Taliban urges 'patience' on women's education

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Calling education a “shared need of Muslims,” the interim Taliban administration on Monday urged “patience” on the issue of girl’s education in Afghanistan.

“Girls’ education is a need of our society, and this issue will be solved according to the conditions,” Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s acting interior minister, told a visiting delegation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Haqqani was responding to the delegation reportedly “praising some decrees” of the Taliban on women’s rights, said a statement posted on X by the interim Afghan Interior Ministry.

Since their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban administration has banned the education of women in the country, triggering widespread condemnation.

“(Taliban) decrees were able to prevent oppression and abuse of women and as well help them in inheritance,” the visiting delegation told Haqqani, the statement added.

According to the OIC, a delegation of Muslim scholars and thinkers arrived in the Afghan capital Kabul last Thursday to meet with Afghan scholars, along with ministers and officials in the de facto government.

The ministry said members of the delegation said “education is a common right of men and women.”

“Along with religious education, modern education leads to the development of society,” they reportedly said.

Haqqani admitted that education “is a shared need of Muslims” as he “asked the visiting delegation to have patience in this regard,” the statement said.

Taliban rule “is not the way it has been described to the world, and Afghans are full of kindness and cooperation,” Haqqani told the delegation, assuring them that the Taliban “will continue efforts to solve every legitimate shortcoming.”

The statement said the delegation lauded Taliban for providing “security and stability in Afghanistan.”

The Taliban “has maintained stability in Afghanistan by implementing the best monetary policy, preventing Khawarij (Daesh/ISIS) and criminal incidents, as well as successfully fighting narcotics, and has implemented many promises made to this organization (OIC),” the ministry quoted the delegation members as saying.