Search

Jirga is a word of Mongolian origin meaning “circle” and “rank” (Doerfer, 1:291). In the contexts of hunting and military combat, it referred to a circle or semicircle of men formed when closing in on their prey or enemy troops. From the ninth/fifteenth century on, the Persian sources describing the political setting under the Turco-Mongolian dynasty of the Tīmūrids (771–913/1370–1507) and early Ṣafavids (907–1135/1501–1722) mentioned this term in several senses. The original meaning of a “hunti…

Attorney General, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan; born: 1967; education: National Police Academy of Afghanistan, Criminal Law; Kabul Univ., Law and Political Science; Islamic Azid Univ., Masters; Harvard Univ., USA, Masters, Public Admin.; professional career: mem., Election cttee. of Emergency Loya Jirga; Temp. Sec., Emergency Loya Jirga; mem., Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan; mem., Ind. Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan; mem., Indep. Election Complaint Commission; Advisor; Amb. against Torture in Afghanistan; num…

Former Minister of Justice, Government of Afghanistan; born: 1952; education: Kabul Medical Univ.; Political Science, MA; Islamic Studies, MA; party: Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan (political); political career: Head, Hezb-e Islami's health cttee; mem., Executive Cttte.; Deputy and Acting Minister of Public Health, Rabbani government; mem., Constitution Commission at the Constitution Loya Jirga; Adviser on Social Affairs to President Karzai; Minister of Justice, 2015-2020.

Mass media law of 2006. Issued as a Presidential decree of 2004 in Gazette3 Apr 2004. Reviewed during 2005 by the…

For the vast majority of Afghan women, the family functions as the paramount social institution. Thus women's participation in public office remains conspicuous by its absence. King Amīr Amān Allāh (1919–29) tried to liberate women but his programs met with tribal backlash and led to his overthrow. During the premiership of Muḥammad Dāwūd (1953–63) an attempt at public unveiling occurred on the second day of Jeshn (24–30 August 1959). Other bold steps were also taken; for example, a delegation of Afghan women participate…

The Afghan women's movement in the twentieth century had a major impact on gender issues. In 1964 Afghan women participated in the drafting of the constitution and won the right to vote. In the 1960s and 1970s they had a strong presence in many institutions: education, health, engineering, the civil service, and parliament. However, the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States to control the flow of regional oil and natural resources and their support for their chosen warlords,…

The Afghan constitution of 1964 granted universal suffrage; however, political parties were not allowed. Prior to the constitution power was firmly held by the political elite associated with the royal family. Conservative social norms and limited access to education minimized the participation of women. In Kabul, urban women in the education sector and in women's organizations exercised political influence. Women were elected to parliament and in 1965 the first woman cabinet member was appointed. In 1978 the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized powe…

Afghan legal development has been totally colored by two factors—its tradition of tribal government …

Constitution of 14 Jadi 1382 (2004). Adopted by the Constitutional Loya Jirga of the Transitional Is…

As of summer 2007 the newly restructured nation of Afghanistan has made some noticeable progress in …

The Petersburg agreement of 5 December 2001 called for a new constitution based on the legal framewo…

With the rise of the Taliban in 1994 and their eventual defeat by United States and allied Afghan forces, worldwide attention focused on the severe treatment of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. As the Afghan people work to rebuild their country in an insecure environment, experts say that countries that promote women's rights and increase their access to resources and schooling enjoy lower poverty rates, faster economic growth, and less corruption than countries that do not. …

Gender and women's issues have featured prominently in the political evolution of modern Afghanistan; however, traditional elements have consistently resisted efforts to change Afghan society. King Amān Allāh (r. 1919–29) attempted to transform Afghanistan into a modern state. His modernization campaign produced Afghanistan's first constitution (1924), the secularization of education, and advocated the emancipation of women. Girls' schools were established in Kabul. Women were encouraged to unveil. Legislation in 1923 gave women the right to marry th…

The Afghan state has signed several human rights instruments and treaties with particular relevance for gender relations, among which is the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) first signed by Karmal in August 1980 and 23 years later by President Karzai in March 2003. Violation of human rights committed under both the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which espoused secular principles of law, and the Rabbani (1992–6) and the Taliban (1996–…

Ḥabīballāh (Ḥabībullāh) Khān (1872–1919) was son of the amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (r. 1880–1901) and a slave girl from the court of Jahāndār Shāh, the mīr (amīr) of Badakhshān (r. 1864–9). He succeeded ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and ruled Afghanistan from 3 October 1901 to 20 February 1919, when he was assassinated at Kalla-gūsh, in Laghmān. Ḥabīballāh Khān inherited a functioning administrative and military system. His first official communications indicated the young amīr’s intention to continue the isolationist policies of his father: In order to shield his country from foreign…

A century of political and social upheavals in Iran and Afghanistan, beginning in the late nineteenth century, situated women at the heart of diverse class, ethnic, national, and religious “imagined communities.” In both countries, the link between gender and modernity played a significant role in shaping and representing the nation, women in the nation, and various subnational identities. Neither Iran nor Afghanistan was formally colonized, and both countries underwent periods of indigenous reform and revolution in the twentieth century. During the Iranian Constitutional …

Introduction It is the right of a child and a father to know of and honor their biological bond. Mechanisms for ascertaining biological paternity need not be violent or restrictive toward the mother. In patriarchal societies, however, this right becomes an oppressive metasymbol that forms the cornerstone of an integrated system of subjugation, domination, and oppression of women, an extreme form of which is the ritualized killing of women suspected of infidelity in order to protect male honor. Pa…

This entry covers three countries crafted by violence: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. India, with a sizeable Muslim population, is secular by constitution and law; the other two, with majority Muslim populations, have turned from secularism to theocracy. The Indian subcontinent was structured along tribal and feudal lines during colonial times. The British superimposed upon this a secular common law framework that applied to all areas except personal law, which was left to the discretion of each indigenous community. At the same …

Customary law in Afghanistan needs to be understood in the context of the semi-autonomous segregated societies that have made up the Afghan landscape. These are self-defined by ethnicity or geographical location/boundaries. As the practice of customary law can be an identifying marker of a geographical group or ethnicity, legislation in the case of Afghan customary law needs to be understood outside the more common state-bound usage. Legislation occurs where adjudication takes place by the p…

Democracy ideologies are based on gendered concepts of citizenship. They define a citizen as a free and autonomous contract-making individual, a property owner, the male citizen. Democracy ideologies exclude women from the state. This exclusion is accentuated by the attempts to separate state and civil society, civil society and the private sphere, and the state and the private sphere. The works of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59), the French philosopher and historian, present an example of the gendered character of democracy ideologies. In his much acclaimed work De la démocratie…