On Sunday, when I was making my way amidst crowd that similarly was struggling not to get muddied as result of flash floods overpowered roads, a group of old men were sitting on the side of the road and blaming the prevalence of immorality as the main reason behind the natural disaster. They were of the view that landslide in Badakhshan province and flash floods in other provinces which have left hundreds dead and thousands homeless happen due to less commitment of people to religious issues and that is why Allah Almighty descent such natural disaster to punish people for their sin. One of them told that would people remain safe when a religious scholar raped an innocent girl? By saying so, he pointed to incident occurred in Baghlan province. Based on reports, a religious scholar by tricking wanted to rape her. But before he rapes, the father of the girl cuts the nose and ear of the Mullah.
Religious scholars hold deep reverence and high influence among Afghan people, particularly in rural areas. Believe it or not, if a religious scholar opposes anything on whatever account, people will accept his stance and withhold not support. In other words, Mullahs are viewed as infallible and the very standard of good and bad. Some people view that as symbol of right and wrong---whatever they accept that is right and vice versa for their opposition. On the other hand, such deep reverence and respect has imposed a very critical responsibility on the shoulder of religious scholars. Their every step is watched. Thus, they should carefully dress and be so committed to religious issues. They offer prayer on time and do not miss any religious rituals without any acceptable excuses.
Hence, if they commit any mistake their religious status wide acceptance among common people will get seriously affected. So, if for years, people used stand on behind Mullah and offered their and followed his instructions, suddenly they find out that perhaps was the kind of person they trusted. Certainly that would be a serious emotional blow to common people.
Moreover, Mullahs are considered the symbol of religiosity. They viewed as the most trustable and spiritual figures. It is hard for common people to accept that someone who spiritual and aware of religious issues or simply the committed followers of Prophet Mohammad commit an adultery which to some extent is considered the most horrible moral crime. Thediscussion of group of old man indirectly was pointing to the same issue. If similar crime was committed by a common man or let’s say a non-Madressah educated person, people may not have reacted so harshly. For this category of people, adultery by a Mullah is sign of closeness of resurrection day or anger of Allah Almighty against sinful human beings.
The interesting part is this that when similar natural disaster occur in non-Muslim countries, people start talking similar things about the anger of Allah Almighty against sinful residents. Now when such natural incidents take place in areas where people are generally good from a particular religious perspective that common people, they get confused about what is really wrong.
No doubt, these spiritual concepts have been among human beings perhaps since their very familiarity with concept of God and spirituality and reflected differently in different religious groups. They were reflected in one or the other but interesting no body lose believes even when such concepts prove baseless and wrong. There is always justification takes the hands of people and their beliefs remain intact. For example, when a natural hit people, the reason behind is said to be sin and Allah punishes them. So, when the mountain slide removes reportedly 300 hundred homes of villagers, than it is related to sin of people in other parts of the country. In this philosophy, human beings are considered as jangle soil. If a jangle gets fired, all of them may get burned. And so, for the sin of an individual, thousands must pay the price. For instance, top religious scholars of Islamic republic just years ago were criticizing western countries and branding HIV as curse of Allah Almighty because of moral corruption. But soon the diseases spread in Islamic countries and now no one can claim that it is curse of Allah Almighty for the Western countries.
Needless to say, modern individualism has not found its way to this collective mentality. For the sin of an individual, many are responsible. Just putting a glimpse to society, we can easily found that such collective thinking is visible in each corner of people’s lives. As said, for the sin of an individual many are responsible. For example, if a girl gets raped, not only the rapist is sinful but his entire family members or his community. Sometimes punishment of the criminal is enough from traditional court but number of others from the same community or those who related to him by blood should get punished.
Thus, during history for a small crimes, the entire community has got blamed not only the individual. If a girl escape with a boy, along with the boy other community should pay the price. Baad or marrying girl for resolving disputes sometimes happen because of the same collective punishment. It is highly likely that once individuals spread and everyone is responsible for their own deeds, part of social and legal issues will be resolved and a Mullah may not lose ear and nose for sin he just wanted to commit.