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Biography: A Life Cut Short

“One of those talents, Nadia Anjuman, is a neighbour.  Swathed in black, she curled up like a cat in her professor’s study, black eyes peering from an elfin face.  She is 20 years old.”
(Amy Waldman, New York Times)

Nadia Anjuman was born in 1980 in Herat, and died in 2005 under suspicious circumstances.  A graduate of Mahbub-e Herawi secondary school, she was in her third year at Herat University studying literature and the Humanities in 2005 when she died.  She was acclaimed as a female Muslim poet not just in Afghanistan, but also in Iran.  Kalil Jalili, Nadia’s next-door neighbour in Herat, said that if you asked anybody who knew her about her, they would reply: “I have never known anyone as honest, smart, kind and intelligent as Nadia.”

During the period of Taliban rule (1994-2001 countrywide; but from 1995 in Herat) over Afghanistan, restrictions were placed upon the extent to which women could receive an education.  In secret, therefore, groups sprung up all over the country where women could receive a proper education – medicine, literature, maths, languages and so on.  Nadia was a member of one such group in Herat, where some 30 women studied literature at the home of Mohammad Ali Rahyab, a professor of literary theory and methodology at Herat University.  The sign outside his house advertised sewing and embroidery lessons – hence Christina Lamb’s famed ‘Sewing Circles of Herat’.

The father of 3 daughters – one a short-story writer, the second an aspiring journalist and the third 16 years old – he felt it important to teach – risking his life in the process – the younger generation of Afghan women about literature.  While lessons were underway his children would be sent to play in the alleyway outside. If a Talib or any stranger approached, one of the children would slip in to warn him and he would then escape into his study with his books while his place running the class was quickly taken by his wife holding up a half-finished garment which they always kept ready.

Asked why he took the risk, he replied, “If the authorities had known that we were not only teaching women but teaching them high levels of literature we would have been killed.  But a lot of fighters sacrificed their lives over the years for the freedom of this city. Shouldn't a person of letters make that sacrifice too?”

He added, “we were poor in everyday life.  Why should we be poor in culture too? If we had not done what we did to keep up the literary spirit of the city, the depth of our tragedy would have been even greater. A society needs poets and storytellers to reflect its pain – and joy.”  Citing the problems of Afghanistan as stemming at least partially from the lack of education, his lessons were an act of defiance.

He added that Afghans were far more likely to respond to poetry than political analysis: ''If we want to say something or make a statement, we will do it with a poem. A line of poetry can put an end to a family problem, even trouble in a village.''  So in the name of forging a new literary cadre of women, each week he would convene his students to discuss the reading they had done at home, be it Tolstoy, Balzac or Dickens.  Nadia attended these classes regularly, living in a neighbouring house.

Following the fall of the Taliban, Nadia continued to attend the meetings which were now openly held.  Amy Waldman of the New York Times met her then; Nadia had already written some 60-70 poems.  As the first person in her family to be a writer, Waldman noted that Nadia had to fight for her family’s cooperation.  She also wrote that, “She has fought, too, to stave off marriage, fearing it [would] limit her freedom to write.  ‘I think I’ve been quite successful,’ [Nadia] said.  ‘Girls are expected to marry at 14 or 15.’”

Marriage did come eventually, though, in 2004, and to a scholar/writer.  Farid Ahmad Majid Nia, 27, was a lecturer in philology at Herat University.  Nadia’s friends say that she had resisted this pairing, and that the marriage wasn’t altogether a happy one.  “She was a great poet and intellectual but, like so many Afghan women, she had to follow orders from her husband,” said Nahid Baqi, Anjuman's best friend at Herat University.

In 2005, she published Gul-e Dudi (‘Smoke-veined Flower’) in Herat, and it quickly became popular in Afghanistan and Iran.  Christina Lamb wrote in her piece for the Times on Nadia’s death that, “friends say her family was furious, believing that the publication of poetry by a woman about love and beauty had brought shame on it.”  Following Nadia’s death, Gul-e Dudi was chosen for republication by the Norwegian PEN Centre and the Centre Culturel Francais in Kabul as the first publication in a series of Dari poetry books.  She was due to bring out a second volume of poems in 2006.  Ahmed Said Haqiqi, president of the Literary Circle of Herat, founded in 1920, said that Nadia “was becoming a great Persian poet.”

Then, on the evening of November 4th, Nadia Anjuman died, aged 25.  The circumstances were suspicious, but the inevitable torrent of media attention – outpourings on blogs and poems calling her husband “violence-steeped” – jumped to what they saw as the only conclusion from the vague initial reports.

The Afghan Women’s Network (Kabul) issued a declaration on November 15th that read: “The murder of the young poet Nadia Anjoman [sic] by her husband, a university professor in Herat, is a symbol of this inhuman violence [of husbands against their wives, and men against women in general]”.  The Women’s Affairs Minister Massouda Jalal told a press conference in Kabul that Nadia had been murdered by her husband.  Richard Jeffrey Newman, as an example of many others, wrote on his blog in comment on her death that, “The female body as the repository of male, and therefore family, honour. The responsibility of upholding that honour in male terms weighing entirely on the shoulders of the woman. The resulting and often horrifyingly circumscribed nature of that woman’s life. The deaths, psychic and literal, of women who cannot survive such circumscription.”

According to Dr Barakatullah Mohammadi, head of emergency services at Herat’s hospital, Nadia’s body was brought to the hospital at 12:30 am on November 5th. An examination revealed some bruising around her right eye, but no other signs of an injury that could have caused her death.  “The blow alone would not have killed her,” he said.  “We told Nadia’s family that we would have to [perform an autopsy] to find the reason for her death, but they would not give their permission. So the reason for her death is not clear to us, either.”  The Pajhwok Afghan New Agency reported that she had received a cut to her head, and that she had vomited blood.

Nadia’s husband of 15 months was arrested and charged with Nadia’s ‘murder’.  News agencies worldwide – from the BBC to CNN – trumpeted the story.  He strongly denied the accusations. Nadia committed suicide, he insisted.

Speaking from prison, Anjuman's husband insisted he was not guilty of her murder, "I have not killed Nadia. How could I kill someone I loved? We had a small argument and I only slapped her on the face once. She went to another room and when she returned she told me she had swallowed poison. She said she had forgiven me for slapping her and pleaded, 'Don't tell anyone I have swallowed poison. Tell them I died from a heart attack.'"  Local government officials were sceptical about this.  "One of the reasons we suspect the husband is that he did not take her to the hospital until four hours after beating her up," said Maria Bashir, the Herat city prosecutor.

“I loved Nadia. Life makes no sense to me without her,” Farid told an IWPR (Institute for War and Peace Reporting) reporter during an interview in his jail cell in January 2006.  He didn’t deny that he hit her. According to Farid, he arrived home late on the evening of November 4, which was the third day of the Islamic festival of Eid. During Eid, it is customary for Afghans to visit friends and relatives, to celebrate the end of the Ramadan fast.  “Nadia was all dressed up to go visiting. I told her it was late, so we would only go to her sister’s. She became angry, and cursed me, calling me names like ‘ass’ and ‘son of a bitch’. I slapped her,” he said.  A few hours later, according to Farid, Nadia came to him and told him she had taken poison, “She asked me to take care of our six-month-old son. She died before we could get to the hospital.”

Nadia’s mother offered a different take: “Farid called me and told me that Nadia had taken poison,” she said.  “But when I got to the hospital, I saw that Nadia’s face and neck were all bruised. I am 80 per cent sure that she died because of a blow by her husband.”

Nadia’s mother categorically dismissed any possibility of suicide, as Farid had suggested: “Nadia was very hopeful about her life. She never thought of suicide,” she said.

A close friend of the poet, Nahid Baqi, also rejected Farid’s claim that Nadia took poison.  “Nadia was very religious and she strongly condemned those who committed suicide. She said it was against Islam,” she said.  Nahid said it was impossible to believe she would have taken her own life and abandoned her six-month-old son, “Nadia loved her child so much. She brought in his photo every month to show us how he had grown. She would suffer anything for him.”

Farid, she said, was caught between his wife and his mother. It was his weakness that caused the problems, she said. She does not believe the murder was intentional.  “Farid’s mother wanted him to marry someone else,” said Nahid. “When he insisted on Nadia, she began to hate her.”

According to Afghan tradition, a wife becomes a member of her husband’s household. So Nadia had little choice but to live with Farid’s mother, no matter how strained the relations between them.

Following his arrest, Farid attempted suicide by injecting himself with kerosene from the heater in his jail cell. He was rushed to the hospital, and soon recovered. He was released back into custody, but left prison as his jail term was finished late in 2006.

Anjuman’s movements were being limited by her husband, her friends believe. Some evenings before, she had been invited to a ceremony celebrating the return to Herat of Amir Jan Sabouri, an Afghan singer, but didn’t attend.

Thousands attended Anjuman's burial in Herat on the Sunday following her death. "Students everywhere are so upset over this. She was such a prominent poet in Afghanistan," said Homayoon Ludin, a student at Kabul University.

The specifics of Nadia’s death still remain hotly debated topics in Afghanistan.  She has naturally attracted the attention of foreign groups keen on pursuing their own agendas.  It is fairly clear now – in 2007 – that Nadia wasn’t killed by her husband, as was touted around the world in the days following her death.  Rather, Nadia was a victim of depression induced by social and personal factors.  Doctors, police officials and others present at the key events of that evening in November 2005 all privately conclude that Nadia killed herself.  A further documentation of these statements should take place, if only to clear Nadia’s husband of Nadia’s murder in the international domain.

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