Taliban
The Taliban (plural of talib, which is Arabic/Persian for "student of Islamic religious law") regime ruled Afghanistan from November 1994 to November 2001 under the leadership of mullah Muhammad Omar (b. 1959). After the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, when more than three thousand people were killed in New York and Washington, DC, the United States believed that the Taliban regime was sheltering the al-Qaeda terrorists of Osama bin Laden, a Saudi dissident and millionaire who was suspected of having masterminded the attacks. Earlier, the United States had also accused Osama bin Laden of masterminding the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on 7 August 1998, which killed more than two hundred people, including nineteen Americans.
In spite of repeated calls from the United States and other nations, including some Muslim nations, the Taliban did not hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States for interrogation and trial. The administration of President George W. Bush (b. 1946) starting bombing Afghanistan on 7 October 2001, leading to the collapse of the Taliban regime in Kabul. The U.S.-led international community installed an interim regime, composed of anti-Taliban forces of the Northern Alliance, under the leadership of a Pashtun tribal elder, Hamid Karzai (b. 1957), who took the oath of office in Kabul on 22 December 2001.
Although most of the Taliban foot soldiers disbanded and rejoined their communities, Taliban pockets of resistance continued in eastern parts of Afghanistan, especially in Kandahar Province.
Four former Taliban soldiers on a street in Kandahar in January 2002, after general amnesty was given to Taliban fighters. (AFP/CORBIS)The Taliban came to power in November 1994 at the end of a civil war (1992–1994) that raged between different mujahideen (holy warrior) factions. Once in power, the Taliban imposed a strictly puritanical and literal interpretation of the shariʿa (Islamic law). The Taliban closed female educational institutions and banned women from working outside of their homes. Women could not venture out of their homes unless a male relative accompanied them. Women were forced to wear the Afghan traditional veil (burqa).
Taliban authorities also banned music, television, theater, cinema, kites, cards, and other activities as useless and time wasting. They also required men to grow beards and to strictly observe Islamic rituals, including the daily five prayers. The Taliban carried out the Hadood (Islamic punishments) in public: stoning to death for adultery, fornication, or any sexual, even consensual, relations outside wedlock. They amputated hands of thieves and flogged gamblers and alcohol users.
When the Taliban regime collapsed in November 2001 as a result of the U.S. bombing of its strongholds in Afghanistan, some women in Kabul threw away their burqas, and some men shaved off their beards to demonstrate freedom from the Taliban.
Further Reading
Matinuddin, Kamal. (1999) The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan, 1994–1997. Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press.
Rashid, Ahmed. (2001) Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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