Taliban Cleric: Women Have No Right to Use Both Eyes
Mahmood Zakeri, the preacher at Kabul’s Abdul Rahman Grand Mosque and senior advisor to the Taliban's Ministry of Refugees, sparked outrage on Friday after stating that women are not allowed to walk in public with both eyes open.
In his Friday sermon on August 1, Zakeri defended the recent arrests of women by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, claiming:
“A woman has no right to walk with both eyes open. When outside, she may only look with one eye. The other eye, along with the entire face, must be covered.”
He went on to say that women, even with one uncovered eye, are only permitted to look at the path ahead and are not allowed to gaze elsewhere.
Zakeri also cited a hadith, asserting that a woman should not leave the house without a valid excuse or a male guardian.
“If a woman leaves home without a mahram, God, the angels, and all beings in the heavens and on earth curse her,” he said.
He further warned that criticizing the Ministry’s policies was equivalent to objecting to “Allah and His Messenger.”
These remarks come amid a wave of arrests of young women in Kabul in recent weeks, allegedly for failing to adhere to the Taliban’s strict dress code. Local sources and eyewitnesses have reported violent crackdowns by Taliban enforcers.
According to reports, the arrests were ordered directly by Taliban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada under the group’s revised Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Article 13 of the law designates a woman’s voice and face as awrah (intimate and forbidden to be seen), and stipulates that women may only appear in public when accompanied by a male guardian.
