When Mullah Abdul Rahim Shah Ghaa thinks back to the day in February when a couple of Afghan employees at a U.S.-run detention center outside of Kabul yanked five partially burned Korans out of a trash incinerator, he shudders with anger and revulsion. “It is like a knife to my heart,” says the head of the provincial religious council. The March 11 slaying of 16 afghan civilians by a lone U.S Army staff sergeant named Robert Bales in Kandahar, however, has left less of a scar. “Of course we condemn that act,” he says. “But it was only 16 people. Even if it were 1000 people it wouldn’t compare to harming one word of the Koran. If someone insults our holy book, it means that they insult our faith, our religion and everything that we have.”…

In part, the answer can be located in the ubiquity of violence. To Afghans, Sgt. Bales’ murderous rampage is little different than the allied airstrikes that have accidentally hit wedding parties, schools or children herding sheep, mistaking them for insurgents on the move or militant installations. The Taliban, for their part, have made personalized acts of violence commonplace: beheadings, hangings and village square executions are part of their inventory of intimidation. “After thirty years of war, we are used to it,” says Shah Ghaa. “If we protested for each killing then we would have protests two times every day.” It’s not an exaggeration. According to the UN, 3,021 Afghan civilians were killed in war related incidents last year – some eight a day. Four out of five of those deaths were blamed on insurgents.

By contrast, attacks on the Koran, whether by accident as happened in February, or on purpose as when a Florida pastor burned a Koran a year ago—protesters in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif stormed a UN office, killing seven foreigners in addition to four protesters—are relatively rare. And Afghans want to keep it that way. “It’s our red line,” says university student Basir Abdul. “If we don’t protest the burning of the Koran today, tomorrow the foreigners will enter our houses and rape our women.” Besides, he says, he doesn’t know anyone in Panjwayi, “so the killings don’t affect me. But the Koran belongs to everyone.” In a country riven by tribal loyalties, Islam transcends ethnic identity. It’s the one thing that all Afghans can agree upon.