Denial of women, glorification of poverty, and idealization of rural life in Mullah Hibatullah’s sermon
During the month of Ramadan and the Eid that follows, discussions around hunger and poverty intensify. Clerics and politicians alike offer comfort to the poor while preaching to the wealthy. They speak of how hunger purifies the soul and strengthens faith, and they encourage the well-off to give alms and show compassion.
Yet in this month, rarely do mullahs from the pulpit — or political leaders in Muslim societies — speak of a fair distribution of resources, fighting exploitation, or real efforts to reduce poverty. Instead, the dominant message accepts inequality as God’s will.
In the rhetoric of mullahs, poverty carries no negative connotation. On the contrary, it is portrayed as a spiritual advantage. The term faqir (poor) is often used interchangeably with mystic.
In the Taliban’s Emirate — an alliance of mullahs, lumpen elements, smugglers, and businessmen — poverty is openly praised, and the government distances itself from any responsibility for the people’s food security. Taliban leaders have repeatedly stated that they did not seize power to bring prosperity or comfort. They claim that people must ask God for their basic sustenance, insisting that each person’s portion was written at the dawn of time on the divine tablet, and that it is the duty of the poor to be patient and grateful.
Yet these very mullahs, lumpen figures, and smugglers do not rely on God for their own sustenance. Instead, they reach into the pockets of both the hungry and the fed across Afghanistan and extract alms and taxes from cart vendors, farmers, shopkeepers, and traders. They plan their livelihoods, fight, and even kill for those funds.
Competition over the distribution of the national budget, profits from mining revenues, control of lucrative customs and tax offices, and access to overt and covert foreign aid has brought powerful Taliban factions — particularly the camps of Mullah Hibatullah and the Haqqani network — to the brink of open conflict.
The rich’s mercy and the poor’s prayer
The weight of the people’s poverty overshadowed the joy of Eid — even during Mullah Hibatullah’s Eid sermon. He spoke at length to the poor who had gathered at the Eidgah to hear him, and through them, to the overwhelming majority of the hungry, whose unconditional obedience he demands. His message centered on the virtue of prayer and patience among the poor.
Mullah Hibatullah said that the same God who created His creatures also provides for them — and that the poor should not complain or blame anyone for their poverty. “So-and-so can do nothing about it,” he said. But the “so-and-sos” he refers to are the very ones collecting religious taxes (usher) and financial dues from the people, while also denying them freedom, education, and work. If someone fails to pay usher on time or delays in feeding the mullahs and their allies, they face harsh punishment, which won’t be postponed to the Day of Judgment.
Mullah Hibatullah stressed that both hunger and abundance are tests from God. The rich should be grateful for what they have, and the poor should be thankful for their lack of sustenance. According to him, the relationship between rich and poor Muslims, as defined by Islamic law, should be built on mercy and prayer: “The wealthy must show compassion to the needy, and the poor should pray for the wealthy and be content with their condition.”
In his worldview, wealth is only a divine gift. No one can increase or decrease it, because everyone’s sustenance is written in their fate. In his eyes, theft, looting, exploitation, smuggling, and embezzlement are not the causes of widespread poverty or the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. “God ordained everything at the beginning of time,” he claims.
He preached that the poor must remain silent and that it is religiously illegitimate for them to protest their circumstances. “When a child is conceived in the womb,” he said, “God commands the angel to write their fate — whether they will be rich or poor, how much sustenance they will have, and by what means they will earn it.”
In his view, the poor have no right to question why others gain their wealth through theft, smuggling, looting, or violence — because the angel, by God’s order, wrote it that way from the beginning. The poor should not ask Mullah Hibatullah why his own office expenses in the second quarter of the last fiscal year amounted to two billion afghani — nearly six percent of the entire operating budget of his Emirate. Nor should they ask why, under his rule, more than 80 percent of the population — by some estimates, 28 million people — are hungry and in urgent need of aid.
According to Mullah Hibatullah, Afghanistan’s poor must unite with Taliban commanders, lumpen allies, smugglers, and looters because they are facing even greater enemies.
Jinn and humans: The enemies of Muslims
On the day Mullah Hibatullah delivered his sermon at the Eidgah in Kandahar, a short video circulated in the media. It showed several women crying out for help as they sat on the ground along the path to the Eidgah.
In the Taliban’s Emirate, women are treated like jinn — supernatural beings who must exist, but remain unseen. Women are expected to be present, obedient, and faithful, but invisible. They must not be seen praying in mosques or participating in public religious life as men do.
To the Taliban, women — like jinn — are categorized as either good or evil. Yet whether they are deemed good or bad, they are still expected to remain hidden. Just as God created jinn and kept them concealed from human eyes, commanding them to act in friendship or enmity from the shadows, women must also live out of sight, far from the gaze of men.
In Mullah Hibatullah’s Eid sermon, the presence of jinn was more prominent than that of women. He called on poor and wealthy believers alike to unite, warning that “the enemies from among the jinn and humans” lie in wait for Muslims. According to him, “satanic forces — both jinn and human” are united, spreading discord and conspiracy across Islamic countries.
Thus, he urged Muslims to rise above their personal and social divisions and awaken to the threat. Poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and injustice — these, in his view, are not the real concerns of Afghanistan’s Muslims. Instead, he insists that unity must be forged against the “satanic jinn and human forces” — threats that outweigh all others.
Villagers as friends, city-dwellers as foes
Over the past four years, Mullah Hibatullah has made no effort to conceal his hostility toward cities and urban life. He sees Kabul as a den of devils — a place of sin and corruption — and has anchored his Emirate in Kandahar, where rural customs and codes dominate.
Though in his sermons he names jinn, devils, infidels, and Westerners as the enemies, the blade of his decrees and inhumane rulings has fallen almost exclusively on city dwellers. He and his allies have worked systematically to turn Afghanistan’s cities into villages.
In his Eid sermon, he described democracy as “poisonous ignorance” that was finally eradicated thanks to “the front-line mujahedeen” and “the common rural folk.”
He declared, “If jihad were to be divided, half would go to the fighters in the trenches, and the other half to the villagers.” According to him, villagers supported the war against cities and democracy by offering their homes, food, and even their children to the mujahedeen.
He went on to warn that “infidels and democracy-seekers” are trying to turn Afghanistan once again into a burning battlefield — and that they aim to divide “the common people” (his term for poor villagers) from the Emirate.
Hibatullah Akhundzada, addressing the poor and rural communities, said, “You are all subjects of the Emirate … and if you see me as your Imam … Unite … Obey my orders … Society will fall into order.” And if you do not, “you will ultimately be caught in wars.”
Paying attention to such details, such as wording in seemingly repetitive speeches, is essential to understanding the positions of Mullah Hibatullah and other Taliban leaders in grasping the current state of the country. There are countless flaws within the Taliban including foreign dependencies and deep-rooted ethnic and tribal prejudices but the defining characteristic of the group is its rural backwardness.
The Taliban are religious, -rural, and lumpen elements of society who are waging war against freedom, democracy, education, women’s social presence, and all other pillars of civil and democratic life.
Younus Negah is a researcher and writer from Afghanistan who is currently in exile in Turkey.
