A brave woman is cut down in her prime. From the BBC:
A well-known Afghan poet and journalist has died from her injuries after being beaten, police say.
Officers found the body of Nadia Anjuman, 25, at her home in the western city of Herat.
A senior police officer said her husband had confessed to hitting her during a row.
But it is said that “the family”, which I suspect means “her husband’s family”, refused to allow a post-mortem, which makes it highly likely that he will not pay any price for his action.
I couldn’t find any English-language information about her on the web. If you’re a reader who knows of sites in other languages, could you leave a comment with the link? It would be a small memorial.
Whenever I read about Herat, which is famous as a cultural centre I think of a wonderful anthropological study by a woman, I think she was American, that focused on pre-Taliban Herat, and a family of musicians, particularly the lives of the women, which was, by later Afghan standards, full and creative. Unfortunately I leant it to someone and never got it back. Does anyone recognise the description?
Postscript: Thinking of Muslim women poets, the one who immediately sprang to mind was the Bangladeshi Taslima Nasreen/Nasrin who has stood up against fatwas, death threats and societal pressures to proclaim the reality of women’s position in her society.
She wrote:
“Even a mangy cur of the house barks now and then,
but over the mouths of women cheaply had,
there’s a lock, a golden lock.”
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