a Tajik from Kabul. Our team had formed a genuine friendship with our interpreter and, as a result, he felt comfortable speaking with us about his family. According to him, sons have to venerate and obey the directives of their mothers in Afghan culture, whether it is choosing whom their sons and daughters marry or which profession is acceptable for them to practice. He emphasized that in his eyes the bond between mothers and sons is undeniably strong and most often children revere their mothers. A Human Terrain System’s Social Science Research and Analysis (SSRA) report entitled Women in the Home and Community supports this finding. The report indicated that: “Respondents in most regions of Afghanistan said that women have influence in the home mainly over areas of childrearing and maintaining the home, family health, and cooking. Respondents in Regional Command Capital (RC [C]) said that women also had significant influence in economic matters. In the other regions, few respondents mentioned control over economic issues as a major area of women’s influence in the home. Women appear to have greater influence in the home when they are more educated.” The Holy Qur’anic Surah 31:14 Luqman, supports the SSRA report and discusses the importance of children obeying and respecting their parents: “And we have enjoined on man (To be good) to his parents: In travail upon travel Did his mother bear him, And in years twain Was his weaning: (hear The command), ‘Show gratitude To Me and to thy parents; To Me is (thy final) Goal.” According to Islamic Scholar Mawlana Abdullah Yusuf Ali, the above Surah can simply be translated into: “We must be good to mankind, beginning with our own parents.”
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