November 10, 2025
Topic Women Topic Cspii-monitor
On September 30, 2025, CATO Institute published an article titled “Taliban’s Oppression of Women Is Un-Islamic,” covering a speech by CATO’s Mustafa Akyol at the UN conference “Weaponization of Religion by the Taliban and Its Consequences on Afghanistan and Beyond.”
Unfortunately, the article contains numerous factual inaccuracies. We contacted CATO Institute with a request for clarification. As of today, we have not received a response.
We urge media outlets to ensure that goodwill is matched by rigor and that public understanding of Islamic doctrine is not compromised for the sake of idealistic narratives.
— CSPII Monitor Team
↓ Read our full response and documentation here ↓
From: CSPII Monitor <[email protected]>
Date: Oct 30, 2025 7:05 PM CET Time
Subject: Taliban’s Oppression - Correction Request
Dear CATO editors and staff,
With regard to the article “Taliban’s Oppression of Women Is Un-Islamic” (September 30, 2025), we would respectfully like to raise several concerns:
The speaker labels the Taliban’s interpretation of the Islamic doctrine as “narrow and un-Islamic”. One doctrinal argument is made: Koran 2:256 “No compulsion in religion” as purported evidence that the entire doctrine forbids compulsion. One historic argument: Women's status under Ottoman empire as proof for reform in the Islamic world hundreds of years ago. Speakers call for Islamic countries to counter the Taliban’s arguments.
Koran 2:256 No compulsion in religion - A lot of prominent scholars (i.e. Al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr) said it's abrogated by Koran 9:5 (“slay the idolaters wherever ye find them”). Others (i.e. Muhammad ‘Abduh, Rashid Rida, Sayyid Qutb, and Yusuf al-Qaradawi) said it related only to dhimmis (Christian or Jewish half-slaves living in an Islamic society), or that it relates to belief, but doesn't limit subjugation, meaning they support enforcing Sharia Law.
It is worth noting that the Koran contains 71% portrayal of women as having low status (and only 5% high), and 89% of the Hadith portrays women as having low status (and only 0.6% high). The links above will show you the open-source research data to back these numbers.
Regarding the historical argument: today, the leading scholars in countries that constituted the Ottoman empire (such as Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria) – we’ll see they support different degrees of subjugating women. Under increasingly Islamized Syria, women are losing their rights in a free-fall. Saudi Arabia, from 1979 onward, implemented strict laws against women (or resumed enforcing existing oppressive laws). Saudi Arabia only expanded women’s freedom in response to the heat of 9/11 to prevent American retaliation after it was discovered that 15 out of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. Women are still not equal to men there – for example, they are subordinate to their male guardians in all aspects of life, and their testimony in court is worth half that of a man’s.
If we look at the countries that emerged out of the Ottoman empire, and check how they do in terms of enforcement of Sharia with regard of issues like apostasy/heresy (ridda, kufr, blasphemy), gay rights (liwāṭ), alcohol (khamr), neglect of prayer (ṣalāt), atheism/free speech on religion, public advocacy of other religions in Islamic lands – we see that the “No compulsion in religion” verse has no real effect there.
From this we see that Koran 2:256 has no bearing on the Islamic world today, and that any positive aspects Ottoman rule may have had are not meaningful, lasting Islamic reforms that only Taliban reverts from.
In fact, the two arguments contradict each other. If the Koran ONLY said “No compulsion in religion”, and had no contradicting and overriding verses that render it meaningless, no reform would be needed in the Ottoman era.
Many Islamic countries, including ones that were once part of the Ottoman empire, use of the UN stage, a non-Islamic forum, to claim such a reform already happened. This is a complete whitewashing that misrepresents Islamic doctrine as peaceful and tolerant of women, non-Muslims, freedom of speech and religion, etc. The reality, meanwhile, is quite different.
In light of these issues, we kindly request:
- A clarification or follow-up article that details these issues.
- A review of the use of the cherry-picked Koranic verse 2:256 that is detached from countless contradicting verses and from the reality of Islamic doctrine’s largely negative view of women that is clearly present in Islamic law, scholarship, and history, and which is applied today in the Islamic countries that are called to to criticize the Taliban.
We believe your readers would benefit from a more accurate portrayal of the situation at play.
About CSPII Monitor: https://www.cspii.org/learn-political-islam/new-articles/announcing-cspii-monitor-promoting-accurate-and-objective-discourse-on-islam/
We would be happy to provide additional sources and references upon request.
Sincerely,
[Signature]