The newly elected Head of the war-ruined State of Afghanistan surprised many observers by "immediately jumping on his feet" when, on the second day of the Emergency Loya Jirga, a pro-Iranian Afghan cleric "cheated" the 1600-members traditional Grand Assembly of the Elders by calling on all those who wanted the adjective of "Islamic" be added to the Afghanistan Republic" to "stand up".

Ayatollah Mohammad Asef Mohseni Qandahari, who is a Shi’a Muslim and supported by Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the Islamic Republic, made the proposal after a motion introduced by Mr. Rassool Sayyaf, a leading commander, calling for the adoption of the Shari’a, or Islamic Canon, as the basic laws of the new Sate, had met with some protests, mainly from female delegates.

Referring to the "havoc" and de-scaralisation the former regime of Taleban, as well as those of neighbouring Iran and Pakistan, both Islamic republics, have brought to the "sacred name of Islam", Mr. Shirzai said Islam had been "roughed enough" by the existing Muslim governments in the region and "it was not needed to add to it".

Pointing to the fact that Mr. Qasem Yar was misled, taking the delegates standing up for their votes a Western diplomat said anyway, this Emergency Loya Jirga had no such prerogatives as to defining the nature of the Afghan transitional government.

Asked way Karzai was the first to jump up, the same source said he might have done so knowing well that he could reject it latter on ground that it was not properly approved and therefore was illegal.

"A fallback on the Shari’a with its partially draconian punishments, would deviate the country from the path of democracy and rule of law which the country committed itself to in the Bonn accord last December", noted the Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul.

"Mr. Karzai, who, alongside with the former Monarch, Mohammad Zaher Shah, had played his role with suability and statesmanship during the Emergency Loya Jirga, should have joined the Governor of Qandahar and escape the trap laid by fundamentalist clerics keen to bring havoc to the country already ruined by the same people", wrote Hakim Haq-Nazar in his widely read column in the Farsi-language weekly newspaper "Keyhan of London".

"Mr. Karzai did not needed to pay attention to the Iranian experience, a phenomenon that had been repeated in Afghanistan in another form. The country had already experienced an Islamic government in 1993 with the Islamic coalition formed by Mr. Borhaneddin Rabbani who wanted to Islamise Afghanistan as Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini had done in Iran. There like in Iran, the Islamic brotherhood was quickly shelved to history, giving place to jihadi groups fighting each other for the bounties and power, ruining the nation and its people to the point that when the Taleban appeared, the Afghans greeted them with flowers and welcomed them as their saviors".

"It would paralyse the nation because no government can do anything positive in the framework of Islam and people would hate the faith because, as the gentleman said at the Emegency Loya Jirga, the people would consider Islam as the main cause for the poverty, corruption and dictatorship", the commentary said.

Presenting the example of Iran where, because of the pre-eminence of Islamic laws, the government is totally paralysed, corruption is present at all levels, particularly among top ruling clerics, prostitution has become a way of earning for poor classes, Mr. Haq Nazar says adding the adjective of Islam to the name of the state is "the first step towards separation from democracy and rule of law.