News:

On 25^th February 2015, Agence France-Presse, (AFP) reported a news story titled ‘Afghan female stars defy clerics' pressure'. It reported that the 29-year-old singer is a judge on worldwide hit series "The Voice" that launched in Kabul in May, immediately attracting huge audiences and an array of angry critics. As a symbol of female independence in a strictly conservative Islamic country, Aryana receives regular death threats and lives in fear of being kidnapped by religious extremists. On the set outside Kabul where the show is filmed for private channel Tolo TV, armed guards outnumber contestants and have machine guns held at the ready. "I'm here to make a difference for women," Aryana told AFP. "I want women to have rights, to talk freely, to walk freely, to be able to go shopping when they wish. "I'm not saying that they have to take their clothes off, or even remove their head scarves. Freedom is being able to live as a human being." "Kidnapping is something to keep in mind all the time. You'd rather die than be kidnapped. I don't get out a lot." She said. One young Afghan actress, Benafsha, was stabbed to death last year, and some religious hardliners recently declared a jihad against popular reality shows based on Western hits such as "The X-Factor" and "Pop Idol". One lawmaker calling for the programmes to be banned branded them "blasphemous and vulgar".

Comment:

Afghan women have seen decades of war in their homes, villages and cities, killing their kith and kin since 1979.  Then after the invasion of America and her allies in 2001, the women and children were the most affected part of the society, when they faced Carpet-bombing and Daisy Cutters bombings, all in the name of freedom, democracy, women rights, women empowerment and progress. Today after 14 years of US occupation of Afghanistan, the Afghan women are the most vulnerable ones, with no protection of their rights of life, honor and property. The years of Imperialist rule, under Democracy and freedoms has given nothing but more misery to them. The Western Liberal and Secular Powers are trying to portray the Afghan women as victims of Islamic practices like veil, forbiddance of free mixing between men and women, rules of segregation, requirement of ‘mahram' for a women travelling for more than 24 hours and the likes. However, the question is that under the US rule, none of these practices were being forcefully implemented upon the women, rather the people of Afghanistan are voluntarily following Islamic laws regarding social system of Islam in most cases; then why have the liberal and secular values being so fearlessly pushed down the throats of Afghan women since 2001, unsuccessful in saving the women? The western media also in collaboration with the occupiers happily links all un-Islamic tribal practices like killing women on basis of doubt or only if she goes out of the house, with Islamic laws, doing a media trial of Islamic rules  regarding women. This trial is done irrespective of the fact that the system that Afghan women are living under since more than 90 years is everything other than Islam.

Traditionally, Afghanistan has had a long history of Islamic Rule that dates back to the seventh century CE; under which the system of Islam along with the judicial, social and education systems of Islam were fully implemented. These laws guaranteed the protection of women against all sorts of non-Islamic cultural traditions, as well as the criminal behaviors of anyone who tried to transgress the limits of Allah (swt). In fact, the first Afghan ruler who tried to import Western ideas and spread them in this country was King Amanullah Khan who ascended the throne of power in the wake of the recovery by the Afghan people of their freedom from the English as a result of the great Jihad in the cause of Allah Almighty in 1919 CE. He visited Europe in 1927 and after a seven month tour he returned to Afghanistan with a plan to secularize and ‘modernize' the country, banning veil, opening co-educational institutions, calling German teachers to instruct girls in Kabul, issuing instructions forbidding multiple wives for officials and abolishing underage marriage and setting the age for legal marriage from 18 to 24 years. These and more such actions were never accepted by the Afghan women as they clearly contradicted Islam and the orders of Allah (swt).

The Afghan women have now become the victims of freedoms under the Capitalist Liberal system that has violated her honor in the name of freedom of expression by portraying her as a commodity and object in advertisements, dramas and music shows. They have become the victim of personal freedom that has given the culprits and criminals right to fulfill their evil desires whenever and however they can. They have been humiliated by the US and its allies in the so called war of terror, being persecuted, living under extreme conditions of poverty along with their families and kids not even having access to clean water and health facilities. So what has the Liberal and Secular Occupier done for the Afghan women, except arranging obscene television shows and thumping the old drum of ‘women empowerment'?  The reality is that the western model has failed not only in Afghanistan but all over the world, and the only feasible alternate available is the one that has 1300 years of experience of protection of life, honor, dignity and property of women. That is no doubt the system given to us by our Creator, Allah (swt), the system of Khilafah "Caliphate". This is the only solution to the problems of Afghan women and men, as the Khilafah "Caliphate" would not only guarantee the basic rights of food, shelter, clothing, health and education to women, as it always had, but also provide all opportunities to them to excel in any field of life they wish, without misusing her feminity and treating them as intellectual beings.

In Qur'an, Allah (swt) admonishes those men who oppress or ill-treat women:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَن تَرِثُواْ النِّسَاء كَرْهًا وَلاَ تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ لِتَذْهَبُواْ بِبَعْضِ مَا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ إِلاَّ أَن يَأْتِينَ بِفَاحِشَةٍ مُّبَيِّنَةٍ وَعَاشِرُوهُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ فَإِن كَرِهْتُمُوهُنَّ فَعَسَى أَن تَكْرَهُواْ شَيْئًا وَيَجْعَلَ اللّهُ فِيهِ خَيْرًا كَثِيرًا

"O you who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should you treat them with harshness, that you may take away part of the dowry you have given them - except when they have become guilty of open lewdness. On the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If you take a dislike to them, it may be that you dislike something and Allah will bring about through it a great deal of good". [TMQ 4:19]

Written for Central Media Office Hizb ut Tahrir by

Ammara Tahir

Member of Central Media Office Hizb ut Tahrir