Statement of the Embassy and Mission of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Rome on the Recent Statement by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)

Rome, 31 December 2022

The Embassy and Mission of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Rome, Italy welcomes the recent statement by Honorable Hissein Brahim Taha, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in which he called on the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA) to urgently launch a campaign to unite scholars in the Islamic world against the Taliban’s recent decision to ban female Afghans from pursuing their education.

In the aforementioned statement, which was issued remotely on Thursday, December 29, 2022 at the opening of the second meeting of the 2022 IIFA Bureau, Secretary General Taha called to launch a global campaign to unite religious scholars and authorities in the Islamic world against the Taliban’s recent decision to prevent Afghan girls and women from attaining education as well as the dire need to re-emphasize the true teachings of Islam, which requires the education of girls and women. The statement further stressed that in addition to issues of minorities, escalating hostility to Muslims in Western countries, and other pressing issues, the decision of the Taliban to prevent Afghan females from attaining education and to dismiss female faculty members from their positions on the pretext that it contradicts Islamic law, must be given priority for review in the OIC and upcoming IIFA agendas.

Furthermore, Secretary General Taha recalled that when a team of scholars visited Afghanistan in June of 2022, they explicitly stressed the importance of educational and employment opportunities for Afghan females during their meetings with the Taliban clergy and authority.

The Embassy and Mission of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Rome, once again reiterates that amid growing outrage around the world at the Taliban’s increasing list of draconian orders against women – the latest being a ban on females getting any education above grade six and the ban on women working for indigenous and non-indigenous NGOs – it is critical that with the support of OIC, the Islamic Scholars immediately issue a unanimous religious pronouncement to denounce the Taliban’s recent decisions and actions as being un-Islamic. It is also imperative that the OIC, SCO and the UN international body to confront the Taliban, their affiliates, and State Sponsors to put an end to such actions, which not only endangers the security and prosperity of Afghanistan and beyond, but further increases the misconceptions about the true nature and message of Islam.