Sheikh Abdul Sami Ghaznavi, a Taliban jihadi master, was arrested for making different statements.
The Taliban, which has repeatedly claimed “tolerance” and “internal reform” in recent years, has once again shown that it cannot tolerate the slightest difference of opinion from within its ranks.
The latest example is the arrest of Sheikh Abdul Sami Ghaznavi, one of the group’s most prominent and influential intellectual figures.
Sheikh Ghaznavi, a 70-year-old man who has been a prominent jihadi figure in the past four decades, is considered the teacher of many senior Taliban commanders and officials. Among Taliban circles, he is known as the “Imam of Jihad” and has always been respected.
But the popular figure was angered by Taliban intelligence for his recent comments.
Ghaznavi said in a Taliban religious school that Islamic law does not prohibit the education of women and girls and that the issue of hijab should not be an excuse for educational deprivation.
“Jihad is obligatory, whether in Pakistan or Africa,” he said, referring to the Taliban leader’s recent decree banning members of the group from joining the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
These remarks, which clearly have an independent and different interpretation from the official positions of the Taliban leadership, led the Taliban intelligence service to arrest him and bring him to a military court.
The court also sentenced the elderly scholar to 40 days in prison. Sources say that after his release, Ghaznavi may also be deprived of religious activities and the pulpit.
This treatment of one of the Taliban’s most respected intellectual figures once again reveals the group’s authoritarian and intolerant nature.
If the voice of a critic like Sheikh Ghaznavi is not tolerated within the Taliban structure, the situation is clear and alarming for journalists, independent critics, and social activists outside the structure.
The Taliban show that they are not only intolerant of criticism, but also deprive their scholars of the right to interpret different religions.
