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Not in my nameThe Taliban have perpetrated another barbaric act in the name of Islam – and all Muslims have a duty to condemn themComments ()

Ziauddin Sardar guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 21 2008 15.30 BST larger | smaller Article history

The murder of aid worker Gayle Williams is an atrocious act. The fact that it has been justified on religious grounds is an abomination. As a Muslim I feel ashamed that such a barbarity has been perpetrated in the name of Islam.

Williams, who worked for the Christian charity Serve, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle as she walked to her office in Kabul. For over two decades, motorcycle assassinations have been a regular feature of the Afghani and Pakistani landscape. And the murderers have, more often than not, turned out to be religious fanatics. The responsibility for this particular shooting was readily claimed by the Taliban.

Williams was killed simply for being a Christian. "Our leaders issued a decree to kill this woman", said a Taliban spokesman, because she "came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity". The fact that "this woman" was a woman was also clearly held against her. As such, her cold-blooded murder was legitimate and had religious sanction in the mental universe that the Taliban inhabit.

Who and what are the Taliban? The majority of their members are young students groomed in seminaries that operated in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation and hard-fought Afghan guerrilla war. The seminaries, financed by Saudi dollars, expounded a particular interpretation and approach to Islam – the totality of dogma as necessary detail, prescriptive dos and don'ts. The objective of the Taliban is to institute an Islamic utopia in Muslim Afghanistan. Like all utopias, religious or secular, it is a restrictive, totalitarian, nightmarish vision.

This vision of Islam, like any utopian project, must clear away imperfections, the unacceptable, the intolerable, the distracting, and create ground zero, the purified territory on which, alone, true righteousness can exist. The fact that Islam has existed in Afghanistan for over a thousand years does not make it Islamic in the eyes of the Taliban. To become truly Islamic, Afghanistan has to be forced to return to an idealised history when Islamic time began and all was perfect. Nothing can be allowed to stand against this endeavour. And all actions, however murderous and criminal, are justified in the pursuit of this goal.

This is why the Taliban hate everything that does not fit their criteria for being Islamic. They execute women who do not cover their hair without a qualm. They behead those who do not support an Islamic beard, which should sprawl unconfined and not be neat and trim. So far this year, they have killed 29 aid workers for simply being foreigners, Christians, or different.

Every act, however barbaric and evil, is celebrated and seen as a step forward towards their ultimate goal. The Taliban see themselves as heroes, engaged in a life and death struggle to recreate an imagined Medina in the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Their disaffection with everything that exists today is zealous to the minutest detail. Oh, and it is certain, unquestioningly certain of the rectitude of all its answers to any and all problems.

That is why Gayle Williams will not be the last innocent person to be brutally killed simply for being different or for serving humanity. There will be many more as long as the Taliban exist. For the Taliban have no notion of humanity, nor do they subscribe to anything that can be remotely described as humane. Such a notion of Islam can only be condemned, in the strongest terms possible, by all people of faith. Muslims need to do much more than simply distance themselves from the inhumanity of the Taliban. We need to take positive steps to do something about this evil.




This article written by a muslim and not from a rag, about the Taliban

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For anyone who thinks the Taliban or Al Queda or any of their followers have any argument to be killing innocent people. I could give you 1000s more articles like this from reporters, human rights organisations, aid agencies...Ive been a member of Amnesty for years and knew about the evil of the Taliban way before 9-11