When Yoka van den Berg expressed over the Internet her dismay for Afghans suffering in wars, she heard from Dervesh Himmat, an Afghan Pashtun, author and Christian Apostate of Islam. 

As a refugee living under Sharia law in Iran, Himmat replied, “Thank you Yoka. Where do you live?” Islam is the reason the two could meet only in secret, by writing e-mails across all forbidden borders. Islam forbids freedom of religion; freedom of thought and speech; and free association between men and women as “against Islam.” Their actions are punishable by death in Afghanistan and in Sharia Iran, where Himmat moved when he was a teenager.

This book is an erotic, yet sweet and passionate dialogue in poetry between two poets. Their love is condemned to distant “virtual love,” with van den Berg living in fear that Islam will discover Himmat’s true beliefs. Their unique relationship is also expressed in explicit erotic poetry, lodged between Islam and Christianity, and their words may offend some readers.

With Love From Afghanistan is a harsh criticism of Islam practices and an open call to stop oppression, particularly of Muslim women. It challenges Islam to forbid all inhumane punishments in the Sharia, stop persecution of Apostates and assure basic human rights.

About the Author

Yoka van den Berg lives in the Netherlands and was born there in 1938. Though she wrote poetry for many years, she only considered publication when she met Dervesh Himmat, who became her muse. He was born in Afghanistan in 1975 into an illiterate Islamic fundamentalist family. He endured six years of cruel fundamentalist Koran indoctrination in Taliban madrassas. Himmat educated himself, became a liberal thinker and a secret Christian, and recently fled Iran finding asylum in a non-Islamic country. Both authors are using pseudonyms.