Mullah Haibatullah also banned religious education for women.
Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada recently announced in a cabinet meeting that girls and women were not only deprived of secular education, but also of religious schools.
Citing narrations from the era of the third Muslim caliph, he claimed that women’s attendance at religious schools and mosques was “not permissible according to Sharia law.”
According to some media reports, this decision has created a wave of hidden discontent even among members of the Taliban cabinet.
Some Taliban members have told the media that the group leader’s position has disappointed many and contradicts the explicit text of the Quran and the Prophet’s hadiths, as religious education is considered obligatory for all Muslims – men and women.
However, none of the Taliban ministers have dared to openly oppose this decision. The imposed silence of the authorities reflects a repressive atmosphere in which even senior Taliban figures are afraid to express a different point of view.
The Taliban have already closed the doors of universities and schools to girls, excluded women from most workplaces, and now, with the ban on religious education, women’s last hope for access to knowledge is being closed.
