A dispute between two senior leaders of the Taliban over girls’ education burst into the public on Tuesday. The spat occurred during their speeches on September 27 that were given for Tourism Day in Kabul, according to Etilaatroz.
“To learn is an obligation for men and women, and there is no Islamic reason for the closure of girls’ schools,” stated Sher Mohammad Stanikzai, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister. His view on the “obligation” of learning was dismissed by Khalid Hanafi, the minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, who is strongly opposed to women’s education. While admitting that “worldly education is permissible,” he also said, “When there is a conflict between what is permissible and the order of the Amir, the ruling of the Amir is obligatory.” Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah has already ordered girls’ secondary schools to remain closed. And given that fact, the ruling of Hibatullah must trump what is “permissible.”
There was a widespread debate on social media about the conflicting remarks of the two Taliban officials. Amin Ahmadi wrote on his Facebook page that the Taliban does not recognize “basic rights and freedoms,” which is why according to Ahmadi, “They talk about basic human needs in terms of halal, permissible, forbidden and obligation.”
Since the Taliban regained power, they repeatedly changed their explanation as to why girls are banned from continuing their education. In September 2021, the Ministry of Education opened schools for boys and girls up to grade 6 but did not allow girls in higher grades. Taliban spokesmen and diplomats insisted the ban is temporary until the group develops a mechanism for allowing girls beyond grade 6 in schools. (That was the same explanation the Taliban provided for the closure of girls’ schools when they were last in power in the nineties. However, the girls’ school never did reopen, at least not until after the Taliban regime fell in 2001.)
In March 2022, Noorullah Munir, then the Taliban ministry of education, had planned to open girls’ schools, which was abruptly canceled by conservative clerics around the Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah in Kandahar.
Then, in September 2022, the Taliban minister of education issued a new reason for banning girls from education beyond grade 6 when he stated that such a prohibition is because it is in accordance with the Afghan people’s culture, which is supposedly against sending their daughters to school. The minister’s remark provoked widespread condemnation across the country, as both fathers and mothers called for the Taliban to open the schools to their daughters.
Recently, the Taliban sent a letter to girls’ schools in Kandahar and asked them to expel all girls older than 13. This is yet another indicator of how the Taliban leadership is hostile to girls’ education.
And recently, the Taliban supreme leader replaced Noorullah Munir with the former head of Kandahar’s provincial council, Maulvi Habibullah Agha. The appointment of the new education minister is seen by observers to be a sign of the consolidation of the power of the anti-education inner circle of Mullah Hibatullah.
