A recent statement by Taliban Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Muhammad Khalid Al-Hanafi, has once again exposed how the Afghan authorities use religion not as moral guidance but as an instrument of coercion.
Speaking at a university ceremony, he declared that personal appearance must conform to Taliban-defined Sharia, including the obligation to keep a beard and dismissed criticism as propaganda driven by lack of faith.
In doing so, he openly framed belief not as a personal conviction but as a state enforced duty.
This approach reflects a broader Taliban governing philosophy. Since returning to power, the movement has steadily blurred the line between religious advice and state compulsion.
What is presented as “moral reform” is in practice, a system of surveillance and punishment.
The Ministry for Virtue and Vice, backed by moral police, intrudes into daily life from dress and grooming to education and social behavior while claiming to respect privacy.
At the center of this system stands Hibatullah Akhundzada who rules largely through decrees rather than institutions. Kandahar has become the ideological command center, with councils of clerics across the country acting less as community guides and more as enforcers reporting upward.
Only a narrow Hanafi-Deobandi interpretation is permitted while Afghanistan’s historically diverse Islamic traditions are pushed aside.
Even internal religious disagreement is treated not as scholarly debate but as disobedience.
This is not how Islamic governance has traditionally worked.
For centuries, Muslim societies thrived on pluralism, debate and multiple schools of thought. The Taliban model replaces that rich tradition with uniformity enforced through fear.
The education system has been reshaped into a tool of ideological conditioning and governance has become opaque and arbitrary.
In the end, this weaponization of religion hollows out society.
Faith, which should offer meaning, compassion and justice is reduced to a mechanism of control. The result is not a more moral society but a quieter more frightened one.
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