Princess Sultana's Circle

brutal Taliban
regime’s coming to power. Afaaf and her younger sister were left
alone, without any male protection in a country now ruled by men
who were determined to totally control every aspect of a woman’s
life.
    In 1994, when the Taliban
adherents who now rule Afghanistan came to power, they had carried
the suppression of women to a new level. While the lives of Saudi
women can be unbelievably bleak, I had learned from Afaaf that the
lives of women in Afghanistan were much more tragically harsh than
our own.
    In the Taliban’s drive to
restore Islamic purity, they had launched a horrifying assault on
their own women. Not only were Afghan women forced to cover their
bodies and faces in the Burqa, a thick, tent-like garment even more
awkward and uncomfortable than the Saudi abaaya and veil, but women
were also forbidden to even talk loudly or to laugh in public. Even
though women were totally hidden by the Burqa, the men in power
claimed that the sound of women’s voices alone had the power to
excite men! Additionally, women were banned from going to school,
from wearing makeup, jewelry, or high heel shoes, and even from
working to feed themselves and their families. Afghan women were
banned from every activity of normal life.
    The harsh regime’s edicts
extended even to small children. In Afghanistan it was now a crime
to watch television and videos, play with toys and games, listen to
music, or even to read books!
    With the Taliban came to
power, Afaaf’s own life changed dramatically. She had once been a
teacher, but she was no longer allowed to teach. She had once worn
her hair in a short style, but had been told that it was a crime
for a woman to cut her hair!
    Shortly after the Taliban
gained power, Afaaf’s sister had been caught speaking to a man to
whom she was not related. She had been merely asking this former
neighbor about his elderly parents. A group of teenage boys saw
this exchange and demanded to see proof that Afaaf’s sister was a
relative to the man. Of course, no proof was possible, since the
two were former neighbors, and nothing more. Afaaf’s sister had
been taken before the “Department to Protect Virtue and Prevent
Vice,” where she had been condemned to receive fifty lashes by a
panel of male judges.
    Afaaf had been forced to
witness her beloved sister being tied to a pole and lashed with a
leather strap. Afaaf had nursed her wounded sibling back to health,
but the poor woman was so aggrieved at the turn her life had taken
that she swallowed a large amount of rat poison. Since women were
banned from hospitals, she had died in Afaaf’s arms.
    Having nothing more to
lose, Afaaf fled to the Pakistani border. After slipping into
Pakistan, she had been employed by one of Asad’s men, who happened
to be in Pakistan to search for domestic staff to work in Saudi
Arabia.
    Afaaf put her face in her
hands and sighed deeply. “Fanatical Muslim men defame the Prophet
and his words in their determination to destroy every woman’s
life.”
    I was so struck with
sadness that I felt like crying along with the poor woman. For me,
the unfortunate Afaaf was one of the saddest human beings I had
ever known. She was truly alone in the world—and all because of
evil men who intentionally twist the meaning of the words of the
Holy Prophet in their obsession to control women.
    I slowly walked to a window
seat and sat down. I pressed my head against the small windowpane.
After covering myself with a blanket, I closed my eyes. I felt a
rush of gladness that I lived in Saudi Arabia rather than
Afghanistan. I almost laughed at the irony of such an idea, for
there is much danger for women in Saudi Arabia. In my own country,
too, fanatical men have the powerful capability to ruin
lives.
    The year before, an
appalling event occurred which again came to my mind. A young woman
by the name of Hussah, who was one of Maha’s friends at school, had
discovered the enormous power wielded by men over women in the name
of religion.
    Hussah was an unusually
pretty girl with a charming disposition. Her school grades proved
her intelligence, and her bubbly personality gained her many
friends. Maha often reported that Hussah enlivened dull school
days.
    Hussah had visited our
palace on more than one occasion, and I, too, grew fond of this
young woman. My affection for her increased when I learned that her
own mother had died the previous year, and that her father’s new
wife disliked Hussah. Despite this sadness,