Recent Developments in Afghan Family Law: Research Aspects

In 1985 the Afghan jurist Hasim Kamali wrote the following in his book Law in Afghanistan: In Afghanistan, a man may acquire a wife in any one of the following four ways: he may inherit a widow, gain a bride in exchange marriage, gain a bride as compensation for a crime of which he or his relatives were the victim, or pay a bride price. Inheriting a widow, exchange marriage and wives as compensation for a crime are all not acceptable according to shari’a standards and of course do not conform to human rights standards. The aim of this article is to explore whether this situation still prevails more than twenty years after the country went through the experience of Soviet occupation (1979-1988), which had a clear tendency to secularise the legal system, the time of re-establishment of the Islamic system during the rule of the Mujahidin, the civil war (1988-1994) and the Taliban who tried to impose their strict interpretation of Islamic law on the country.(1994-2001).