The Afghan Taliban regime shut the university and secondary school doors for girls three years ago — the only nation on Earth to do so.
An Afghan girl learning the Koran in a madrassa or Islamic school in Kandahar. (Courtesy: AFP photo)
Six hours a day, school-to-school, Nahideh labors in a cemetery, refilling bottles at a shrine on the block and reselling it again to mourning families by the graves of deceased loved ones. She wants to be a doctor — but is smarter.
The next year's school year, she'll pass in a madrassa, an Islamic school, studying the Quran and Islam — and little else.
"I would like to go to school, but I am not allowed to, so I will go to a madrassa," she replied, dark brown eyes glinting out beneath her tightly wrapped black headscarf. "If only I could attend school the I would be able to learn and be a doctor. But I cannot." Nahideh is 13 and in the final year of primary school, the most education girls are allowed to aspire to in Afghanistan.
The Taliban government here banned girls from secondary school and university three years ago — the only country to take such a step. It is one of the many hundreds of rules imposed on girls and women, from what to wear to where to go and with whom to socialize.
Tertiary education playing no part, high numbers of girls and women are seeking instead to madrassas.
The only education allowed "Because girls' schools are closed, they see this as a chance," said Zahid-ur-Rehman Sahibi, the head of the Kabul-based Tasnim Nasrat Islamic Sciences Educational Centre. "And, thus, they come here in order to stay engaged in the study and study of religious sciences." The centre has about 400 students between the age of roughly 3 and 60 years old, and 90 percent of them are women. They learn the Quran, Islamic law, hadiths of Prophet Muhammad, and Arabic, the language of the Quran.
The majority of Christians and Afghans, Sahibi says, are Muslim. "Even prior to the closure of the schools, the majority of them went to madrassas," he explained. But if the schools close down, then the interest is keen, for madrassas' doors are never shut to them." There are no recent official figures published on girls educated in madrassas, but officials say popularity of religious schools overall has grown. In September, Deputy Education Minister Karamatullah Akhundzada estimated at least 1 million madrassa students over the past year alone, pushing the total to more than 3 million.
Quran Study In the warm glow of a late-afternoon sun in a dimmed room in a basement in the Tasnim Nasrat center, Sahibi's students prayed kneeling over small plastic desks on the floor carpeting, pencils scratching arabesques of Arabic writing in their Qurans. The 10 women were all wearing black niqabs, the covering robe leaving only the eyes visible.
"It is beneficial for girls and women to learn in a madrassa, because … the Quran is Allah's word, and we are Muslims," added 25-year-old Faiza, who joined the center five months ago. "It is therefore our duty to learn what is contained in the book which Allah hath sent unto us, to translate and to interpret." She would have wished to be taught in medicine if she could. Even though she knows there is no chance of it being an option now, she would like to have it completed in case she ends up being a good student committed to her faith some time later. It is one of the last options left for women to remain in Afghanistan.
"If my family understands that I am studying Quranic sciences and am implementing all the teachings of the Quran in my life and they are certain about it, they will surely permit me to study," she said.
Her teacher told her he would like women not completely barred from the study of religion.
"I believe it is highly important for a woman or a sister to study religious sciences and other sciences because the modern science is also a part of society," Sahibi went on. "Islam itself teaches one to study modern sciences because they are religiously obligatory and religious sciences are obligatory as well." Both need to be learned at the same time. An unprecedented ban Girls' secondary and tertiary schools have been closed but challenged in Afghanistan even by the Taliban. In a defiant gesture in public that is not common for any Taliban government official, Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Abbas Stanikzai spoke at a public rally in January and stated that there was no necessity to keep women and girls away from school.
His words were said not to have sat with the leadership of the Taliban; Stanikzai is officially off duty and was reported to have gone into exile. But they most certainly sent a reflection that the majority of Afghans understand that denying girls education harms in the end.
More than four million girls would have been denied a chance at secondary school if the ban were to remain in place until 2030, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell testified at the start of Afghanistan's school year in March. "The price paid by those girls — and by Afghanistan — is heart-wrenching.".
The ban is damaging the country's health infrastructure, economy, and future," The worth of religious education To Islam's holy book, to most people here in this same traditional nation, can't be overstated.
"Madrassas of Holy Quran study are the foundation of all other sciences, whether medicine or engineering or other sciences," said Mullah Mohammed Jan Mukhtar, 35, who runs a boys' madrassa on the outskirts of Kabul.
And if they are initially taught the Quran, then subsequently they will pick up these other sciences with ease." Five years ago, his madrassa started out with 35 pupils. It now has 160 boys aged between 5 and 21, half of whom are boarders, as well as in addition to religious studies, it teaches a few others such as English and maths. There is also an attached girls' madrassa, he said, with 90 pupils.
"I don't think there are sufficient madrassas for women," answered Mukhtar, a 14-year-old mullah. He stressed Islamic education for women. "If they have learned Islam rules, they know more about their husband's rights, their in-laws' and family's rights."
