Islam, Modernity and the Politics of Gender 109long-distance contraband (Rubin 2000). Afghanistan also experienced one of
the largest recorded fl ows of refugees and internally displaced people. I shall not
speculate, here, on the possible consequences of these transformations for the
realm of gender relations (see Kandiyoti 2007b) but focus more narrowly on the
changing political stakes around women’s rights.
The mujahidin factions of the Northern Alliance, which had received the bulk
of US assistance in the operations leading to the eventual overthrow of the
Taliban, emerged as the strongest players on the eve of the Bonn Agreement in
2001, which laid the groundwork for the new Afghan state. This had a number
of signifi cant implications. These players, based on constituencies among north-
ern and central ethnic groups – namely, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras – repre-
sented a mixture of ethnic claims mingled with those of politicised Islam. They
were intent on resisting the reinstatement of Pashtun dominance, not only in the
form of the Taliban, but also in the shape of a centralised governance apparatus
based on a strong presidential system. That was an issue that was bitterly fought
over in the process leading to the Constitution adopted in 2004 (Rubin 2008).
Debates over the constitutional role of Islam – and the extent to which equal
rights for men and women could be enshrined in legislation – became deeply
entangled in the compromises between mujahidin factions and the new tech-
nocrats of an aid-dependent government: a dependence that brought with it,
among other things, a request for compliance with legal international standard
- setting instruments and their provisions for gender equality.^14 This led to
a constitution with several potentially contradictory clauses, with the ulama
retaining substantial powers of arbitration through their representation in the
Supreme Court. The mujahidin parties, pressing their nationalistic credentials as
the liberators of the country both from Soviet rule and from the Taliban, were
able to accuse their detractors (including some women MPs, taking them to task
over their human-rights record) with nothing short of treason. The constituen-
cies pushing for an expansion of women’s rights had an extremely weak hand
to play, since they had little traction with the emerging power blocks and little
legitimacy. They generally tried carefully to balance their demands either with
reference to Islam (hence the dual invocation of the Constitution and the sharia
in the protests against killings referred to earlier) or, in more technocratic texts,
with reference to the benefi ts of an educated, healthy and economically active
female citizenry to national development.
The entanglements of Islam and state-building have been deep and complex
in Afghanistan. Prior to Abdur Rahman Khan’s centralising drive, the loose
structure of the state meant that local religious leaders achieved considerable
power and autonomy, especially in the tribal areas, albeit under the patronage
of temporal rulers (Haroon 2007). Abdur Rahman Khan’s role was paradoxical
in that he undercut the autonomous power of the ulama, by organisationally
subordinating them to the state and keeping their moral infl uence in check,