As the world debates artificial intelligence, shifting economic power, and the climate crisis, Afghanistan remains trapped under a regime that pulls the country deeper into an archaic order. The recent publication of the Taliban’s 58-page Principles of Criminal Procedures has once again laid bare the nature of their rule: a theocratic system built on inequality, hierarchy, and gendered violence, justified through selective interpretations of religion. For Afghans living in exile, caught between the realities of modern global life and the medieval structure imposed on their homeland, this document is once again a stark reminder of how far the country has fallen.
This essay examines the key components of the Taliban’s penal framework to demonstrate why a religious state cannot produce justice, equality, or human dignity-and why the system is beyond reform.
A) Slavery is not new in a religious-Taliban system
This 58-page Taliban document contains an introduction, three parts, ten chapters, and 119 articles. The second chapter deals with punishments for forgery, and the third with punishments for cultivating and trafficking narcotics. These two chapters contain many Taliban-style provisions, but the heart of the entire document is the first chapter, which lays out “the principles, grades, and categories of those deserving taʿzir and their rulings” within the Emirate’s judicial system.
Almost every ruling in the new document is accompanied by a footnote citing a religious source; all its pages are filled with the names of books, jurists, and sources the Taliban consider the basis of their interpretation of sharia. None of this is new for anyone familiar with the religious vocabulary taught in traditional Afghan madrasas or who has spent enough time listening to our village preachers. These principles, categories of punishment, and the ranking of “deserving” individuals are already deeply embedded in the behaviour and language of conservative and religious segments of our society.
The first section of the document opens with terms and concepts that do not belong to contemporary criminal jurisprudence, though Afghanistan’s curriculum and legal system, including during the Islamic Republic, were never fully free of them. This section begins by distinguishing between hudud and taʿzir. These were taught in Afghan universities during the Republic and even appeared in the law, though they were not enforced as they are today under the Taliban. Critics of the Taliban, even those who advocate for a democratic system aligned with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rarely challenge the foundation of Taliban law, which is sharia. They do not question the fact that Taliban courts impose hudud and taʿzir; instead, they focus on procedural details.
A penal code cannot claim to be “sharia-based,” impose hudud and taʿzir, and yet refrain from dividing people into Muslims and non-Muslims, Sunnis and non-Sunnis, men and women, free people and slaves. The backbone of sharia-based punishment is precisely these religious, sectarian, class-based, and gender-based hierarchies. For this reason, Clause 4 of Article 4 distinguishes between a Muslim and a dhimmi (a non-Muslim living under Islamic rule who remains safe through payment of jizya). Clause 5 of that article states that the imam, the husband, and the master (owner of a slave) have the authority to carry out punishments, though hudud may only be executed by the imam (the religious ruler).
Clause 6 grants “every Muslim” the authority to punish a sinner, on two conditions:
- The sin must concern Haqullah (what is due to god, or sins against God), and
- It must fall under taʿzir rather than hudud.
Based on the Taliban’s document, every Muslim belongs to the category of “those who command right and forbid wrong,” and each may carry out summary punishments, without the need for trials, on other Muslims or non-Muslims.
Articles 26 and 27 divide Muslims into Hanafi Sunnis and “heretics,” declaring that any Hanafi who changes their sect is committing a crime punishable by taʿzir (two years’ imprisonment). Spreading “heresy” -that is, inviting Hanafis to join non-Hanafi sects -is a crime punishable by ten years in prison.
These rulings are not isolated but form parts of a coherent, deeply rooted system. This system does not recognize the inherent equality of human beings. At best, it ranks people according to their level of “faith.” In such a system, obedience to the imam or religious ruler is obligatory; a woman is half a man; Muslims have superiority over non-Muslims; and followers of one Islamic sect are superior to those of others. Thus, the authority to punish is granted, in order of hierarchy, to the imam, the husband, the master, and then to any Muslim. If one accepts a penal system rooted in sharia and does not question the concepts of hudud and taʿzir, it becomes impossible to demand equality before the law or the abolition of slavery-based and husband-dominated rules.
The Taliban have not limited this categorization to criminal punishment. They have applied the same gender, class, religious, and sect-based discrimination to education, dress, employment, travel, religious practice, and freedom of expression. Why would granting a husband the right to punish his wife seem “new” or “abnormal” when a woman’s presence outside the home is conditional on a male guardian, when a man’s marriage to four wives is legally sanctioned, and when male superiority is embedded across all laws and social norms?
The words slave and master may sound offensive today to many. Even in Afghanistan, formal slavery no longer exists as people are not openly labeled as slaves and masters. In practice, however, the Taliban system is quasi-slaveholding. The obedience they demand from the public and the restrictions and conditions they impose on women are manifestations of bondage.
B) The ranking of those subject to punishment in the Taliban Emirate is not new
The second chapter of this document classifies crimes and those eligible for punishment. Article 9 divides people into four groups:
- Religious scholars and high-ranking individuals,
- Nobles such as tribal elders and merchants,
- The middle class, and
- The lower class
A different method of enforcing punishment is prescribed for each category.
According to the document, religious scholars and high-ranking figures who have committed crimes must be informed personally by the judge (rather than by a prosecutor or the police), who must address them respectfully, with the following words: “It has come to my attention that you are doing such and such things.” In other words, when a scholar (meaning a mullah, not an academic) commits a crime, he should not be summoned. Instead, the judge should simply notify him of the “things” he has done (not “crimes”). The clause does not specify whether, after receiving this notification, the accused scholar must appear in court.
The second category of nobles must also be informed respectfully by the judge. But unlike scholars, they must actually be invited to appear before the court.
Members of the middle class must be summoned and detained.
As for the lower class (the poor and the powerless), they must be punished through threats and beatings (taʿzir). The document adds that if the offense committed by this group merits 39 lashes, which should not be delivered to the same part of the body. To show “mercy,” it further states that the beating should avoid the head and the “private parts.”
For some, seeing this explicit, written hierarchy may seem shocking or new. But in practice, it is nothing new at all. The Taliban have implemented this stratification since the beginning of the Emirate. They have special courts for Taliban-affiliated mullahs, deem respect for them obligatory, and even consider public criticism of them a crime. Their treatment of high-status figures such as Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and similar elites has always been exceptional, even when those figures oppose them. They do not treat tribal leaders and merchants harshly either.
It is unclear how they define the “middle class.” Perhaps mid-level merchants, moderately influential figures, or ordinary mullahs fall into this category. But the portion of the modern, urban middle class who are rooted in cities, universities, and civic life are targets of Taliban hostility and treated with great violence by them.
The rest of the population, which includes women (except those related to Taliban clerics and elites), labourers, farmers, and the impoverished, face daily humiliation, threats, and beatings at the hands of Taliban officers and whip-wielders. That is to say nothing of what happens when they are dragged into formal detention centres.
D) Religion is a tool of politics in the Taliban Emirate
This document is enough to prove the Taliban’s instrumental use of religion. They selectively draw from traditions and dubious religious sources to justify class-based privileges and hierarchies. For example, we have often heard from them and religious politicians that piety is the true measure of human worth, not wealth, power, or lineage. Verse 13 of Surah 49 is always on their lips during political campaigning and mass persuasion and is directed especially at what the Taliban call the “low people” (ټیټ خلک). This verse has become one of the most famous and frequently quoted verses in our society: “Indeed, the most honorable of you in the sight of God is the most pious among you.”
Once they seize power, they pull rules about economic, religious, class-based, and cultural hierarchies from yet another pocket of their sharia saddlebag. No matter how pious, those perceived as weak are dragged to court for lashes and insults even before their guilt is proven, while an accused mullah is not even confronted with the name of his alleged crime, lest it disrespect his religious status.
Another verse, that says “There is no compulsion in religion”, is a familiar instrument of political deception used by religious fundamentalists. After forming a government, religion as well as the definition of sect become compulsory. Anyone who promotes a different understanding becomes deserving of taʿzir.
When addressing tribes and ethnic groups, they preach that God created peoples and tribes so that “they may know one another” (wa jaʿalnakum shuʿuban wa qabaʾila litaʿarafu). Yet factionalism, tribal favoritism, and linguistic discrimination are enforced and justified in their most naked form when it comes to distributing government posts or applying sharia.
There are countless such examples. Other societies, through experience, have learned that a just and humane society cannot be built through “religious politics.” Law must be earthly and contractual so that religion does not become a tool of monopoly and discrimination in the hands of brokers and profiteers.
Moments like this should compel us non-Taliban Afghans to rethink the outdated legal norms and social arrangements that under the name of religion and tradition have been imposed on society and even embedded in the subconscious of educated people and segments of the anti-fundamentalist opposition.
The Taliban system or any religious government cannot be “reformed.” No amount of clinging to a decree or exposing a few injustices will bring real change. The state must be taken out of the hands of the merchants of religion, and the legal relationships among the citizens of the country must be governed by human and rational principles.
