Waheedullah Hashimi, a senior figure in the Taliban who is close to the leadership, told Reuters the group would fully implement its version of sharia, or Islamic law, despite pressure from the international community to allow women the right to work where they want.

Since the movement swept to power last month, Taliban officials have said women would be able to work and study within the limits laid down by sharia.

But there has been widespread uncertainty about what practical effect that will have on their ability to keep their jobs. When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, women were barred from employment and education.

The issue is of major importance to the international community and could impact the amount of aid and other assistance that is given to Afghanistan, which is in the throes of economic crisis.

“We have fought for almost 40 years to bring (the) sharia law system to Afghanistan,” Hashimi said in an interview. “Sharia … does not allow men and women to get together or sit together under one roof.

“Men and women cannot work together. That is clear. They are not allowed to come to our offices and work in our ministries.”

It was unclear to what extent Hashimi’s comments reflected the new government’s policies, although they appeared to go further than public comments made by some other officials.

In the days following the Taliban’s conquest of Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters that women were an important part of the community and they would work “in different sectors”.

He also specifically included women employees in a call for government bureaucrats to return to their jobs.

All-Men Cabinet

However, the cabinet appointments announced on Sept. 7 did not include any women and there have been widespread reports of women being sent back home from their workplaces.

Hashimi said the ban on women would also apply to sectors like media and banking, where women have become increasingly prominent since the Taliban fell in 2001 and a Western-backed government was installed.

Contact between men and women outside the home will be allowed in certain circumstances, for example when seeing a male doctor, he added.

Women should also be allowed to study and work in the education and medical sectors, where separate facilities can be set up for their exclusive use.

“We will of course need women, for example in medicine, in education. We will have separate institutions for them, separate hospitals, separate universities maybe, separate schools, separate madrassas.”

On Sunday, the Taliban’s new education minister said women could study at university, but must be segregated from men.

Women have staged several protests across Afghanistan, demanding that the rights they won over the last two decades be preserved. Some rallies have been broken up by Taliban gunmen firing shots into the air.

Improved women’s rights – more noticeable in urban centres than deeply conservative rural areas – were repeatedly cited by the United States as one of the biggest successes of its 20-year operation in the country that officially ended on Aug. 31.

The female labour participation rate stood at 23% in 2020, according to the World Bank, up from effectively zero when the Taliban last ruled.

A question that has always bothered Muslims who have not built their faith in a correct, objective and systematic way as God and His Messenger have guided, is that there’s a conflict between natural scientific facts and Islam.

Personally, I never worry about contradiction between Islam and the natural science. I will explain the reasons.

What is the Science (Knowledge) in general?

Linguistically, it is perceiving something for what it really is. The simplest, idiomatic definitions of science are: a collection of facts, events, news, theories and methods.

Islamic Science or Shariah is the knowledge of what God revealed to His Messenger Mohammed – peace be upon him, which is preserved as evidence and guidance in the Qur’an and Sunnah.

Natural Science is one of the branches of science, and it is the science that studies the physical and chemical properties of all phenomena on Earth and the universe surrounding us.

Here is the critical point to focus on:

Islamic science (Shariah) relies on a fixed model and methodology which is purely and absolutely based on the sacred revelation (the Qur’an) that can never be altered, twisted, changed, added to, reduced. And then it’s based on the authentic fixed texts of the Prophet’s Sunnah or traditions which is a revelation too as a walking perfect model of the The Holy Qur’an.

Natural science depends on the changeable paradigm, whereby what is agreed upon among the scientific communities can be reversed or modified later, such as gravity, relativity, and the big bang. In the past, the brightest minds believed in every absurd concept. Aristotle believed that a fetus is composed of a man’s semen and a woman’s menstrual blood.

In fact, we always find scientific studies with contradictory results or at least not consistent or compatible. There are scientific studies that are paid for or directed in an ideological or economic way to achieve specific results that are consistent with the vision and goals of a set of beliefs or specific objectives of the sponsors of the research.

The naive ignorant romantics who say (I believe in Science) as an absolute objective criteria, may feel shocked by the authoritarianism, exclusion and persecution that may happen to those who adopt scientific opinions or findings that merely refer to The Creator whether through the theory of intelligent design or other results. 

In conclusion, the idea of ​​believing – absolutely or most probably – in natural science to define values, to determine right or wrong – objectively – it appears to be overwhelmed with absurdity given its relative, changing and contradictory nature due to the human imperfection nature or because of the contradicted reasons, objectives and methodology used.

It should be noted that there is a natural science that depends directly on experience, direct observation and objective correction, and from it, inventions and discoveries come that benefit or harm humanity in one way or another, and this is something that has been in humanity since its inception, where we see ancient human achievements that the scientific community today cannot understand.

Scientism

There is also scientism, which holds that the inductive methods characteristic of the natural sciences are the only source of truly factual knowledge.

This is what I call (epistemological dictatorship), where other sources of knowledge are ignored or suppressed, especially those that are most reliable at all, such as divine revelation.

Scientism is considered the most important pillar adopted by adherents of the phenomenon of new atheism in an absurd way that aims only to fight The absolute truth. There’s no justice, there’s no right or wrong, there’s no objective moral values, and there’s no objective basis or methodology that gives a human being a real value, in which all crimes and atrocities can be justified.

Back to the start, regardless of the absurdity of Scientism, natural science despite all its good or bad achievements does not in any way equate – objectively – the value of a single verse of the Qur’an or an authentic Hadith in terms of authenticity, reliability and credibility.

Conclusion

The Qur’an is the revelation of The Creator Almighty, the miraculous which God has challenged all mankind, for more than 1400 years up to this day. Mankind has been unable to meet its perfection, challenges and absolute objective examinations.

A true Muslim is one with an objective and firm belief, must consider The Qur’an the absolute dominant over all of human knowledges.

Finally, I advise myself and all people, Muslims and non-Muslims, to think and contemplate as He Almighty commands and urge for the best for peoples and the lands, and for maximum interest in the sciences of The Qur’an, because after death there’s no value in inventing a useful instrument or invoking an enlightening idea as long as a person is far from his Lord.

Turkey Al-Owerde is Editor-in-Chief and Political Analyst of the Herald Report. His knowledge of the religious undertones of most Muslim Terrorist Organizations makes his many “conflict analysis” a valuable source of information for many security experts from around the world. He tweets under @Turki_AlOwerde.