The Taliban practice and enforce a strict, fundamentalist version of Islamic law, known as “Sharia.” It is drawn from the words of Muhammad (hadith), his personal practice (sunnah), and Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an, which adherents believe Muhammad dictated.
One semi-positive thing that will come from this “Taliban takeover” is that the world will see the shame of Sharia law. It seems many Islamic-prominent countries now use Sharia law in full or in part. Those nations include Afghanistan; Egypt; Indonesia; Iran; Iraq; Malaysia; Maldives; Mauritania; Nigeria; Pakistan; and Saudi Arabia. The inhumane atrocities in northern Nigeria and parts of Indonesia and Malaysia are contemporary crises caused by this strict praxeology.
During the Taliban’s previous control of Afghanistan, which ended after Western retaliation for harboring Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaida leadership, they made public executions, mutilations and floggings commonplace.
Religious freedoms and women’s rights were generally eliminated under the Taliban’s hyper-conservative interpretation of Islam’s Sharia law. The Taliban’s religion regulated or restricted public and private behavior and even beliefs. Sadly, we will undoubtedly see the same shameful practices repeated shortly.
Shockingly, aspects of Sharia law are now being lawfully practiced in the whole or parts of countries all around the world — even in Western countries. As borders have been forcefully opened by illegal immigrants and millions of practicing Islamists have flooded into those countries, Sharia practitioners have tried to insist they be allowed to continue these alarming and repulsive beliefs and behaviors.
As we approach the sad anniversary of 9/11, let us be forever grateful that we live in “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” where we believe that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…”
May God Bless America and — especially — the families who have loved ones who have given up their lives in the ultimate service to our country, that we may live in freedom. May we be reunited in the common belief that we are “one nation under God.” May our identity rest in the brotherhood of our human race and the character of our lives, rather than the color of our skin, both now and for generations to come.
Gary Curtis
Newhall
