February 19, 2004

Weather forecasting, banned by Taliban, makes a comeback in Afghanistan

Afghanistan's weather office is still strewn with rubble from the day Taliban supporters sacked it and put an end to weather forecasting, a science they considered sorcery.

The main floor of the Afghanistan Meteorological Authority is filled with smashed equipment and charred sheets of paper, the remains of 100 years of weather records. In his office two floors up, Abdul Qadeer, head of the country's weather forecasting agency, explains that he is still reeling from the day in 1996 when Taliban decreed he could deliver today's weather, but not the forecast for tomorrow.

"They were allergic to the word 'prediction,' " Qadeer said of the Taliban's extreme interpretation of Islam.

"They said God only knows prediction, only God knows these things. We tried to explain that meteorology is not prediction, that it is forecast based on science. It didn't work."

This epitomizes how crazy, backward and primitive the Taliban culture (and any of the other Islamist/Islamic cultures) truly is.
I read that during the '90's, Saudi Arabia sponsored 2 astronauts on one of those commercial space missions for the purpose of determining--once and for all--if the world was flat.
I kid you not.
Something tells me that they weren't believed when they got back to Riyahd.
Is it any wonder the Islamic world stays mired in the 7th Century with their "if Allah wills it" philosophy?