Well, of course they're more concerned about the dead than the living... or should I say, "living dead," or "unclean?"  To be truthful I know less about Islamic culture than any other third world culture I studied in my Anthro grad school classes, but from what I vaguely remember, disabled babies are not allowed to live, particularly if they're girls.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong in this.

Unfortunately, infanticide of babies born with disabilities is all too common outside industrialised nations.

Kat

"St. John's University Cerebral Palsy List" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The Taliban as do-gooders????   Tell that to the girls and women who
couldn't go to medical school during the Taliban's reign.  The mind boggles.

Kat

I should have included the entire article -- sorry.  The exploitation of
disabled people there will go on long after women are cutting on cadavers
again.  The comment I would love to have made would have been that perhaps we
could get the Afghan police to come over here and straighten out Jerry Lewis
 ;-)  As you see in the full article below however, they are not interested
in keeping disabled people from being exploited as much as they are in
protecting the sanctity of the graves.

Here's the whole article below.

Betty

Glow in the dark al Qaeda graves worry Afghan police

By Andrew Marshall

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Afghan police are cracking down on
a shrine that has grown up around the graves of al Qaeda fighters at a
Kandahar cemetery, saying it has been abused by charlatans promising
supernatural cures and miracles.

Police sources told Reuters on Monday they had carried out several raids on
the grave site in a windswept corner of a vast burial ground on the eastern
edge of Kandahar to try to prevent pro-Taliban residents gathering there.

"One man buried electric bulbs in the graves and told people it was magical
light that could heal them," a senior police official said. "He has been
arrested. We respect the graves but we do not respect such people."

More than 80 Arab, Pakistani, Chechen and African fighters from Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda network lie buried at the site under simple earth mounds
marked with stones. Coloured flags flutter in the wind, many inscribed with
Koranic verses.

The graves have become a place of pilgrimage for Afghans who supported the
Taliban and mourn their departure.

The site is usually the busiest part of the graveyard, a flat dusty plain
that stretches into the desert at the edge of the city, with thousands of
graves and a few domed mud-brick tombs.

Word has spread that the al Qaeda graves have magical healing properties, and
scores of people congregate there every day, some to pay their respects, and
others hoping their diseases or disabilities will be cured.

SUPERNATURAL LIGHT

"The police have told people not to come, but we are still coming," said Aziz
Mohammad, an elderly white-bearded Afghan who says he visits the graves every
day.

"Handicapped people and sick people have been cured by coming here. This is a
holy place."

In a city where many are suspicious of the changes sweeping through their
country, the crowds holding a vigil at the cemetery show that support for the
Taliban and their al Qaeda allies has not disappeared in Afghanistan.

But the austere Islamic Taliban movement, which tolerated no superstition,
would have been appalled.

At the graves, veiled women kneel in the dust, hoping for health, wealth or
good fortune. A blind man was led into the burial site by relatives who said
they had heard a visit could restore his sight.

The people scatter as a police car appears on the horizon on the dirt road
leading from central Kandahar, then return to the graves once the coast is
clear.

People at the graves say they have been beaten by police for gathering here.
They say some of the flags marking the graves have also been removed.

But Mohammad Yusuf Pashtun, a senior aide to Kandahar governor Gul Agha
Sherzai, said the authorities had no intention of defiling the graves.

"There has been some kind of hanky-panky business going on there," he said.

"People here are Muslim, they believe in the sanctity of the dead. But some
people were making tricks with lamps, trying to pretend a supernatural light
was coming out of the graves. That is what we are trying to stop."

05:13 02-18-02

Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited.