Afghan government struggling to keep support of Islamic council

By David Nakamura and Joshua Partlow

9/12/2010 Afghanistan (Washington Post) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration is struggling to shore up support from an influential Islamic council, which appears to be shifting to more conservative, anti-government views at a time when it is being asked to play a key role in persuading Taliban insurgents to surrender their arms.

The Ulema Council, composed of 3,000 mullahs from across the country, has long been counted on to spread a pro-government message to remote villages and keep the Karzai administration informed about popular opinion. The administration pays each mullah a monthly stipend of about $100 and in return expects support for its agenda.

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In the meantime, 350 Ulema Council members made headlines at a meeting a few weeks ago when they voted to demand that Karzai implement sharia law, a strict Islamic code that includes severe punishments, such as death by stoning for adultery. That was the method the Taliban chose last month for the executions of a young couple who had eloped.

Without strong government support from the council, Daudzai said, clerics sympathetic to the Taliban could win influence over the populace.

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The critical role the mullahs play in influencing society came into stark relief this past week when they organized a handful of fiery demonstrations in Kabul and elsewhere in protest of a Florida church’s plan to burn copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book. Hundreds of young men burned effigies, threw rocks and chanted anti-American slogans, and the mullahs said they believed the actions by the church, which later postponed its event, could help the Taliban recruit young, disaffected Afghans.

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