German imams show solidarity with women in Afghanistan. According to a letter of protest, the university ban imposed by the Taliban regime cannot be justified by Islam.
A woman in Kabul, covered in a burqaimago warehouse&people
German imams have written a letter of protest against the ban imposed by the Afghan Taliban regime on women from attending universities. In a statement entitled “It’s not our Islam!”, available to the Evangelical Press Service (epd), 25 Muslim clerics underline that excluding women from universities is not consistent with their religion. The Düsseldorf Rheinische Post was the first to mention it.
“Preventing women from attending educational institutions or from working and developing cements the structures of these women’s dependence on patriarchy. This is in fatal contradiction to Islam as we understand and teach it,” the paper said. German politicians and civil society must take clear steps “to help local women regain their rights to education and freedom “. Appeals alone are not enough.
What the Prophet Muhammad says
On the initiative of the religious scholar of Münster and the imam Mouhanad Khorchide, the 25 clergymen have joined forces to form the association “Meetings between imams, science and society”. In their statement, they argue with their religion’s image of man: “Islam, as we understand it, teaches that man, regardless of whether he is a man or a woman, is a self-determined subject willed by God.” conditions for the development of this self-determination of the individual. The Prophet Mohammed also stressed that education is a “religious duty for every man and woman.”
The Taliban’s interpretation of Islam conveys an image of religion “as a message of paternalism and degradation of the people”, write the imams. “This is not our Islam.” The reduction of women “to the object of slavery or sexual pleasure for men” is a misogynistic attitude that the imams have firmly rejected. The signatories of the declaration appeal to the Afghan rulers to “urgently refrain from anti-women and misanthropic acts in the name of Islam”. The imams write that their solidarity is with Afghan women, but also with every woman who claims her right to education and self-determination.
