Historically, Afghanistan was not conquered by any foreign occupiers and after the failed Soviet invasion the country was labeled the “graveyard of empires”. The success to overcome the superpowers lay in the fact the country was so ungovernable so that the foreigners had no option but to leave. After the Soviet withdrawal, no political power or military legitimacy was present for the new government to claim as a result of lack of “state’s monopoly over use of force. As a result different factions start to fight with one another to compete over power. Those who were fighting together to defend Islam against the communist backed regime now were killing each other to fill the power vacuum. The Taliban, a movement led by Afghan Pashtuns trained in “madrasas” (religious schools) with close ties to religious parties in Pakistan, emerged and strengthened in such an informal and chaotic setting.
The Taliban’s hostility toward women is one of the characteristics the group is infamous for. Surprisingly, their harsh and strict policies were justified in the name of Sharia law and regulations when neither Afghanistan nor the world had seen a similar version of it before. Most of the policies were actually based less on Sharia and more on the social code of the Pashtunwali. The exclusion of women to participate in public life, for instance, was linked to the “namus or purdah” principle of Pashtunwali code. The nature of women under Pashtubwali social code is seen as property whose protection is essential in order to maintain the tribe’s honor. Therefore, believing in the idea that women also could have equal rights in itself threatens Pashtunwali norms. Taliban’s conservatives’ views on women were rooted mainly in tribal customs which was mixed with Islam and trained in Pakistan’s religious schools. The Pakistani religious parties not only were providing the ideological roots but also financially were supporting the Taliban. The Taliban regime was rooted in the Deobandi –Salafi sect of Islam and the Pashtunwali code which was also inspired by laws and the political system in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban goal which was also shared by the religious parties in Pakistan was to restructure religious and cultural practices by creating a Sharia law ruled government. The version of Islam introduced by the Taliban was one of the most radical versions of Islam so far practiced in Afghanistan: a mix of Pashtunwali customs with Sharia’s law and madrasa’s religious education from the refugees’ camps in Pakistan inspired by Saudi practices.
The Taliban movement was strong enough to not being defeated because it emerged in the absence of a central government which could stand against it in addition to that the Taliban possessed a strong professional army which was supported by Pakistan and recruited by some of the ex-PDP –People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan who were majority Pashtun from Durrani tribe. Pashtun professional soldiers chose to join the Taliban because they understood it as a Pashtun alliance. Therefore, the Taliban who were stronger in many ways could maintain the power and defeat the rest of the factions. The governance of the Taliban was formed and concentrated in an informal way of governance. The whole state was ruled by two councils-Shuras, first a small council of religious leaders compromising six members of the inner Shura led by Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s leader, and second, administration and foreign relations were controlled by a nine-member central Shura which also reported to Mullah Omar. This structure did not comply with a real bureaucracy which exists in a formal way of governance. Ministries existed, but they were so powerless to participate in the process of decision-making because even the Taliban governors reported directly to Mullah Omar instead of the ministries. So, the process of decision making over the most important issues was decided by the religious councils or Shuras.
One of the few well-functioning institutions under the Taliban period was a religious police based on the Saudi Arabian model called the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice which carried out the measures imposed by the Taliban including closing all schools for girls, banning female employment and imposing burqa-full veil. This formal institution was mainly active to impose Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia on the society. Thomas Barfield defines the Taliban ideology as “crude” mixture of Salafi Islam and Pashtunwali, the cultural code of Pashtuns. Their interpretation of Sharia law was based on the various views of Mullahs and a mixture of it with the customary law of Pashtuns. Many of the policies implemented by the Taliban could not be justified by Islam for instance banning women and girls’ education. Barfield concludes that as a result of imperfect Taliban’s knowledge in religion and jurisprudence they came up with the policies which were mostly attached to the culture and values of rural Afghans rather than the religion.
The dominance of Pashtunwali in the Taliban ideology is noteworthy since the Taliban are from the Pashtun ethnic groups, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, and coming from the tribal and traditional areas of the country where the practice of Pashtunwali is widespread even to date. Wahid Omar explains the Pashtuwali as follows, “the way of the Pashtuns, it’s the rules and regulations and laws of the Pashtun tribes”. The Pashtunwali predates Islam and its roots belong to a very old culture.Therefore, it has a distinct nature from that of the religion. The importance of Pashtunwali among Pashtuns has a direct link to their Pashtun identity meaning those who practice the Pashtunwali are the true Pashtuns who will be backed by the Pashtun community. The main concepts of Pashtunwali according to Wahid Omar could be summarized as follows; chivalry (or bravery, courage) (ghayrat or nang), hospitality (melmastia), gender boundaries (purdah or namus) and council (jirga). By persevering given principles the Pashtun people protect their honor. The notion of honor is extremely important to the Pashtunwali and therefore Pashtun people adapting this social code to keep the honor and respect of others toward themselves. Palwasha Kakar names such a community as an honor-based society. She explains that as long as a Pashtun possesses honor (izzat); she/he is considered a Pashtun, and given the rights, protection and support of the Pashtun community.Therefore, conducting Pashtunwali has a great matter of importance among Pashtun in tribal and rural areas.
Each concept of Pashtunwali in some ways influences over women’s issues. One of the most important ones regarding gender is “purdah or namus” (sexual honor of women) for a man and his family; it means sexual integrity and chastity of women in the family. There are strict rules of namus such as physical space segregation and women being veiled fully in public which is related to purdah.As namus is part of the honor preservation by Pashtun therefore these rules should be respected by both men and women. Purdah or veil for women sometimes could lead to extreme restrictions on going to school, access to a health care service and traveling alone. Fulfilling the protection of namus by the male Pashtuns negatively impact women’s rights because according to the findings of anthropologist namus in practice is a “defense of the honor of women” and male use this concept of Pashtunwali as a way to control women, however technically it is a concept to be applied on both sexes.
Other important pillars of Pashtunwali are “badal” or revenge against any harm against his property such as land and gold and his namus or woman. Woman is seen as property in Pashtunwali culture since no authority and voice is given to her to decide for herself. In regard to revenge some form of compensation can be offered as a settlement to resolve the conflict which in many cases it can be a girl offer for marriage to the aggrieved party. Thereby, women are treated like a property with no power and freedom but to get admitted to decisions made on behalf of their men or accepting the final fate made by the tribal elders within the Jirga or “council” for the women of community. Jenifer Heath and Ashraf Zahedi in their books, Land of the Unconquerable, describe the nature of women under Pashtubwali social code as, “women were viewed as property whose protection was essential for the preservation of the clan’s honor. The notion that women had “rights” was seen as a threat to the status quo and to Pashtunwali itself.” The institution of Pashtunwali is extremely important in understanding the Taliban’s ideology and their policies toward women.
Even though, the Taliban claimed their way of governance solely based on Sharia law there were so many contradictions of their policies to the Sharia law itself. For example, the full exclusion of women from public life was not based on Sharia but the principle of Pashtunwali code of the “purdah or namus” which means sexual protection of women. “Namus” or honor is a significant principle of the tribal norms which in a way it could be obtained through the protection of women in the tribe.
There were also severe cases of punishment toward women related crimes such as stoning and execution which was decided by the tribal leaders or the informal justice system. Admitting such tribal codes and customs and mixing it with the Shaira made the situation unburnable for many men and women from other ethnic groups. They believed that the Taliban’s policies based on Pashtunwali logic was not in line with the non-Pashtun ethnic groups’ life style and values, in the country. For example Ahmad Rashid in his book highlights that how a division grew between the Pashtun (Hekmatyar) and non-Pashtun (Ahmad Shah Masoud) groups within the country.
The battle for Kabul brought the divisions between north and south and Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns into the open. Ahmad Shah Masoud's inability to compromise with Pashtun commanders opposed to Hekmatyar, even as Masoud seized Kabul in 1992, badly dented his political reputation. He was never to regain the trust of Pashtuns, until after the Taliban had conquered the north in 1998.
Not only the Tajiks but also Hazara Jat, Herat and Mazar Sharif also rejected the Taliban’s imposition of Pashtunwali code and perceived it as an effort to impose Pashtun values and laws on the all other ethnic groups in the country. The non- Pashtuns also created the Northern Alliance Front, “primarily comprised of three non- Pashtun ethnic groups - Tajiks, Uzbeks and the Hazaras - and in the past relied on a core of some 15,000 troops to defend its territories against the predominantly Pashtun Taliban”. As mentioned, the non-Pashtun areas showed their resistance toward the Taliban regime and reunited with each other to topple the Pashtun dominated Taliban. It is worth noting that the Pashtun dominated areas never posed a threat to the Taliban policies because most of them were rooted in Pashtunwali social code and in accordance with their style of living. Therefore, the Taliban rules and regulations are considered as tribal customs and traditions appreciated by the tribal society of Pashtuns in the rural areas who are strictly bound to their tribal values and traditions while rejected by the others in the country.
Moreover, Ahmad Rashid explains the power of tribal justice system as a completely male dominated system being authorized by the Pashtunwali to decide over disputes including women ownership:
All tribal Pashtuns also followed Pashtunwali, a social code which gave the tribal Jirga or council the right to make judgments on cases from a traditional pantheon of laws and punishments, especially when it came to disputes over ownership of land and women and murder. The line between Pashtunwali and Sharia law has always been blurred for the Pashtuns. Taliban punishments were in fact drawn largely from Pashtunwali rather than the Sharia.
The justice system is one of the leading institutions within any state to interpret the laws which are mostly written laws. However, the justice system in the Taliban period was dominated by the tribal leaders and religious clerics who nor did have enough knowledge of Sharia’s law, nor a adequate literacy levels thus the only source of laws was the Pashtunwali code and customs. The informal governance of the Taliban gave a the authority to any religious or tribal leader to decide over decisions like women’s issues which was not in line with the principles of gender equality but the customary codes and traditions. The justification of the Taliban actions and policies mostly could be addressed through the Pashtunwali code and its interpretation.
Since, the Pashtunwali code is very ancient and unchanged it is an uphill battle to readjust it to today’s world values and women’s rights standards. So, what has to be noticed is that the Taliban implemented rule via a mixture of the Pashtunwali code and Sharia law wherein Pashtunwali was the more dominant of the two. As explained earlier, the Pashtunwali principles do not envisage women as equal citizens of society but a threat to the projection of Pashtuns’ culture and honor. Therefore, as the Taliban period implies, the Pashtunwali code and its enforcement in the country would see women turned into a secondary group in the society whose rights could be easily abused and violated. As it was illustrated, the Taliban’s tribal based government and structure led to the worse possible conditions for protecting women’s rights in Afghanistan. After the collapse of the Taliban, the new government started to build formal institutions that incorporated gender equality and respect for universal human rights norms with support from international organizations.
