Day 7 Week 1 -- Afghanistan -- Religion and Culture, Follow-up

Today is the final installment on Afghanistan.  Tomorrow our tour takes us to Albania.  But before ending here, I want to touch very briefly on religion.  I know that a lot is known about the afghan religion, but at the same time so much is misunderstood.  Afghanistan is a Muslim country for the most part.  But what does that mean exactly?  What is the difference between the Islam of the Taliban and the Islam of Kabul?  I'm not going to answer that, but ask visitors from any country to consider what the religion is of their own country.  Is it kept separate from politics, or is it very much a part of government?  Is there just one unified religion for the whole country are there many different sects and belief systems?  In the United States for example, we try to keep our religion separate from our politics.  It doesn't happen like that of course, but that is the intent.  Primarily though probably a majority of people are Christian, but there are also people from many different religions throughout the United States, buddhists and hindu, jewish and yes even muslim.  But even among the Christians there is a wide variety of beliefs ranging from Orthodox Catholics to Fundamentalist Protestants.  The differences can seem so broad sometimes as to be several totally different belief systems.  Rather than discuss the following links specifically, I have merely listed a few which give some of the basics:


Afghanistan's Web Site - Afghanistan religion


Afghanistan Culture


Afghanistan Religion


I post those three as starters, there is much good information in each of them.

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Follow up:

Afghan Market
Public Domain Photo

Just thought I'd mention that the photo to the left is from the Fish and Wildlife service of the United States.  It is worth mentioning that if you should go to Afghanistan it is illegal to bring back certain items.  The Fish and Wildlife Service lists products made from endangered species from a number of different countries.


I was also looking at Kindle books today and noticed an Afghan cookbook being sold for only 99 cents, so if you own a Kindle and want to know more about
Afghan cooking, now's the time to head over to the Amazon Kindle page and look around.
And a more sobering find, also at Netflix, was a documentary on The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, a Frontline documentary about the practice of bacha bereesh.  

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Finally, this is my first week of travels and as on any journey, I'm learning what to pack in my bags and what can be left behind.  And after visiting a virtual Afghanistan, I know it's not likely I'll ever visit in reality.  Although there is much that is terrible, there is also much to be seen, the place of the Buddhas which were destroyed by the Taliban, the mosques, the beautiful mountain terrain.  In looking for more photographs with which to end this, I found this site, a great site for information from Afghanistan.  The photographs are wonderful, but are copyright, so I won't post them here.  I encourage the reader to follow the link:
Nasim Fekrat - Afghanistan Through My Eyes


More photos:

Kabul, Afghanistan
Author: Christopher Killalea (public domain)

An unknown woman who covered her face, except her pretty eyes

Source: I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide

Title :- Bamyan Valley, Afghanistan. Giant ancient Buddha statues, after destroyed by Taliban in 2001
Author :- AfghanistanMatters, CC 2.0
Download high resolution photo