religion actually is, and then insisting that the version they know (which is usually a bunch of hate-filled extremes taken out of context) and which is based on the practice of the worst people is actually the ‘real’ Islam. Why should my Islam be based either on what Arjun thinks or what these Taliban think? I suspect they both detest the Islam I practice.
I can find bad practices and out-of-context examples in all religions, and even in the lack of religion. But let me not stoop to that level. Let me just try to be the best human being I can, which is what Islam means to me. Others can choose todo the same with whatever belief set they have, since at the end of the day that is all that any religion asks of its adherents. Yet, some people seem so much more comfortable celebrating what is good about their own belief set than in bad mouthing and abusing other’s beliefs. I guess these talibans are teh same. talk to them and just like Arjun lectures us about what is wrong with Islam they will lecture you about what is good with Hindus, or Jews, or Christians. I choose not to listen to either the Taliban or to Arjun. Although I suspect they would really enjoy chatting with each other :-)
I would also add that women typically have fewer rights in Islam than in secular societies today. Their testimony is worth half that of a man. In rape cases, they need 4 witness to prove rape. In general, they are far from equal to men compared to societies that have undergone the Enlightenment like countries in Europe. Please please don’t take this as an attack but as a simple statement of fact.
I wonder why our media is silent,
why our govt. is silent,
why our religious scholars are silent.
or
it is the true/real Islamic Sharia imposed by the Taliban.?
“Sitting in India, you will not know that Islam is the religion that introdoced the concept of women