Sana: I say, "Okay; I’m disabled, but that doesn’t stop me." I don’t show that I’m feeling sad or angry, I just tell myself, "I’m going to school." I hide my feelings and just pretend everything is fine.
When people laugh at me, I don’t show my face [my feelings]. When they throw stones at me or push me down, I don’t show my face. I just go home and cry. I don’t show it to my family, either, because maybe they will tell me I can’t go to school. So I’ve learned to cover up my feelings.
Peggy: What are your hopes for the future?
Sana: I want to study politics. I want to help the women who beg in the streets and kids who are working and not going to school. I want to help disabled girls who have to stay at home.
Peggy: What else would you like to say?
Sana: I want my people to help disabled girls and poor women. A lot of girls burn themselves because they were married to old men. I saw with my own eyes a seven-year-old girl who was married to a 40-year-old man. Helping these girls gives me hope.
Rural Afghanistan is made up of long river valleys such as this one. This poses challenges for those wanting to establish health clinics or schools in these areas and reach a significant number of people
History and Geography
Before beginning the women’s stories, this brief review of some highlights of Afghan history is intended to provide a contextual framework for their modern-day accounts. Many Americans may be familiar with recent Afghan history, but not its roots. For Afghans, both ancient and modern history inform their world view.
The history of Afghanistan is indeed a "his"-tory in that the historical record largely concerns men’s actions and achievements. Much of the record is a history of invasion, conquest, resistance, feuds, and war. However, a few shining female examples stand out.
The first is Rabia Balkhi,1 a legendary poet who lived in the 10th century CE. Of royal birth, she fell in love with her brother’s slave. When her brother found out, he imprisoned her in a bathroom and cut her throat. She wrote her final poems on the bathroom wall with her own blood. The poems seen here and many others describe an idealized romance with love itself that permeates the Afghan character even today.
Another notable woman in Afghan history, Queen Goharshad, lived in Herat and commissioned a mosque and university complex there in the 13th century. During the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880), a commoner, Malalai of Maiwand, won fame by taking up the Afghan flag and leading discouraged soldiers back into battle.2
Rabia Qozdari, also known as Rabia Balkhi after the place of her birth, was the first female poet of the Islamic world. She was bilingual and wrote her poems in Arabic and Persian.
Two Poems by Rabia Balkhi
Love I am caught in Love's Web so deceitful None of my endeavors turn fruitful. I knew not when I rode the high-Blooded steed The harder I pulled its reins the less it would heed. Love is an ocean with such a vast space No wise man can swim it in any place. A true lover should be faithful till the end And face life's reprobated trend. When you see things hideous, fancy them neat; Eat poison but taste sugar sweet.
Love Your love caused me to be imprisoned again My effort to keep this love as a secret was in vain Love is a sea with the shores you cannot see And a wise [one] can never swim in such a sea.
Afghanistan’s location between Eastern and Western worlds, as well as Central and South Asia, factors into its turbulent history; both as an object of conquest and a buffer between rival empires and nations. In newsrooms, stories about the country are routed to the South Asia desk, to be grouped with India and Pakistan. Afghans are not Arabs, but descended from Aryans (the ancient peoples of India), Turkish tribes, and Central Asians. The ancestors of the Hazara are said to have come from the Xinjiang region of northwestern China and to be descendants of Genghis Khan and his followers.3
Pashtuns make up more than half the population. Tajiks, the same ethnicity as people of the independent nation and former Soviet state of Tajikistan, make up about one quarter, and the Hazaras and Uzbeks are each nine percent. Relatives of the Uzbeks inhabit the independent nation and former Soviet state of Uzbekistan.
Successive waves of invaders – Persians, Greeks, Huns, Turks, and Russians – have rolled across what is now known as Afghanistan throughout history, and its borders have fluctuated with such invasions.4 For convenience, I will refer to the modern area of Afghanistan as "Afghanistan" when describing its earlier history, although it did not gain its national identity until the mid-1700s.
In 628 BCE, Zoroaster5 introduced monotheism in Bactria (Balkh), an area in today’s northern Afghanistan. Alexander the Great conquered and ruled Afghanistan from 330-323 BCE. When Alexander’s armies moved on, some Greeks stayed behind to administer the territory. However, the Afghans were not subdued, and bloody revolts became commonplace. The city of Kandahar is named after a form of Alexander’s Greek name, "Iskandar."
Nomadic Kushans wrested control of Bactria from the Greeks in about 135 BCE, but adopted local customs and kept the Greek alphabet and coins. Buddhism was introduced around this time as well. In Bamyan, two giant Buddha statues, one 115 feet tall, and the second 180 feet, were carved between the second and third centuries CE. Arab Muslims captured the western city of Herat in 642 CE, and by 870 CE had conquered the rest of Afghanistan. It wasn’t until the 11th century, though, that the region completed its conversion to Islam.
After Mohammad died in 632 CE, Islam split into Sunni and Shia factions with the Sunnis more numerous throughout the Islamic world. Persia, our modern-day Iran, (which then included the western part of Afghanistan) under the Safavid empire formally adopted Shíism in 1501. Currently, 10-20% of Afghans are Shia.
Genghis Khan led Mongol invasions from 1219 to 1221, scorching the earth in various regions of Afghanistan including Bamyan, Herat, and Balkh.
Many Afghans are proud to claim the mystical Sufi poet, Mowlana Jalal ad-Din Mohammad ar Rumi6 (1207-1273) as one of their own. Known in the West as "Rumi" – actually a reference to the Turkish area where he lived and wrote – in Afghanistan he is sometimes called Al Balkhi, for his birthplace. At age nine, Rumi fled Balkh with his father because of the political and religious climate, and rumors of the coming Mongol invaders.
The Mogul Empire (1526-1707) was founded by Babur, a Turkicized prince descended from Genghis Khan. In its prime, the Empire controlled the eastern half of Afghanistan and most of India. Later, Moguls coming back westward from India brought an all-encompassing garment for women that eventually evolved into the modern-day burqa.7
By the early 1700s, the Persian Safavid empire (1501-1722) controlled much of western Afghanistan. In 1708, Mirwais Hotak (also called Mirwais Neeka and considered Afghanistan’s Grandfather) led Kandahari warriors to wrest control from the declining Persians and establish himself as prince of most of today’s southwestern Afghanistan.
In