HERAT: Once an important Silk Road trading hub, the Afghan city of Herat has long been a cultural center, but decades of war have ravaged its ancient traditional crafts.
Now thousands of women are returning to the ancient practices, seeking to revive the traditions of a city where traders once came to haggle for silk in thick-walled houses and dome-shaped bazaars offering respite from hot summers.
On the outskirts of the ancient city, about 4,000 women work to cultivate silk, from raising silkworms, feeding them and harvesting their cocoons to spinning the yarn by hand — a month-long, labor-intensive process.
Mariam Sheikh, 30, was given a box of 20,000 silkworm eggs by a local aid group last year and has already produced about 40 kilograms of silk, which sells at 300 Afghani ($4) per kilogram.
“My great-grandfather was a silk maker, so there is pride in picking up his work again,” Sheik, who lives in Herat’s Zinda Jan district, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Her small village is surrounded by lush, green mulberry trees, planted years ago to feed the growing silkworms.
“Our community respects and encourages the silk trade and besides that, it has helped me gain financial independence,” she added.
Once the cocoons are dried, the processing into yarn is traditionally done by hand, although the women hope to import a machine to help speed up the process.
At the moment there is only one old spinning machine in Herat city, with not enough capacity to process them all.
Women have made huge strides in the conservative country since the Taliban rule of 1996 to 2001, when they were banned from attending school or work and could not even go outside without a male relative.
Growing numbers of women now complete education and work in previously male bastions, but they still face hurdles.
Four decades of war, from occupation to internal fighting, have destroyed the economy, rendering it among the poorest in the world, with few jobs — especially for young women, who occupy a particularly precarious place.
Many face cultural barriers and hostility not just from conservative family members, but also hard-line Islamist groups, for pursuing financial independence and greater equality.
According to World Bank data, just over 20 percent of Afghan women work, up from about 15 percent in 2001, when the Taliban fell.
There are fears that a final withdrawal of US troops, the winding down of international engagement and the re-emergence of the Taliban may reverse gains.
“Herat is a traditional province where few women are seen — or even allowed by their families — to work outside,” said Mariam Zemoni, one of about 30 women who weave the silk into scarves and fabric.
“That’s another reason why weaving silk is perfect for me,” said the 23-year-old, who makes at least two scarves a day, selling them for 250 Afghani each.
Nazir Ahmad Ghafoori, head of the Rehabilitation Association and Agriculture Development for Afghanistan which has supported the women, said 70 percent of the cocoons were sold to Iran and Pakistan because of a lack of processing capacity.
He hopes to involve more women in Afghanistan’s silk production, expanding to provinces beyond Herat.
“The tradition is thousands of years old, and we Afghans find pride in our art and culture — and the revival of it,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation
Since working with the women in Zinda Jan, his organization has set up the ethical fashion initiative, aiming to export silk produced under fair working conditions worldwide.
An executive board of 50 women in the district oversees and reports on each woman’s working condition.
Sheik, who is on the board, said the business had boosted the economy throughout the district.
Whatever silk is not exported or sold in other parts of Afghanistan makes it to Herat’s old silk bazaar, where vendors sit in small shops with high ceilings decorated with carved ornaments reminiscent of the Silk Road era.
“For the past years, our country has been known for war,” said Sheik. “It’s time the world knew Afghanistan for its arts and crafts, its culture, people — and its silk.”
Afghan women spin new careers by reviving ancient Silk Road crafts
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Afghan women spin new careers by reviving ancient Silk Road crafts
- Silk-weaving is a millennia-old tradition in Afghanistan
- Only 20 percent of Afghan women work, according to World Bank data
Pakistan reviewing proposal for resumption of trade with India — Foreign Office
- Pakistan suspended trade with India after New Delhi’s revocation of special autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019
- The rift has since impacted businesses on both sides who previously traded in textiles, agricultural products and medical supplies
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Office said on Thursday it was reviewing a proposal from the business community to resume trade with India.
Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic relations and suspended bilateral trade with India after New Delhi’s revocation of the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019.
The geopolitical rift between the two countries has since impacted businesses on both sides who previously benefited from cross-border trade in textiles, agricultural products and medical supplies.
Speaking at a weekly press briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson referred to a statement by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and said the business community had expressed in review of trade with India.
“Examination of such proposals is a regular exercise in the Government of Pakistan, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where we continue to consider all such requests and assess our policy,” she said.
Baloch, however, clarified that there was no change in Pakistan’s position at present.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between Pakistan and India since their independence from the British rule in 1947.
Both countries rule parts of the Himalayan territory, but claim it in full and have fought three wars over the disputed region.
Pakistan PM says modernizing revenue collection system to revive frail economy
- Pakistan is currently making efforts to introduce economic reforms under an IMF program that helped it avert a default last year
- Islamabad has expressed interest in a new program, expected to come with fiscal tightening measures, including increase in revenue
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Thursday his government was working to modernize the country’s revenue collection system to revive the frail $350 billion South Asian economy, describing it as “top priority” of his administration.
Pakistan, which has been facing an economic meltdown, is making efforts to introduce structural reforms under a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program that helped it avert a sovereign default last year.
The country this month cleared second and final review of its $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program which would pave the way for the release of $1.1 billion after helping Islamabad avert a default in last June.
Islamabad has expressed its interest in securing a new loan under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program with the IMF, which is expected to come with fiscal tightening measures, including an increase in revenue.
“A plan is underway to modernize revenue collection system,” PM Sharif was quoted as saying by the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster.
“The Federal Board of Revenue is being fully digitized and efforts are afoot to increase the tax base.”
He said a “whole-of-government approach” was being adopted to check power theft that was worth billions of rupees, according to the report.
Privatization of government-owned enterprises, institutional reforms, internal and external investment and austerity were also the government’s priorities in this regard, he added.
‘Act of Devotion’: Pakistani artist turns worn Qur’anic pages into works of art
- 28-year-old visual artist Saad Mehmood began restoring Qur’an pages ready for ritual disposal as part of BA final-year thesis
- Renowned artists describe the effort as “positive,” say it is vital to expand ways in which we experience the holy book
LAHORE: For Saad Mehmood, it was a routine visit to a mosque in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore for Friday prayers in 2017 when the then 22-year-old stumbled upon a store room with sheaves of paper stored carefully on a shelf.
The worn pages were fragments from everyday copies of the Qur’an, which were awaiting ritual disposal. In Pakistan, pages of the holy book that are disposed are often called shaheed, or martyred, copies.
In Islam, widely accepted methods of disposing worn pages of the holy book are to wrap them in a cloth and bury them, ideally in a mosque, or to burn them respectfully.
But Mehmood, at the time a final year student of fine arts at the Beaconhouse National University (BNU), was inspired by the worn copies and decided to restore them as part of his thesis.
“Saad asked for some of these pages that were torn or worn out, and started to restore the ordinary, mass-printed sheets with gold paper and the finest ink — bringing that which was ‘martyred’ back to life,” the artist’s statement accompanying an ongoing exhibition of his works in Lahore reads.
The effort is “an act of artistic devotion,” Mehmood told Arab News at the exhibition last week, saying all his work now revolved around restoring the holy pages and turning them into artforms.
“This work started in 2017,” Mehmood, now a 28-year-old visual artist, said. “I collect the pages of the Qur’an that are shaheed, then there’s an entire process to their restoration, I fill in the damaged parts so that the pages are readable again.”
Mehmood said he had done extensive research on damaged Qur’anic pages and what happened to them and where they went from storerooms of mosques and homes.
“I saw that they’re buried in graveyards, or floated in clean and flowing water. Sometimes, I even saw the pages being burned and their ashes buried in some corner of a graveyard,” he explained.
This got Mehmood thinking: instead of disposing of the sacred texts, he could restore them.
The process of restoration was a difficult one, as many Qur’an pages Mehmood came across had no references.
“When we open these [Qur’anic] collections… there are [some] smaller pages which don’t have any references [which ayat, surah, what page number],” he said. “So, this was a conundrum… how do I restore them when there’s no reference to work with?“
Mehmood decided to make a collage of such pages.
“So, at least they are still visible, still accessible,” he said. “So, we don’t accidentally disrespect the words, they will remain in front of our eyes, and then turn them into art to be appreciated.”
Mehmood has also visited multiple religious scholars to present his idea and his work.
“There are a lot of organizations in Pakistan like Tahaffuz-e-Auraq [who dispose of pages in the prescribed manner],” Mehmood said. “I restored them and then I started showing people that basically this is the work I’m doing.”
The idea found wide acceptability, he said.
“GOLD LEAF”
The ongoing exhibition in Lahore, organized by the Pakistan Art Forum, includes collages of restored Qur’anic fragments, concentric circles around Islamic calligraphy, decorative additions like gold leaves, and paintings with Arabic diacritics on Vasli and white paper. And this is all by design.
Mehmood said he wants to further explore this Islamic art form and create something new, like his painting of the diacritics without any words, or of punctuation marks without any sentences.
“The Qur’an came to us from Arabia, and the diacritics were added later, so that non-native Arabic speakers [Ajmi] could understand the text,” he said. “[Helping] in how to pronounce and enunciate it, zeir, zabr, that is also something I’ve worked on, and will continue to work on.”
There is also a reason why Mehmood uses gold leaf so often.
“When you look at my work… I have used gold leaf on the shaheed [damaged] Qur’anic pages,” he said.
“I used that gold leaf specifically and consciously, because gold is considered a divine material. And where the words are missing, pages torn, I’ve also used gold leaf to show the preciousness of the lost words, using a precious material.”
“EXPAND WAYS TO EXPERIENCE QUR’AN”
The visual artist has held a number of group exhibitions at the Alhamra Arts Center in Lahore and Sanat Gallery in the southern port city of Karachi. Last week, he held his second solo show in Lahore, titled Al-Qadr, referring to the night when Muslims believe the Qur’an was first revealed.
While most of the visitors to the Lahore exhibition said they had come out of curiosity, they left with admiration for the intricate work and beautiful calligraphy or collage technique that Mehmood uses.
“Calligraphy is a part of [what I do], but this is something else [entirely],” he explained. “You can call it a collage. You can call it an installation. You can call it painting, you can call it artwork.”
Shahid Rassam, a famous Pakistani painter and sculptor, described Mehmood work as “positive,” saying he had seen other works, though rare, in which worn Qur’an pages were restored as a form of art.
Rassam, who has himself made contemporary forms of the Qur’an, including one in which he used metal engravings, said it was “vital to expand the ways in which we experience the sacred text, even as art installations.”
“I think what this young man [Saad Mehmood] is doing is objectively a positive thing,” the artist said. “He’s taking sacred pages and giving them their rightful respect, instead of just letting them lie in poorly-kept stores and boxes.”
Beijing backs Pakistan to bring perpetrators of attack on Chinese nationals to justice
- Five Chinese nationals were killed on Tuesday in northwestern Pakistan when a bomber targeted their vehicle
- Pakistan has since then enhanced security for Chinese personnel in the country, vowed to punish culprits of the attack
ISLAMABAD: China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said on Thursday his government believes Islamabad will hold accountable the perpetrators of a deadly attack on Chinese nationals in Pakistan this week, vowing that Beijing was ready to step up cooperation with the international community against militancy.
Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistan driver were killed on Tuesday in Shangla, located in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, when a bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into their vehicle.
The attack occurred in an area vital to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which encompasses various mega projects crucial for Pakistan’s economy. The victims were en route to Dasu Dam, Pakistan’s largest hydropower project, when they were targeted.
“The Pakistani side is working intensively to investigate and handle the aftermath and has taken concrete steps to enhance security for Chinese personnel, projects and institutions,” Jian told reporters during a press briefing.
“We believe Pakistan will get to the bottom of the attack and bring the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible.”
No group had claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion was likely to fall on separatists and the breakaway Gul Bahadur faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, and is a separate group, but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
The TTP denied being behind the suicide bombing in a statement Wednesday, saying: “We are in no way related to the attack on the Chinese engineers.”
Tuesday’s attack came less than a week after Pakistani security forces killed eight Balochistan Liberation Army separatists who opened fire on a convoy carrying Chinese citizens outside the Chinese-funded Gwadar port in the volatile southwestern Balochistan province.
Pakistan, Iran agree to strengthen bilateral ties to tackle regional militancy
- Pakistan’s planning minister meets Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan Dr. Raza Amiri Moghaddam
- Pakistan, Iran both blame each other for not doing enough to root out militancy in border areas
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan Dr. Raza Amiri Moghaddam on Thursday agreed to strengthen bilateral relations between their countries to reduce militancy in the region, state-run media reported.
Pakistan and Iran are often at odds with each other over instability on their shared border. Both countries have routinely blamed each other for not rooting out militancy. Small separatist groups in Pakistan have been behind a long-running insurgency, calling for gas and oil-rich Balochistan’s independence from the central government in Islamabad.
Pakistani anti-Iran militants have also targeted the Iranian border in recent years, increasing friction between the countries.
“Pakistan and Iran have agreed to strengthen bilateral relations to reduce tendencies of terrorism and extremism in the region,” the state-run Radio Pakistan said.
Radio Pakistan said the agreement to bolster bilateral ties was reached between Moghaddam and Iqbal during a meeting in Islamabad.
“The Planning Minister emphasized the importance of enhancing connectivity through trade routes, considering the 900-kilometer shared land and maritime border,” he said.
Tensions reached a head in January between Pakistan and Iran after they exchanged airstrikes against alleged militant targets in each other’s territories. Both countries since then have made efforts to ease tensions and promote bilateral trade with each other.