Red lines in Afghanistan and the issue of girls' education

As our cars try to make their way through the chaotic traffic on the streets of Kabul, one of the things that strikes us most is that there are almost no traffic lights, or very few. Vehicles heading toward each other at full speed avoid a collision at the last moment with a maneuver and carry on as though nothing had happened. This is not something that is easy to understand for someone accustomed to the traffic order of Turkey or Europe. There is an order within the chaos, and it works.

But we learn something on this occasion. The Islamic Emirate, which has taken over the administration of the country for the second time and has now held it for 4 years, has set the rules necessary to establish a traffic order, but these are rules without enforcement. In particular, fines are never imposed, because punishing with money is not regarded as permissible under Hanafi jurisprudence, so the Emirate does not open that door. Of course, it is not possible to understand this with a mind kneaded by the standards of the modern world.

For those accustomed to looking for, and even finding, pragmatism or some kind of corruption beneath everything, how can it be understood that such a large source of revenue can be given up merely because it does not conform to a rule of fiqh? This is in fact a perfect example of what we call the politics of the impossible.

When Wael B. Hallaq wrote his book titled "The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity's Moral Predicament," he was saying that in our age a state that fully observes moral principles could not be possible, and yet the Taliban seem to be trying to prove exactly the opposite. According to Hallaq, the modern state is by nature amoral, and it is not even possible for an Islam that observes morality at every level to be represented within a present-day state structure. If it is really going to happen, if it can happen, it must of course disregard modernity, the standards of the modern state, international balances, the world order and its priorities. And indeed the Taliban disregard every one of them.

The common traits that permeate the personality, style, manner of speaking and philosophy of each of the ministers we visited are an incredible humility toward believers and the people, but an equally incredible self-confidence and indifference toward the enemy. The only thing that concerns us is the standards of God's Shariah. This is our red line that can never be crossed.

Contemporary theories of power say that the sovereign is the one who decides on the exception. None of the Taliban's top-level leaders has any concern with being sovereign. On the contrary, for them the only sovereign is God, it is His Shariah, and to be able to impose an exception upon it is not the claim or the place of even the Taliban, who have brought all the world's superpowers to their knees one after another. It is precisely with this sensitivity that they try, on many issues, to understand and follow the lines of that Shariah with care.

Until two weeks ago no state had officially recognized the Taliban administration, until Russia did so last week. Yet it has, de facto, every kind of diplomatic and commercial relation with more than 100 states. Even though it expects other countries to recognize it officially after Russia, this expectation does not keep it open to bargaining over its stance, its beliefs, and its commitment to the Islamic Shariah and morality. The point for which it is criticized most is the issue of girl students not being educated in high schools and universities.

On this matter we had a chance to talk with the Minister of Education, Mawlawi Habibullah Agha, when we met over an evening dinner at a madrasa outside the ministry building. The madrasa is an utterly simple educational institution with hundreds of students, belonging to a nephew of his, a Taliban commander. Extremely modest, among the students, without any protocol observance, the Minister came quietly and sat down among dozens of guests on the open terrace on the top floor of the madrasa.

After greeting the guests with great humility, without anyone asking, he laid out the current picture regarding education. He said that millions of students, without distinguishing between girls and boys, currently receive basic education up to the 6th grade, that from the 6th grade onward girls can receive education in Islamic sciences up to the 12th grade, and that millions of girl students are able to take part in these educational programs. He explained this in response to those who say that girl students are not granted the right to education, and he said that some preparations had been made regarding the university part of the matter and that a new program would soon be announced on this as well.

On high school and university education, he said that the system and curriculum up to now had raised people with an occupation mindset, whereas they were now at the stage of completing the preparation of a program and curriculum that looks to a new and free Afghanistan, and then said that he could take questions.

First of all, I told him that, as people who after a struggle of 50 years had waged a noble fight against the occupation of the world's superpowers and had brought both of them to their knees, they deserved every kind of respect. But I added that there were also recommendations we could make as a modest contribution to Afghanistan's success. For example, for girl students or other students, they should not have to be caught between two options such as "Islamic education or modern education." I said that the Imam-Hatip model in Turkey perhaps cannot be applied one-to-one in Afghanistan and has many shortcomings too, but that its most important feature is that it combines the modern sciences and the Islamic sciences very well and thereby gives all of them an Islamic character as a whole. Moreover, students who are directed only to Islamic education after the 6th grade may not be ready to make the transition once the universities are ready, in which case serious grievances may arise.

I can say that he listened with a humility that was embarrassing, and his answer was even more impressive: "We are currently an Emirate governed by the ulama, that is, by ulama who have placed engagement with knowledge at the center of their lives. How could we possibly want the ignorance of women, of girls, or of any segment of society, how could we obstruct their education to the end? Essentially all we are doing is preparation. We are working on a system in which girls too can continue their education. In this matter we listen with all our ears to the advice of all our brothers everywhere in the world and try to benefit from all of it. Your Imam-Hatip model is also very interesting; in fact we had heard of it before. If you can get us this model and its curriculum, we would like to examine it and benefit from it too."

Frankly, what I heard was as heartening as it was embarrassing. What I heard from the most authoritative person on education in Afghanistan, particularly on the education of girls, was capable of shaking all the images that have been attributed to the Taliban for years. Right there on the spot I got in touch with our Minister of National Education, Yusuf Tekin, obtained the curriculum of the Imam-Hatip High Schools, and passed it on to him.

Who knows, perhaps we have come quite close to a solution to the problem that serves as a pretext for Afghanistan's isolation from the world. But the point that must not escape attention here is that the Islamic Emirate is bringing this issue to a resolution not in order to answer the expectations of the Westerners, but entirely by addressing it with its own Islamic sensitivities.