The Golden Needle Sewing School was an underground 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, 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. 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, author of The Sewing Circles of Herat, because it was a cultured city and mostly Shi'a, both of which the Taliban opposed. She told Radio Free Europe: See also Islamic feminism Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Sewing circle Sharia Taliban treatment of women Women in Islam Notes Further reading Lamb, Christina. The Sewing Circles of Herat. HarperCollins, 2004. The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, accessed 29 July 2010. Educational organisations based in Afghanistan Women's rights in Islam Women's rights in Afghanistan Women-only spaces History of women in Afghanistan 1996 in Afghanistan 1996 in women's history