Taliban morality police walked into Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi, detained Ayatollah Hossein-Dad Sharifi, transferred him to Police District 18, and beat him. His offence was officiating a temporary marriage contract, a practice fully sanctioned under Ja’fari jurisprudence for over a thousand years. Sharifi later confirmed he saw official records containing names and biometric data of multiple Shia clerics compelled to sign written guarantees prohibiting them from conducting such ceremonies, with six months imprisonment threatened for non-compliance. Mohammad Mohaqiq, leader of Afghanistan’s Islamic Unity Party of the People, responded with a direct warning that Taliban pressure on Hazara and Shia communities is expanding into a campaign of religious repression that risks deepening sectarian fractures across the country.
Sectarian Enforcement Enshrined in Law
The Taliban’s Criminal Procedure Regulation, adopted in January 2026, formally classifies anyone holding beliefs contrary to the Sunni branch of Islam as heretical, embedding discrimination against religious minorities within the country’s own legal code. The Taliban revoked the Shia Personal Status Law, banned the teaching of Jafari jurisprudence in higher education, and removed Ashura as a national holiday. In Bamiyan, Ghazni, and Daikundi, books related to Jafari jurisprudence were confiscated from universities and libraries. In Nimruz, Shia Muslims were completely excluded from government offices. In certain provinces, marriages between Sunni and Shia individuals were prohibited outright.
Religious Life Under Siege
Taliban authorities in Bamiyan, Ghazni, Ghor, Herat, Kabul, and Nimruz imposed restrictions on Shia-Hazaras conducting religious rituals specifically during Muharram. In Badghis and Ghazni, Shia people were forced to break their fast and pray according to the Taliban’s Eid announcement rather than their own religious calendar. The Taliban declared Nowruz an un-Islamic celebration and ordered that no one in Afghanistan should celebrate it, labelling it a festival for Zoroastrians and non-Muslims. In Bamiyan, Taliban authorities banned not only Shia religious books but also Shia religious gatherings entirely.
A Community Under Targeted Attack
Amnesty International documented Taliban authorities forcing at least 50 Ismaili Shia men in Badakhshan to convert to Sunni Islam, with those who refused subjected to physical assault and death threats. Local rights organisation Rawadari reported at least 203 people compelled to convert. Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, at least 700 Hazara civilians have been killed or injured in 13 targeted attacks by Islamic State affiliates alone, with the Shia community facing violence from both Taliban enforcement and ISIS-K simultaneously. Eid Mohammad Etimadi was abducted from his home and shot in Herat’s Injil district. Rajab Akhlaqi and Khadim Hossein Hedayati, both members of Herat’s Shia Ulema Council, were subsequently shot dead by motorcycle-riding gunmen. Mohammad Hassan Hamidi and Mohammad Taqi Sadiqi, imams of two Herat mosques, were killed in a further attack. None of these killings produced a meaningful investigation.
The Tolerance Myth
The Taliban present themselves internationally as a government committed to Islamic unity. Taliban authorities actively prevented ethnic and religious minorities from working in government institutions. In Herat, all minority employees from the previous administration were removed. In Badakhshan, no Ismaili followers remained in government positions across six Ismaili-majority districts. Mohaqiq warned that continued pressure on religious and ethnic communities will deepen social divisions and risk escalating sectarian tensions across Afghanistan. Governments engaging Kabul in pursuit of diplomatic normalisation must weigh precisely what they are normalising. A regime that beats Shia clerics, bans centuries-old jurisprudence, forces conversions, confiscates religious texts, and erases minority holidays from the national calendar is pursuing a project of sectarian homogenisation. The world’s silence on this is complicity.
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