Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's largest city and serves as its capital. According to the World Population review, as of 2021, Afghanistan's population is 40.2 million. The National Statistics Information Authority of Afghanistan estimated the population to be 32.9 million as of 2020.
The Taliban, which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a militant organization in Afghanistan with an ideology comprising elements of Pashtun nationalism and the Deobandi current of Islamic fundamentalism. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001, before being overthrown following the American invasion. It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 following the departure of most coalition forces, after nearly 20 years of insurgency, and currently controls all of the country. However, its government is not recognized by any country. The Taliban government has been internationally condemned for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and to have an education.
The treatment of women by the Taliban refers to actions and policies by various Taliban regimes which are either specific or highly commented upon, mostly due to discrimination, since they first took control in 1996. During their first rule of Afghanistan (1996–2001), the Taliban were notorious internationally for their misogyny and violence against women. In 1996, women were mandated to wear the burqa at all times in public. In a systematic segregation sometimes referred to as gender apartheid, women were not allowed to work, nor were they allowed to be educated after the age of eight. Women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools, where they and their teachers risked execution if caught. They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperone, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. They faced public flogging and execution for violations of the Taliban's laws.
A burqa or a burka is an enveloping outer garment worn by some Muslim women which fully covers the body and the face. Also known as a chadaree or chaadar in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or a paranja in Central Asia, the Arab version of the burqa is called the boshiya and is usually black. The term burqa is sometimes conflated with the niqāb even though, in more precise usage, the niqab is a face veil that leaves the eyes uncovered, while a burqa covers the entire body from the top of the head to the ground, with a mesh screen which only allows the wearer to see in front of her. The burqa should also not be confused with the hijab, a garment which covers the hair, neck and all or part of the chest, but does not cover the face.
This article on the history of Afghanistan covers the period from the fall of the Najibullah government in 1992 to the end of the international military presence in Afghanistan.
The culture of Afghanistan has persisted for over three millennia, tracing record to at least the time of the Achaemenid Empire in 500 BCE, and encompasses the cultural diversity of the nation. Afghanistan's culture is historically strongly connected to nearby Persia, including the same religion, as the people of both countries have lived together for thousands of years. Its location at the crossroads of Central, South and Western Asia historically made it a hub of diversity, dubbed by one historian as the "roundabout of the ancient world".
Kandahar is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, set in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. Its original Afghan title is Safar-e Ghandehar, which means "Journey to Kandahar", and it is alternatively known as The Sun Behind the Moon. The film is based on a partly true, partly fictionalized story of Nafas, a successful Afghan-Canadian woman played by Nelofer Pazira.
Clothing in Afghanistan consists of the traditional style of clothing worn in Afghanistan. The various cultural exchanges in the nation's history have influenced the styles and flavors of contemporary Afghan designs. The national dress is the fusion of different ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The styles can be subdivided into the various ethnicities with unique elements for each. Traditional dresses for both men and women tend to cover the whole body, with trousers gathered at the waist, a loose shirt or dress, and some form of head covering.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, following the huge success of his bestselling 2003 debut The Kite Runner. Mariam, an illegitimate teenager from Herat, is forced to marry a shoemaker from Kabul after a family tragedy. Laila, born a generation later, lives a relatively privileged life, but her life intersects with Mariam's when a similar tragedy forces her to accept a marriage proposal from Mariam's husband.
Suhaila Siddiq, often referred to as 'General Suhaila', was an Afghan politician. She served as the Minister of Public Health from December 2001 to 2004. Prior to that, she worked as the Surgeon General in the military of Afghanistan. As a government minister, she was given the title Honorable before her name. Siddiq was one of the few female government leaders in Afghanistan, and is the only woman in the history of Afghanistan to have held the title of lieutenant general. General Seddiq had worked for the government of Afghanistan since the reign of Mohammed Zahir Shah.
Women's rights in Afghanistan have oscillated back and forth depending on the time period as well as the regime in power. After King Amanullah Khan's attempts to modernize the country in the 1920s, women officially gained equality under the 1964 Constitution. However, these rights were taken away in the 1990s through different temporary rulers such as the mujahideen and the Taliban during the Afghan civil war. During the first Taliban regime (1996–2001), women had very little to no freedom, specifically in terms of civil liberties. When the Taliban was overthrown by the United States following the 9/11 attacks, women's rights gradually improved under the presidential Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Women were de jure equal to men under the 2004 Constitution.
Various styles of head coverings, most notably the khimar, hijab, chador, niqab, paranja, yashmak, tudong, shayla, safseri, carşaf, haik, dupatta, boshiya and burqa, are worn by Muslim women around the world, where the practice varies from mandatory to optional or restricted in different majority Muslim and non-Muslim countries.
Masuma Esmati-Wardak was an Afghan writer and politician. She was jointly one of the first women to serve in the Afghan parliament and served as Minister of Education.
This is a timeline of the background of the history of the Taliban. It details the Taliban movement's origin in Pashtun nationalism, and briefly relates its ideological underpinnings with that of broader Afghan society. It also describes Taliban's consolidation of power, listing persecutions by Taliban officials during both its five years in power in Afghanistan and its war with the Northern Alliance. It further covers Taliban's time in power, its fall following the US invasion and its fight against the subsequent occupation, as well as its eventual return to power.
Islamic graffiti is a genre of graffiti created by people who usually relate to the Middle East or North Africa, using Arabic or other languages for social or political messages. It is a popular art genre created by "artists, graffiti writers, designers and typographers from the Middle East and around the world who merge Arabic calligraphy with the art of graffiti writing, street art and urban culture."
Shamsia Hassani is an Afghani street artist, a fine arts lecturer, and the associate professor of Drawing and Anatomy Drawing at the Kabul University. She has popularized "street art" in the streets of Kabul and has exhibited her art in several countries including India, Iran, Germany, United States of America, Switzerland, Vietnam, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Italy, Canada, and in diplomatic missions in Kabul. Hassani paints graffiti in Kabul to bring awareness to the war years. In 2014, Hassani was named one of FP's top 100 global thinkers. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.
Farzana Wahidy is an Afghan documentary photographer and photojournalist. She has made photographs of women and girls in Afghanistan. She was the first female photographer in Afghanistan to work with international media agencies such as the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Sahraa Karimi is an Afghan film director who was notably the first female chairperson of the Afghan Film Organization. She has directed 30 short films, 3 documentary films and one fiction film Hava, Maryam, Ayesha which had the world premier at the 76th Venice Film Festival. Prior to the fall of Kabul to the hands of the Taliban, she was the first and the only woman to be directing Afghanistan's film entity.
Sharbat Gula is an Afghan woman who became internationally recognized as the 12-year-old subject in Afghan Girl, a 1984 portrait taken by American photojournalist Steve McCurry that was later published as the cover photograph for the June 1985 issue of National Geographic. The portrait was shot at Nasir Bagh, Pakistan, while Gula was residing there as an Afghan refugee fleeing the Soviet–Afghan War. Despite the photograph's high global recognition, Gula's identity remained unknown until 2002, when her whereabouts were verified and she was photographed for the second time in her life. Having lived and raised a family in Pakistan for 35 years, Gula was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2016 and subsequently deported to Afghanistan in 2017 on the charge of possessing forged identity documents. However, in November 2021, Gula was granted asylum in Italy, three months after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Farahnaz Forotan is an Afghan journalist and women's rights activist. She moved to Iran together with her family during the Mujahideen regime. Farahnaz returned to Afghanistan in 2001, but took refuge in France in 2020 after being included on a Taliban's target list.
