ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: Afghans queued at barber shops to shave their beards, music blared from shops and women threw off the head-to-toe burqa veil as the first city taken from the Taliban escaped their draconian rules, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said on Sunday.
The entry of opposition Northern Alliance forces late on Friday ended the grip of the feared Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — better known as the religious police — whose job was to implement harsh rules regarded by the Taliban as embodying the purest form of Islam.
In streets patrolled now by uniformed Northern Alliance fighters, men with beards they have not been allowed to trim for years lined up to shave them off, the Pakistan-based AIP said.
The strains of music played from shops, which were previously only allowed to sell religious chants or martial songs, AIP quoted residents of the city as saying.
Under the Taliban, a man who trimmed his beard could face arrest and several weeks in jail while his beard grew back.
The playing of music brought the penalty of a public lashing, audio cassettes were smashed and the tapes fluttered from telegraph posts in most cities.
In Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday, songs accompanied by the long-banned instrumentalist backing were playing in restaurants and shops, AIP said.
WOMEN COME OUT: Women began to appear on the streets without the concealment of the all-enveloping burqa mandated by the Taliban, AIP said.
But many residents were apprehensive that members of the majority ethnic Pashtun tribe could face reprisals from the Northern Alliance — composed mainly of minority Uzbeks and Tajiks, AIP said.
The Taliban rules had included bans on lipstick, television, neckties, playing cards and music — other than religious songs and chants.
But even in the southern city of Kandahar, powerbase of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, a sight unseen for more than five years had appeared on the streets in recent weeks — shops selling music cassettes and even CDs.
Witnesses say the religious police have virtually disappeared there after the ministry building in Kandahar was the target of several US bombs last month.
Television and photographs are banned as part of the Taliban’s campaign to create its pure Muslim state. Under that system, iconography is banned and reproduction of images of people and animals falls into that category.
The Taliban believe their rules are based on Islam, but they often seem more rooted in traditions of the Pashtun tribes where the movement finds its main strength.
A ban on Western dress and a demand that men — even schoolboys — wear turbans has been justified as a tradition of the Holy Prophet. —Reuters
