AFGHAN ELECTIONS: Women Get to Sing and Want a Place in Mosques

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

IPS/Pajhwok

KABUL, Oct 29 2004 (IPS) - In a move to exercise their rights in a new government to be headed by incumbent President Hamid Karzai, Afghan women have asked for separate places to worship in Afghanistan’s mosques venturing for the first time into a controversy that has divided religious authorities in the war-torn country for years.

In a move to exercise their rights in a new government to be headed by incumbent President Hamid Karzai, Afghan women have asked for separate places to worship in Afghanistan’s mosques venturing for the first time into a controversy that has divided religious authorities in the war-torn country for years.

Also in a sign that things are improving for women was the lifting of a ban on female singers appearing on state television.

At a meeting this week with Sebghatullah Mujadidi, a religious leader and the first mujahideen president, nearly 1,000 women asked the Afghan government to establish separate places in the mosques for women to pray, or build separate mosques for women.

Mujadidi endorsed the demand that is also backed by many other mullahs in the country. The Supreme Court, however, earlier has rejected such proposals, calling them illegal.

Many Islamic countries currently have special mosques and places for women to pray and practice their religion.

Women are eager to pray in mosques because the mosque prayers provide more reward than prayers said at the home, some Muslim clergymen claim.

However, the Supreme Court judges appear to be reluctant to endorse women praying in mosques.

Maulavi Ansarullah, spokesman for the chief justices in Kabul, said different opinions exist among religious authorities in the Muslim world regarding women in mosques. Some mullahs say that it is often difficult for women to go mosques, Ansarullah said.

”Women cannot have a separate mosque whose Imam would be a women because women are not able, from Islamic point of view, to lead a mosque,” the spokesman said. ”The holy Quran, though, says that women can pray in the same mosques where men pray, but the women should make their line behind men and boys.”

Jamal Mubariz, a deputy in the and Religious Affairs Ministry, said no separate mosques will be made for women, but one part of the existing mosques will be dedicated for women by hanging a curtain wall down the middle.

Another official who refused to give his name said that women can pray together with men in the same mosque, and the women’s demand will be implemented after a new government is formed.

Meanwhile on Oct 11, a woman sang on state television in Herat, erasing a long-standing ban imposed by the province’s former governor Ismail Khan.

Herat state television broadcasted a video song by Mahwash, a popular female Afghan singer living abroad, and another from an Indian movie.

People were divided on the singing that broke the ban on female voices.

Ahmad, 25, reflected the view of many when he said he was happy to see a woman singing on the screen. ”Now I feel that our country can come in line with the civilised world.”

But Haji Nazeer, 50, disagreed. ”TV broadcasts should respect traditional values and the sensitivities of local people,” Nazeer said, adding that it was too early to show a woman without a headscarf.

Ismail Khan was removed as governor of Herat last month by interim President Karzai, who asked Khan to accept a position in his cabinet. Khan is a popular, though conservative leader from Herat.

Ali Shah Bahra, head of the Ministry of Information and Culture office in Herat, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the station will continue to broadcast female singers.

”Herat is committed to following the policy of the Radio-TV of Kabul, and a great change will be seen in the Herat Radio-TV soon,” Bahra said.

Khan, a former mujaheddin commander was named governor of Herat, when the Taliban fell at the end of 2001.

The Taliban, a militia of Islamic students and clerics, imposed a strict form of Islam, in which women were often brutally oppressed, over most of Afghanistan from 1996 until U.S.-led forces helped oust them that year.

Khan demanded complete control of the media in Herat, and regularly would ban reporters from the city who he thought were writing adverse reports against him.

The former governor reportedly maintained a secret ”morality police” who would pick women up off the street who did not wear a scarf or worse yet, were seen holding hands with a man. They would be taken, reportedly, to hospitals to have their virginity checked.

Only recently did Karzai replace Khan. This was done after some fighting in Herat when a so-called renegade commander attacked some of Khan’s private forces. Karzai send the national army in to secure the peace, then removed Khan and replaced him with Said Mohammed Khairkhwa, the former Afghani ambassador to Ukraine, and a much more liberal thinker.

Karzai emerged the winner in this month’s landmark presidential election, garnering more than 55 percent of the popular vote. But the official declaration of his win still awaits a fraud probe.

Among the complaints being investigated by the United Nations are the apparent failure of indelible ink that was supposed to stain voters’ fingers to prevent multiple votes, as well as ballot-stuffing and irregular opening hours for polling booths.

According to Karzai, the real winners in the Afghanistan presidential elections were the Afghan people, particularly women who were empowered through the ballot.

”Women voted independently in these elections. That was the most important thing – the empowerment of women,” Karzai, poised to rule for five years as Afghanistan’s first elected leader, told the ‘Times of India’ in an interview.