God's Law, Man's Rule: Debating Women's Right to Health from Sacred Texts to the Taliban

In Islam, the focus on access to healthcare services is reflected in three out of five universal objectives of Islamic Sharia: the preservation of life (hifiz al-nafs), the preservation of intellect (hifiz al-ʿaql), and the preservation of progeny (hifz al-nasl). Furthermore, the Quran's direct orders and the Prophet's Sunnah provide the foundation for every human being to enjoy healthcare services in an Islamic society. Despite growing attention to the women’s right to healthcare in Muslim-majority states, the Taliban authorities, under the name of Islamic Sharia, have closed all public and private medical education institutions for women. Moreover, they have issued several directives preventing male healthcare service providers from serving women patients. This study represents the first substantive scholarly inquiry into the contemporary discourse on women’s right to healthcare within the framework of Islamic jurisprudence, juxtaposed with the Taliban’s distinctive and exclusivist interpretations of Islamic law. It examines women’s access to healthcare services both in Islam and under the Taliban’s de facto governance, seeking to address the central research question: What is the status of women’s right to healthcare in the primary sources of Islamic law, the Quran and the Prophet’s Sunnah, and to what extent do Taliban policies on women’s healthcare correspond with or diverge from the views of mainstream classical and contemporary Muslim jurists, particularly the Hanafi school's doctrines? The study employs a qualitative, multi-source methodology that integrates textual, doctrinal, and empirical analyses.

Lutforahman Saeed is a distinguished scholar in Islamic law and human rights. He formerly served as a faculty member at the Faculty of Islamic Studies (Sharia) at Kabul University (KU), where he taught for over 27 years. Dr. Saeed earned his B.A. in Islamic Studies from Kabul University in 1991, followed by an LL.M. from the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle in 2010. He completed his Ph.D. with summa cum laude honors in Islamic Law and Human Rights from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany, in December 2019. His doctoral dissertation received the STAEDTLER Foundation's Award for Outstanding Dissertation in 2020. Dr. Saeed’s research mainly focuses on Islamic law, Islamic studies, and the intersection of custom and human rights, with an emphasis on Afghanistan. His scholarly work includes several articles in national academic journals as well as his 2022 monograph, Islam, Custom, and Human Rights in Afghanistan. He was also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Afghan Legal Studies from 2017 to 2022. His research currently focuses on women's right to freedom of movement within Islamic law and under Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. His work advocates for a nuanced understanding of Islamic legal traditions and their contemporary implications, especially in contexts marked by authoritarianism and ideological control. Through scholarly analysis and engagement with current legal discourse, he aims to amplify critical perspectives on women's rights in Afghanistan today. In addition to his academic endeavors, Dr. Saeed has held several significant public and institutional roles. He served as a member and vice president of the Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution (ICOIC) for four years. Currently, he is a visiting scholar at the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) at J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, where he teaches Islamic Law.

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Gender Studies