Afghanistan is a country and a traditional society with the people becoming the followers of the basics of the holy Islam, since its arrival in the third century.
Women have regularly been wearing hijab or burqa whenever going out over the last long centuries.
In century 20, when King Amanullah who regained Afghanistan’s independence from the Great Britain, rose to power, the incumbent regime tried to force women not to wear hijab, a plan faced harsh reaction from the people.
His government finally collapsed due to implementation of a series of commonplace cultures, he brought to the country from some European countries, he recently visited.
The king who was widely affected by the foreign culture during his 18 months of tour to European nations, upon his return to the country, asked the people to not wear hijab while leaving outdoor and girls wear pants without headdresses, while going to schools.
Although, girls were going to schools and women on the streets and in the city, were without burqa and headscarves, but a noble Afghan culture and family tradition has ever been kept in their minds, causing women and girls not to give up their Islamic teachings. Uprisings, in different parts of the country, took place against the king forcing him finally to leave the country.
During the era of King Mohammad Zahir Shah and the ensuing communist regimes women and girls were also without hijab, while leaving outdoor, going to government offices or joining schools and other education and cultural centers.
After the victory of the Mujahidin, hijab as an Islamic teaching and family culture, returned to the society, where women and girls resumed wearing hijab and burqa, out of their houses.
But, as an Islamic teaching and family culture, hijab gradually lost its popularity among women after the U.S. and its backed western countries and its allies occupied Afghanistan, twenty years ago. Western culture gradually arrived in the country and implemented among the Afghan people mostly women. But after the Islamic Emirate’s takeover of Afghanistan in mid-August last year (2021), hijab regained its sanctity and women were respectively asked to follow Islamic values and wear hijab, as they are Muslims and living in an Islamic country.
So, hijab elevates the virtual value of a Muslim woman their pride and all Afghan women and girls have to abide by the Islamic instructions, follow noble Afghan culture and traditions and invite others to do so in their Islamic society.
M. Daud
Hijab highlights chastity of a Muslim woman
