Dante & the Taliban

I happen to be reading two books, well three actually but these two are what drew a comparison in my mind this morning. Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle and Khaled Hoseinni's A Thousand Splendid Suns. I just started Tenth Circle, and the author is describing Dante's Tenth Circle of Hell as a place in the very bottom of Hell where the worst is reserved for the Devil himself. The "worst" is described as the inability to move, the ability to do what you want, when you want to has been taken away. Last night just before falling asleep in ATSS, I was reading about the Taliban coming into Afghanistan as hero's, as an organized force which ended many years of civil unrest, but also as a gang of religious zealots intent on forcing their laws on the population of Kabul. The laws that were given to the people were many, but the one that stood out so prominently to me were the ones regarding the women. "Women may not leave the house unless attended by a male relative and clothed in a burqa, may not speak to a man, may not work among many other restrictions. To break the laws invited a beating or stoning or death. It just struck me that this sounds much like the Tenth Circle, the Taliban is restricting the movement of women, the ability of the women to move when they want, where they want. And that definitely sounds like Hell.