The Golden Needle Sewing School was an

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground (S ...

school for women in Herat, Afghanistan, during the rule of the Taliban. Because women were not allowed to be educated under the strict interpretation of Islamic law introduced by the Taliban,"The Taliban's War on Women"
, Physicians for Human Rights, August 1998, accessed 29 July 2010. women writers belonging to the Herat Literary Circle set up a group called the Sewing Circles of Herat, which founded the Golden Needle Sewing School in or around 1996.Synovitz, Ron

''Radio Free Europe'', March 31, 2004, accessed 29 July 2010. Also see Lamb, Christina

''The Sunday Times'', November 13, 2005. Women would visit the school three times a week, ostensibly to sew, but would instead hear lectures given by professors of literature from Herat University. Children playing outside would alert the group if the religious police approached, giving them time to hide their books and pick up sewing equipment. Herat may have been the most oppressed area under the Taliban, according to

Christina Lamb Christina Lamb OBE (born 15 May 1965) is a British journalist and author. She is the chief foreign correspondent of ''The Sunday Times''. Lamb has won sixteen major awards including four British Press Awards and the European Prix Bayeux-Calva ...

, author of ''The Sewing Circles of Herat'', because it was a cultured city and mostly

Shi'a Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...

, both of which the Taliban opposed. She told Radio Free Europe:

See also

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Further reading