Rather than the bloody horror that was being predicted a few weeks ago, it sounds like the people of Kabul are able to contemplate their own relationship with Allah, not the one enforced on them by the Taliban with steel cables.
Ullah said he used to worry every time he saw the Taliban’s religious police. Elderly, with a bushy gray beard, Ullah said: “Even with my beard like this I worried when I saw them, because I thought maybe they will beat me. Maybe there is something wrong.”
During Ramadan, the religious police, who were sometimes seen ripping antennas from cars to beat women they said were not properly covered, were in the streets in greater numbers. “The Taliban were very strict about these things. Even laughing they didn’t like during Ramadan,” recalled Sher Mohammed.
“People were sad, and Ramadan should be a happy month for Muslims,” said Azizur Rehman, who had trimmed his beard earlier in the day. “They would beat us and by force make us go to the mosque,” said Rehman. “They said we should have a beard. We could not listen to music. We could not live.”
Allah, I suspect, is smiling.
(Via Matt Welch)