Reviewing a Unique Mystical Novel Set in 1920s Afghanistan: Shabnam, a pathway to the sun 

January 7, 2026

Shirazuddin Siddiqi

Afghanistan Analysts Network

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The recently published English translation of the Bengali novel Shabnam, written by Syed Mujtaba Ali and drawing on his experiences of Kabul during the 1920s, deserves a closer look from anyone interested in Afghanistan’s history and its literary and cultural heritage. Mujtaba Ali set Shabnam in the momentous historical period of King Amanullah’s attempts at social reform and to open up his country, as well as its descent into violent rebellion and civil war. The novel is also deeply grounded in the tradition of Sufi-inspired mysticism so prominent in classical Persian-language poetry that has, for centuries, provided a shared intellectual reference for the broader region. AAN is pleased to present a review of the book by guest author Shirazuddin Siddiqi,* who delves, in particular, into the many layers of poetic and mystical meanings that underly this story of love in the midst of civil war. This is the first of a series of reports that we hope to publish in 2026, loosely linked to the 100th anniversary of the Amanullah period and its overthrow.

Persian miniature depicting the meeting of Shirin and Farhad, one of the legendary tales that Mujtaba Ali drew on for his novel. Here, Farhad sculpts Shirin’s image. Source: Iran ArtMag
“Where the angels dare not tread, the ignorant one rushes in!”[1]

The novel, Shabnam, by the Bengali writer Syed Mujtaba Ali,[2] written in the mid-20th century, has recently been translated into English by Nazes Afroz. The 1920s was a period when Afghanistan was going through a turbulent time. King Amanullah (r1919-29) saw his authority challenged by internal and external forces until a fully-fledged civil war broke out in 1928-29, and chaos replaced order. Mujtaba Ali was then a teacher at Habibia College in Kabul and witnessed these events. He wrote two books: a memoir in 1949 titled, In a Land Far from Home – A Bengali in Afghanistan, also translated by Nazes Afroz into English (see AAN’s review), and later a novel called Shabnam (1960), which is the focus of this review.

Mujtaba Ali (1904-74) was born into a Saayed family in Karimganj, then part of Sylhet district in British India (Kaptai.club).[3] He briefly studied at Aligarh Muslim University, although the exact dates of his time there are not clearly documented in available sources. He was, however, one of the first students to enrol in Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, graduating in 1926, before moving to Kabul in 1927 to take up a teaching position. He later continued his studies at the University of Bonn in Germany and Al-Azhar University in Egypt, going on to teach in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). He left East Pakistan after falling out with the Pakistani authorities, who sought to impose Urdu as the sole state language, and relocated to India, where he worked for All India Radio before returning to Visva-Bharati University as a professor of German language and Islamic Culture. He was said to speak 12 languages.[4] His knowledge of Persian seems to have been exceptionally deep and extensive. This comes across quite clearly in Shabnam, as we will see in this review.

Mujtaba Ali’s presence in Afghanistan was by no means an isolated instance. Soon after Amanullah acceded to the throne and secured full diplomatic independence from the British, he sought to bring educated foreigners to Afghanistan as teachers and advisers for the civilian and military state departments (read this AAN report). Fellow Muslims or, at any rate, individuals from neighbouring Asian countries were preferred. For many South Asians sympathising with India’s struggle for self-rule, such as young Mujtaba Ali, Amanullah’s Afghanistan represented an attractive destination, thanks to its anti-colonial credentials and open support for Indian freedom fighters. However, the reformist programme on which the Afghan king had hastily embarked had already started to meet strong domestic opposition (such as the Khost rebellion explored in this AAN report). Soon after Mujtaba Ali arrived in 1927, the number of those opposing King Amanullah’s reforms grew and it did not take long for turmoil and violent disorder to break out. Threatened by revolts from both the Pashtun tribes of the eastern region and the mostly Tajik inhabitants of the Shomali Plateau, Amanullah would eventually abdicate in January 1929. Foreigners hurried to abandon the capital as it was seized by Habibullah Kalakani, who proclaimed himself king.

Love in a time of civil war

It was against the backdrop of civil war that Mujtaba Ali conceived Shabnam, setting his love story within the very upheaval he had witnessed. The novel follows Majnun, an Indian teacher, reminiscent of the author himself, who observes the swift reforms introduced by King Amanullah with interest, and questions whether they have the public’s support and reflect the attitudes and cultural sensitivities of the Afghan people. During an evening stroll near the king’s palace, he encounters Shabnam, a young Afghan woman, bright, educated and liberal, who has recently returned from France. She shares his concerns about the unrest stirred by the king’s reform agenda. Their brief encounter sparks an unspoken desire for more frequent meetings and gradually their love for one another deepens beyond their control and they marry. But the violence and lawlessness of the civil war ultimately crushes their love. The depth of the story, reflected in Mujtaba Ali’s Bengali-style narrative, makes it into an interesting and engaging read and the translator has tried to reflect the Bengali flavour in the English translation.

A witness to chaos 

On one level, Shabnam comes across as  an eyewitness account of a wandering lover who happens to be in a country undergoing major social change and the attempted transformation of its system of governance. Social order is disrupted; anyone can do anything without fear of legal consequences. It appears that the writer, through a fictional format, intends to expose his Bengali readers, who had been living in peace, to the consequences of social instability and disorder. In this sense, Shabnam appears to be reinforcing his previously written memoir, In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan, by providing an eyewitness account within a novel of how the Afghan government of the time disintegrated until it ultimately gave way to lawlessness.

Afghans who lived through the period immediately after the 1978 coup d’état by the Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and during the mujahidin rule in the 1990s will be all too aware of what can happen to people regardless of gender, age and nationality when social order is disrupted in a turbulent time. For Afghan readers over the age of 50 who lived in Afghanistan in their youth, the story may resonates with their own experiences.

From Mujtaba Ali’s own non-fictional account of his life in Afghanistan, the existence of a similar liaison with an Afghan woman can be ruled out. However, as Nazes Afroz has suggested, the inspiration for the story could have been derived from the many real-life instances of people – friends and lovers – whose lives were abruptly swallowed up in the maelstrom of the civil war (The Daily Star).

Perhaps Shabnam, the woman, can also be read as a personification of Afghanistan itself, a country with which Mujtaba Ali quickly fell in love, only to lose it just as abruptly. In 1929, he left Afghanistan, never to return. It is possible that he had fallen in love with the ‘new’ Afghanistan that was being born during King Amanullah’s reign, an Afghanistan that soon disappeared forever.

King Amanullah Khan drinking tea with a group of people, 1927 (unknown photographer). Source: Wikimedia 
Mystical layers of the dewdrop

The novel, Shabnam, however, traverses more than one level. Beneath the surface, and reflecting historical events, other deeper layers have been woven into the story, which require more analysis. These more profound meanings can be seen in a number of clues that suggest the story may have been inspired or influenced by the mystical and Sufi content of classical Persian literature, of which Mujtaba Ali seems to have been aware. This knowledge may have inspired the choice of the title.

Here, we outline some of these clues.

The first, and most important, clue seems to be the title Shabnam, which is also the name of one of the two main characters in the story.

Shabnam means dewdrop in Persian and is a popular name for girls. It is very prominent in both classical and modern Persian literature and has been extensively used as a literary device by poets and scholars. In the so-called Indian Style of Persian poetry, the image of the dewdrop develops further, coming to symbolise humility, love, the brevity of life, the annihilation of the self, devotion and becoming one with the Whole. At its core, the dewdrop is a rich and multi-layered symbol that reflects the mystical ideas of unity and impermanence, as well as the relationship between the part and the Whole. It often represents the human soul – small and seemingly separate, yet composed of the same essence as the ocean. This is used in literature to symbolise the relationship between the individual soul and absolute reality.

A dewdrop vanishes as the morning sun rises – just like the world of shadows and illusions. It is a reminder of the transient nature of life. Its brief existence reflects the fleeting nature of worldly life. In the story, Shabnam appears in Majnun’s life, bringing a world filled with happiness, joy, hope and poetic beauty, but then vanishes, leaving behind a void that can never be filled.

The dewdrop also suggests that truth cannot be found by clinging to the current form of being, but rather by dissolving into the Beloved (or the Divine). So, by turning into vapour and disappearing, in this genre of Persian poetry, the dewdrop becomes one with the sun and ultimately becomes the Sun. It disappears, not into nothingness, but by merging into a greater reality. This illustrates fana’, the Sufi concept of annihilation of the self in the ultimate reality. Small as it is, a dewdrop can reflect the entire sky, suggesting that even the humblest soul, if pure and still, can mirror the infinite beauty. It is a symbol of spiritual receptivity and inner clarity. This symbolism is not abstract for Mujtaba Ali: it becomes embodied in Shabnam herself.

Names as symbols

In the story, Shabnam – the dewdrop – is the central character, alongside her lover Majnun, who shares a name with one of the central characters in Layla and Majnun, the classic tale of love and longing to which we will later return. During their brief but immensely joyful encounters, Shabnam and Majnun often quote classical Persian poets to express their thoughts and feelings, weaving literary references into their dialogue. Those quoted include the 10th-century poet, Kisai Marwazi, and the 17th-century poets Kalim Kashani, Sa’eb Tabrizi, and Salim Tehrani (referred to in the book as Ali Quli Salim). Significantly, Salim, Kalim and Sa’eb are prominent figures in the Indian Style of Persian poetry, while Kisayi belongs to an earlier period and, unlike the other three, is not known to have spent time in the Indian subcontinent.

There are also quotes from Hafez Shirazi (14th century) and Mawlana Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi (13th century). Majnun, the protagonist of Mujtaba Ali’s story, claims that Rumi is his “favourite poet” (page 121). The story also mentions Nizami Ganjavi (the 12th century author of the most famous Persian version of Layla and Majnun, who many believe transformed a simple story into a complex mystical study), alongside Ferdowsi Tusi (the 10thcentury author of Shahnamah, or The Book of Kings) and Nuruddin Abdur Rahman Jami, the 15th century author of another version of Layla and Majnun (pages 37 and 153). This shows that Mujtaba Ali’s knowledge of Persian poetry goes beyond the Indian Style. He seems to have had a much wider knowledge of the Persian literary heritage.

The poets mentioned above have woven mystical concepts into their poems. However, none of the Persian poems quoted in the story specifically mentions shabnam/dewdrop, which in itself is interesting. It is difficult to determine whether Mujtaba Ali deliberately chose to avoid poems that explicitly mention the word and reveal the deeper meaning of the story. He may have intentionally built this ambiguity into the story, as is the norm in Persian literature, where almost every piece can have dualities of meanings embedded within it. At the early stages of Shabnam and Majnun’s relationship, a poem is quoted from an unknown Indian or Bengali source, which includes the phrase “dewdrop.” However, this poem is more about the separation of the flower from the plant and the dewdrop is used in a descriptive form for the flower:

I am thy companion

Oh, night jasmine, the dream of autumn night, drenched in dewdrops

The pain of separation

When Shabnam asks what it means, Majnun interprets the poem as carrying the following meaning:

We have a flower in our land – shiuli[5] [the night jasmine]. The poet says the autumn dreams the whole night for it to bloom – but the shiuli falls to the ground at dawn immersing the plant with the pain of separation.

Persian poets quoted by Mujtaba Ali wrote multiple poems specifically about the shabnam/dewdrop, including some related to the central theme of the novel, for example, this line from Kalim Kashani:

شبنم به بال جذبه خورشید می پرد

The dewdrop flies on the wings of the sun’s allure

Or this from Sa’eb Tabrizi:

به قرب گلعذاران دل مبندید

وصیت نامه شبنم همین است

Don’t get attached to worldly pleasures 

So reads the last will of the dewdrop

There are many poems by these and other poets named in the story that include the word ‘shabnam‘.

Echoes of Layla and Majnun – and differences

Another interesting clue lies in the story’s fable-like quality, which recalls the classical tale of Layla and Majnun. First recorded in Arabic, the tale became a prominent feature in Persian literature, where it was given poetic form by the 12thcentury poet Nizami Ganjavi as part of a collection called Khamsa, and retold in the 15th century by Mawlana Nuruddin Abdul-Rahman Jami in a collection titled Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones). Each retelling introduced variations in detail, yet the essential elements of the story remained the same. (Other classical poets, including Amir Khosrow Dehlawi, also wrote versions of the story, but here we focus on those specifically named in Mujtaba Ali’s novel.) Over time, Layla and Majnun became one of the most widely known and frequently retold love stories in the Persian-speaking world.[6] Essentially, Layla and Majnun is a tragic love story about Qays and Layla, whose pure and passionate love is thwarted by societal pressures and family opposition. Qays, deeply in love with Layla, becomes so obsessed with Layla’s love that he earns the epithet ‘Majnun’, meaning ‘possessed’ or ‘mad’. Despite their love, the young couple are kept apart, leading Majnun to wander the desert in a state of poetic madness. In Persian literature, the story explores themes of divine love, longing and the pain of separation, ultimately portraying love as a spiritual journey beyond worldly obstacles.

While people may have viewed Layla and Majnun as a powerful story of two human souls mad with love for each other, in Sufism, the story is often interpreted not merely as a tale of earthly love, but as a profound allegory for the soul’s yearning for union with the Divine and so takes on a much deeper meaning. Majnun’s obsessive, all-consuming passion for Layla is symbolic of the divine longing that overtakes a seeker of the true path. Beyond the name of one of the central protagonists in the novel, there are references to Layla and Majnun in several other places.

In Mujtaba Ali’s story, Majnun meets Shabnam in Kabul on the fringes of a lavish party held by King Amanullah and falls in love with her, but unlike the classic tale, Majnun marries Shabnam. The marriage stands in for the joys of Layla and Qays’ early encounters, while the unruly bandits of the civil war are reminiscent of the family opposition that keeps Qays/Majnun away from Layla. Otherwise, the lovers meet a similar tragic end in both versions. Nonetheless, the variances make the two stories different in relation to the concept of junun (the madness of love). In the classical story of Layla and Majnun, ‘reason’ is confronted in various ways and at multiple levels throughout the story. Initially, both families are too proud (in other words, ‘too mad’) to consider a relationship with the other. While Majnun’s family eventually relents – after they notice the profound change in his condition – Layla’s family never does. To the very end, they are unwilling to give in to logic or reason. Majnun gives up living with people and chooses to live in the wilderness. Attempts by family and well-wishers to change his mind fail. The dominance of love’s ‘madness’ continues to the very end and is perhaps also the reason why Majnun was seen as a more fitting name for Qays. In a couplet in chapter two of the Mathnawi, Mawlana Balkhi/Rumi endorses love’s madness and expresses it slightly differently:

آزمودم عقل دور اندیش را

بعد ازین دیوانه سازم خویش را

I have tried the far-thinking intellect;

Henceforth I will make myself mad

In Mujtaba Ali’s Shabnam, Majnun’s family is absent from the scene (they are in the faraway land of Bengal) and have no direct say in the matter. Shabnam’s family, by contrast, comes across as considerate and cooperative. Shabnam’s father devises a well-thought-out plan – albeit somewhat opportunistic given the circumstances – to secure the future happiness of the lovers.

Unlike in Layla and Majnun, where family opposition and Majnun’s inner madness drive the tragedy, here the ‘madness’ lies instead in the environment and the turmoil of the civil war raging in the country. The combination of her family’s cooperative attitude and the civil war gives Shabnam the tenor of a realistic love story, anchoring the mystical aspects.

While the tale of Layla and Majnun is referenced in the novel, an interesting account of it unfolds on the night of Shabnam and Majnun’s wedding when the couple reminisce over their encounters and recite Layla and Majnun to each other. This may sound like they are trying to indirectly compare their love to that of Layla and Majnun, which is not just earthly love but love on a higher plane. To make sure we do not miss this divine and mystical plane, they leave us with this revealing remark: “The mortal body of this world could not hold on to such death-defying love any longer. Holding hands, Layla and Majnun were going to Heaven, walking on the rainbow” (page 156).

Poetry as mystical testimony – and silence as eloquence

The story of Shabnam is not written entirely in prose: there are many lines of poetry, and this might sound a little unusual in English. English readers may not be accustomed to a mix of poetry and prose in the same piece of writing. However, for readers familiar with classical Persian (and Arabic) literature, this aspect of the story seems quite natural. In Persian, writers and thinkers have written in a mixture of poetry and prose for centuries.

One important point to consider is that, in modern Persian literature – at least in Afghanistan – there are very few recent works of prose with mystical content that can serve as models for new writers. Earlier poets looked to their predecessors for inspiration: Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi/Rumi drew his inspiration from Fariduddin Attar and Sanayi Ghaznawi and transformed their mystical visions to create his own unparalleled body of work, which continues to inspire people around the globe, while the 17th century Indian mystical thinker and poet, Bedil Dehlawi, drew on Balkhi/Rumi, Saʿdi, Hafez and others. This chain of influence has allowed poetry to carry the mystical tradition forward, generation after generation. Prose, however, has lacked such a lineage.

For modern writers of prose who are interested in mysticism, this absence creates a kind of vacuum. To bridge the gap, they have to do what Mujtaba Ali does in Shabnam – weave lines of poetry into their narratives, encouraging readers to reflect on the deeper mystical meanings through the authority and resonance of verse. The story of Layla and Majnun referenced in Shabnam was written in Persian verse, not prose. Mujtaba Ali may therefore have felt the need to rely on classical poetry to strengthen the mystical content of his story, positioning Shabnam as part of this ongoing dialogue between verse and prose.

The poems he quotes provide another pointer towards the mystical aspects of the story. As an example, note this couplet from Kalim Kashani (on page 23):

دل گمان دارد که پوشیده است راز عشق را

شمع را فانوس ‌پندارد که پنهان کرده است

The simple heart thinks it has hidden its love under a veil

The lampshade thinks it has hidden the candle’s flame

In other words, in the same way that the lampshade cannot hide light, love also reveals itself, a maiden, betrayed by her blushing, who cannot conceal her love (see below). This couplet from Sa’eb Tabrizi is also quoted (page 30):

خموشی حجت ناطق بود جان های واصل را

که از غواص در دریا نفس بیرون نمی آید

Nazes Afros follows Mujtaba Ali’s Bengali translation of the couplet:

He who dives deep looking for the pearl

Bubbles if his exhalation does not swirl

However, a literal translation might provide a clearer link to the story:

Silence is the eloquent proof for souls who have converged,

For from the diver deep in the sea, no breath returns to the surface.

Running the risk of oversimplifying the meaning of this couplet, one can say that in the same way that a diver cannot hide being in water by holding his breath, a lover’s silence speaks just as eloquently and clearly to give away his love. In other words, silence, in itself, becomes the evidence.

Silence becomes a conscious effort, an active withholding and suppressing of sound, a deliberate act of surrender, of allowing oneself to be overwhelmed. It is not a passive absence, but an action that suggests the pursuit of union. In this light, silence itself becomes a form of testimony.

In the same way that light cannot be hidden by the lampshade love also reveals itself and becomes public. Elsewhere in the story, this same concept is reinforced by a quote from an unknown Sanskrit source for which the author provides a translation (page 39):

I asked: oh maiden,

Will you love me or no?

She blushed;

And her heart hid her love.

Nezami Ganjavi’s Layla and Qays try to keep their love secret, but the more they try, the more they fail:[7]

کردند بسی به هم مدارا

تا راز نگردد آشکارا

کردند شکیب تا بکوشند

وان عشق برهنه را بپوشند

They showed much tolerance of each other,
so that the secret would not be revealed.
They endured patiently and strove,
to cover the naked flame of that love.

Mawlana Jami takes a different position: Layla complains that while Majnun could speak out, should he wish to, she is destined to remain silent:[8]

رازی که توانیش تو گقتن

من نتوانم به جز نهفتن

عاشق غم دل به نامه پرداز

معشوق و به جان نهفتن راز

The secret that you can speak out

I can do nothing but keep hidden

The lover pours out the heart’s pain in letters

The beloved conceals the secret with her soul

Poets have used various metaphors to make this point. Some of them have used scent or light (as in Kalim Kashani’s lines above) to illustrate love’s revelatory qualities. In the same way that no flower can contain its scent and no lampshade can contain light, no human soul can contain love. And silence transcends speech, gaining a more expository power in love than words could.

Layla visits Majnun in the wilderness, c 1770. Source: Dallas Museum of Art via History Picture Archive
Love, reason and faith

This emphasis on silence is echoed and reinforced in the lines quoted from non-Persian sources, which also portray love as a miraculous and transformative force defying normal human logic and reasoning. In Persian literature, Rumi is recognised for his exploration of the distinction between reason and love. Love goes where reason dares not tread. Reason is often seen as divisive, while love resolves differences and bridges gaps by fostering unity. For example, note these lines from Chapter 6 of Balkhi/Rumi’s Mathnawi:

عقل راه نا امیدی کی رود؟

عشق باشد کان طرف بر سر دود

لاابالی عشق باشد نی خرد

عقل آن جوید کز آن سودی برد

How could ever reason take the path of despair?

It is love that runs there with its head (rather than feet)

Carefree is love, not reason

Reason seeks what brings it gain

Rumi finds reason clumsy and incapable of answering deeper philosophical and mystical questions, for which love does provide an explanation. On this issue, Mujtaba Ali uses a quote from a Sanskrit source in which a well-known nonbeliever, Charvaka, the founder of materialism and atheism in ancient India, is recalled by the story’s character Majnun as being overwhelmed by love and breaking with his materialistic and atheistic self by kneeling to confess belief and embrace faith:

Only for a day in life, Charvaka

Knelt before the creator

Only for a day, blessed by love –

Joyous was the day – a day of hope

This quality of love can be traced in the work of most Persian literary giants. The following lines from Mawlana Balkhi/Rumi express a similar meaning:[9]

کافر صدساله چو بیند ترا

سجده کند زود مسلمان شود

A hundred-year-old infidel, upon seeing you

Would fall in prostration, swiftly embracing faith

Another mystical aspect of love – of interest to us as it is reflected in Shabnam – that has been extensively covered in classical Persian literature is that love does not bring comfort and ease; it brings inexplicable pain. Pain becomes the yardstick for feeling the depth of love. Lovers welcome pain, and in their view, those who cannot endure pain cannot be true seekers of love. Here are some examples from the poets quoted in the book, the first two are by Sa’eb Tabrizi and the second two by Kalim Kashani.

ما را زعشق درد و غم بیکرانه است

For us, from love comes boundless pain and sorrow[10]

عشق دردی است که درمان هزاران درد است

Love is a pain whose only cure is thousands of pains[11]

عشق را بخت تیره در کار است

جلوه شمع در شب تار است

Love requires a dark fate

To be a candle in the darkest night[12]

از در و دیوار می بارد بلا در راه عشق

Calamities pour down from everywhere in the path of love[13]

A lover who cannot accept and endure pain is not considered a lover. As in the examples above, most sources do not distinguish between love and pain: love is pain. In Shabnam, the author uses a quote from an unknown Sanskrit source (on page 67) to make this point:

There is pain in meeting the foe

More pain in losing a friend

If both inflict so much torment

Who will tell who is foe, who is friend?

In these lines, the boundary between friend and foe is lost. When a friend (or the loss of a friend) can bring you more pain than a foe does, then what is the point in trying to distinguish between them? In other words, love leaves you with unending pain. Love and comfort do not go together. This seems to be the message Mujtaba Ali conveys through the story of Shabnam.

Mujtaba Ali’s Legacy

Taken together, these themes suggest that Mujtaba Ali’s message in Shabnam is not limited to politics or personal romance. Rather, the novel points towards a wider mystical vision. While there are numerous other clues in the book, the purpose of this review is not to provide an exhaustive analysis of all of them, which might spoil the plot for readers and risk becoming repetitive. The aim is to analyse some key elements, such as the title and the names of the two leading characters, the link with the classical mystical tale of Layla and Majnun and the poems quoted in the story, to draw attention to the deeper mystical content of the novel. This helps us reach a slightly different conclusion. The author may have pursued a paradoxical and multi-layered goal. For his Bengali readers, who may never have experienced the absence of law and order in their own lifetime, he may have aimed to open a window on the chaos of the civil war and how it disrupts everyday life. At the same time, he may have wanted to make use of his extensive knowledge of Persian literature and expose his readers to mystical concepts and thinking by producing a story that does not end. Rather, the text finishes with the Persian phrase, ‘Tamam na shud’: It did not end. In the same way that life does not end with death in the mystical world, love and the story of love continue beyond the illusions of earthly life; lovers die, but their love remains beyond the reach of death.

A closer look at Mujtaba Ali’s background lends weight to this analysis. His father, Khan Bahadur Syed Sikander Ali, “traced his paternal descent to Shah Syed Ahmed Mutawakkil, a Sufi Pir” (see Sylhet: History and Heritage), suggesting Sufism and mysticism had deep roots in the family and that Mujtaba Ali was exposed to it from a young age. In 1921, he enrolled at Visva-Bharati University, which had been founded that year by the Nobel Laureate poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, whom Ali knew personally. These two pieces of information help us understand Mujtaba Ali’s profound grasp of classical Persian literature as well as his knowledge of mystical concepts in Sanskrit. Tagore’s short story ‘Kabuliwala’, about the filial bond between an Afghan vendor and a five-year-old Indian girl, may have inspired the affection Mujtaba Ali felt towards Afghans and Afghanistan (see AAN’s Afghanistan in World Literature (III): Kabuliwalas of the Latter Day).

By writing Shabnam, the author offered a precious gift to his host country, Afghanistan, where there were few examples of prose with mystical content. Afghan poets have continued to keep the Sufi tradition alive, incorporating mystical concepts into their poetry in both classical and modern formats. It is not easy, however, to find such examples in prose. Two writers from Iran, Ghasem Hasheminejad and Mostafa Mastoor, have written stories in prose that continue the mystical history. Elephant in the Dark, Hasheminejad’s most famous novel, is a modern detective story but draws on mystical concepts. His other work, a short story, Kheirunnesa: A biography, also has mystical concepts woven into it. Iranian author, Mostafa Mastoor’s Persian-language bestseller, Kiss the Fair Face of God (Rouyeh Mah-e Khoda ra bebus), is known for its mystical content.

Similarly, the late Afghan writer and philosopher Sayed Bahauddin Majrooh maintained an interest in the classical heritage and juxtaposed modern psychology with philosophy in relation to mystical thinking in his novel Azhdaha-e Khodi (The Ego Monster). Azhdaha’e Khodi is not a love story and it is not at all similar to Shabnam: it provides a more accessible comparison of Western philosophy/psychology with Sufi/mystical thinking. Another work of Afghan literature which brings in Sufi concepts is the 2018 novel by Asadullah Habib titled Dar Sawahil-e Ganga (On the Banks of the Ganges/Ganga).[14] It concerns the life and work of the great 17th century mystical poet and thinker, Mirza Abdul Qadir Bidel, and was published in Kabul. In the novel’s fictionalised format, Habib uses story-telling language with great skill to make some of Bedil’s complex metaphoric and mystical concepts more easily accessible to readers. The novel takes the reader through various stages of Bedil’s life, punctuated by deep philosophical and mystical questions and dilemmas.

Such examples are scarce, however, and none were available to Mujtaba Ali when he wrote his story. Therefore, Shabnam would sit alongside the very few examples of mystical philosophy in modern prose fiction from Afghanistan, and possibly the wider region.

Mujtaba Ali’s novel is, therefore, more than just a love story interrupted by Afghanistan’s civil war. It stands at the crossroads of history and mysticism, bearing witness to the collapse of a fragile state while submitting to the reader that love is eternal – that it can endure beyond death, chaos and reason. Weaving Persian, Sanskrit and Bengali strands into a single narrative, Mujtaba Ali gave Afghanistan a rare example of mystical prose with a modern edge, while also offering his Bengali readers a glimpse into a world they might never otherwise have known. In this way, Shabnam endures as a timeless reflection on how beauty and love can survive even when empires crumble and nations transform.

Mujtaba Ali shows us how mysticism and mystical values remain relevant to modern life, even when social attitudes have shifted. Tales such as Layla and Majnun, Shirin and Farhad[15] and Bejan and Manija[16] sought to challenge social norms and temper human pride. Shabnam, by contrast, belongs to a world where, while attitudes to love may have shifted, civil wars, failed governments and intolerance continue to wreak havoc on societies. Seen in this light, Shabnam reminds us that mysticism and its values still hold the potential to help societies move beyond conflict and restrictions and toward tolerance and peace. If Layla and Majnun was a commentary on personal pride and worldly attachments, Shabbam extends the criticism to social disorder, poorly-conceived and hastily implemented reforms and the violence of civil war – all forces that dispossess millions and continue to shape lives in our own time.

Edited by Fabrizio Foschini, Roxanna Shapour and Rachel Reid

*  Shirazuddin Siddiqi was a lecturer at Kabul University’s Faculty of Fine Arts until the start of the civil war in 1992. He then worked for the BBC’s Afghan Education Project (BBC AEP), eventually as director, producing a range of educational and development programming for Afghan audiences, including the radio soap opera, ‘New Home, New Life’. In 2012, he led the localisation of BBC AEP, which is now operating as the Afghan Education Production Organisation (AEPO). He was also the BBC Media Action Country Director for Afghanistan, 2003-17

The author wishes to thank Ferdous, Arian and Wida Siddiqi for reading the book and/or the review to share their thoughts, which inspired him to consider new issues that he had not initially included. Likewise, thanks are due to Ubaidullah Mehak, Jolyon Leslie and Zia Dastur for being the sounding board on the wider cultural scene in and around Afghanistan. Special thanks are due to Baqer Moin for sharing information on writers in Iran, to Ismael Saadat for finding Dr Habib’s book in Kabul and making it available in time for this review, to David Morton for revising and editing this book review, and to Nazes Afroz for treating the author with copies of the books right after their publication.

 

References

References
↑1 The quotation opening this report is from the novel; Majnun cites Alexander Pope to explain how children in Kabul could be outside playing during fighting, without fear because they were innocent, whereas adults, fearing to die, were hiding in their homes. The quotation is from Pope’s ‘Essay on Criticism’, 1711, translated by Nazes Afroz from Mujtaba Ali’s Bengali translation of Pope’s (more famous) original wording: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!”
↑2 Syed Mujtaba Ali, Shabnam, translated by Nazes Afroz, New Delhi, Speaking Tiger, 2024. The title of this book review was inspired by a poem by the 17th century Indian Sufi poet, Mirza Abdul Qader Bedil (also known as Bedil Dehlawi), who is considered one of the greatest Indo-Persian poets: 

From this rose-garden, we have reached the wondrous state of the dewdrop

A door to the abode of the sun must be opened
↑3 At the time of Mujtaba Ali’s birth in 1904, Karimganj was a subdivision of Sylhet district, which then formed part of the Assam Province of British India. Following the Partition of 1947 and the Sylhet referendum, most of Sylhet joined East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), but Karimganj remained in India. Today, it is a district in the state of Assam, while Sylhet lies within Bangladesh.
↑4 Nazes Afroz mentions that Mujtaba Ali spoke 12 languages in his 2015 English translation of In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan, published by Speaking Tiger Publishing. The Bengali newspaper, The Daily Star, lists 15.
↑5 The flower, shiuli (Nyctanthes arbor-tristis), seems to enjoy a similar position in Indian literature and mythology, as shabnam does in Persian literature.
↑6 Scholars have counted dozens of full versions in Persian and Turkish, with many more in Urdu, Azeri and other languages, alongside countless oral and lyrical adaptations. It is reasonable to assume that Mujtaba Ali’s readers would have been familiar with both the literary and the mystical resonances of the story and recognised Shabnam as a retelling of this classic tale in a modern and different context.
↑7 Nezami GanjavI, Diwan-e Kamel (The Complete Collection of Poems); Khamsa: Layla and Majnun, p 386.
↑8 Mawlana Nuruddin Abdur Rahman Jami, Mathnawi Haft Awrang, Awrang-e Shashom: Layla and Majnun, page 773.
↑9 Mawlana Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi/Rumi, Kuliat-e Shams Tabrizi, Ghazal number 1005.
↑10 Sa’eb Tabrizi, Diwan-e Ash’ar, Ghazal number 1994.
↑11 Sa’eb Tabrizi, Diwan-e Ash’ar, Ghazal number 1445.
↑12 Kalim Kashanai, Diwan-e Ash’ar, Ghazal number 55.
↑13 Kalim Kashanai, Diwan-e Ash’ar, Ghazal number 63.
↑14 Dr Asadullah Habib, Dar Sawahil-e Ganga (On the banks of the Ganges), Zaryab Publishers, Kabul, 2018, ISBN: 9789936615403.
↑15 Shirin and Farhad is a famous Persian romance as told by Nizami Ganjavi in Khosrow and Shirin. Farhad, a sculptor, falls in love with Princess Shirin. King Khosrow, Shirin’s suitor and Farhad’s rival, sets him the impossible task of carving a tunnel through a mountain to win her hand. When Khosrow later deceives him with false news of Shirin’s death, the grief-stricken Farhad takes his own life.
↑16 Bejan and Manija is another classic Persian love story drawn from Ferdowsi’s Shahnamah. Bejan, a Persian prince, falls in love with Manija, the daughter of the Turanian king, Afrasiyab. Their forbidden love leads to Bejan’s imprisonment in a deep pit, from which he is eventually rescued by Rustam, the hero of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (Book of Kings).

Reviewing a Unique Mystical Novel Set in 1920s Afghanistan: Shabnam, a pathway to the sun 
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What Afghans May Read: Banned books under the Islamic Emirate

December 30, 2025

Fabrizio Foschini

Since its re-establishment in 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has implemented a number of policies with far-reaching consequences for the country’s cultural life. They include a ban on all musical performances (AAN), severe limitations on poetry (Hasht-e Subh) and, most notably, the exclusion of girls from education beyond the sixth grade (BBC). Thousands of educated Afghans, including writers, artists and musicians, have left the country fearing reprisals or having found it impossible to continue working and living there.

In 2025, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan intensified its efforts to circumscribe the information available to Afghan citizens, following its October 2024 order to libraries and bookstores to remove books that were now prohibited. In July 2025, a special committee was set up to scrutinise university curricula. It subsequently abolished whole courses and removed hundreds of textbooks deemed contrary to Emirate beliefs and policies. The Afghan book market had already been at a standstill, for various reasons, since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. In this report, AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini examines the known lists of banned books to understand which titles they contain and why the IEA may have decided to prohibit them.

In this context, the banning of books may appear a lesser step. However, as is often the case, censorship of this type is an important tool for governments seeking to exert greater control over their citizens. The prohibition of specific items serves a dual purpose: restricting access makes it more difficult, expensive and risky for people to obtain banned items, while at the same time making it easier for the authorities to punish violators by transforming transgressions from the abstract into concrete, enforceable violations. Moreover, as is often the case with political movements that ground their authority in moral and religious assertions, such actions reinforce their claims to superiority over the masses and the consequent need to guide them. They may also endow supporters with a sense of purpose by unleashing a ‘witch hunt’ against those perceived to be violating the rules. History abounds with such examples. It was, after all, only in the latter part of the 20th century (1966) that the Catholic Church ceased to uphold what was possibly the largest and longest-lasting of such lists, its Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books).

Against this backdrop, few were surprised when it emerged that the Emirate had issued a list of banned books to libraries and bookstores in October 2024 (Amu TV). While it is unclear how high a priority the implementation of the censorship rules represents for the IEA, reports indicate that pressure has been exerted on booksellers to comply with the directives. Even before the circulation of the list of more than 400 titles, a significant number of books had already been confiscated – some 50,000 in Kabul alone during the first week of January 2024 – and inspections had been carried out in bookshops and libraries across Afghanistan (Radio Azadi, Kabul Now).

October 2024, however, would not be the last time a list of banned books was circulated. In fact, another major list of banned books was announced in mid-September 2025. This time, it included university textbooks and was followed by the cancellation of a number of academic courses, and then by additional blacklists related to the curricula of particular universities in mid-November 2025.

The rationale for the control of culture

Since the mass diffusion of printed books, censorship of publications has constituted a primary field of action for autocratic governments. Where political power has been coupled with religious authority, this has often made it easier to prohibit specific texts by labelling them as blasphemous or claiming they would corrupt people’s minds. Since the movement’s inception, part of the Taliban’s ideological baggage has revolved around the rejection of many secular notions of education and culture, often labelled as ‘modern’ or ‘Western’. Although this aspect was initially less prominent than in other Islamist movements – such as Boko Haram in West Africa – it became increasingly relevant for the Taliban during the years leading to their second ascent to power as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

This shift is closely linked to the transformations in Afghan society and culture during the two decades of foreign intervention (2001-2021). During the First Emirate (1996-2001), there was relatively little to ban. The Taliban assumed power from an already conservative Islamic government formed by mujahedin parties, which, alongside fighting each other and plunging the country into civil war, had already implemented restrictions on education and culture in the wake of their victory over the ‘infidel’ communist government in 1992. In a country that had experienced limited modernisation – mainly in the cities – and had been laid to waste by invasion and internecine fighting, there was relatively little written material for the Taliban censors to ban.

They did, nevertheless, act against a number of perceived threats. For example, footage of the public destruction of televisions, VHS tapes and music cassettes went viral in the outside world, contributing to shaping the image of the Taliban abroad during this period.

If the prohibition of books and printed material did not feature prominently in news reporting during the first Emirate, this was due both to the powerful visual impact of these other forms of cultural censorship and to the limited availability of books, especially as new publications and translations of foreign authors were scarce, given the previous decade and a half of war and restrictions on the free publishing and circulation of books imposed by previous regimes, first under the PDPA and later under the mujahedin.

By contrast, Afghanistan in 2021 offered a far wider range of potential targets for censorship. Over the previous two decades, book publishing had blossomed in Afghanistan, with the emergence of numerous Afghan authors across fields ranging from political science to fiction and poetry. Additionally, a large number of foreign works had become available in translation in both national languages, Dari and Pashto, while previously unavailable books from Iran and Pakistan had been widely distributed. Meanwhile, partially as a reaction to the unprecedented development of higher education in the country, the Taliban discourse had come to include, as a major component of their ideology, the rejection of what they saw as the incipient ‘Westernisation’ of Afghan society, exposed as it had been to modern curricula[1] and the circulation of foreign ideas and texts. Such distrust lies behind much of the intent to ban certain books. In this report, we examine which books and topics the IEA has objected to and how it has justified outlawing them, first by looking at the list of now-banned university textbooks and amended curricula, before turning to the more general ban affecting libraries and the wider book market.

Reshaping university teaching

Changing university curricula has often been the prerogative of governments that come to power after a period of turmoil, when disruption has affected a country’s higher education system. This was the case for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which was established after two decades of high-intensity conflict, territorial fragmentation and lack of government capacity had all but destroyed Afghanistan’s university system. However, such reform is rarely easy or smooth.

The author recalls, for example, the lengthy process that led to the creation of new curricula for the faculties of law and sharia at Kabul University in 2004-05, during which Ashraf Ghani was serving as chancellor. Extensive research and consultations across the Muslim world – and at times heated debate – accompanied the quest for the textbooks that would forge a new generation of Afghan jurists. The subsequent failure of the Republic’s judicial system and the comparative success of the Taliban courts can hardly be attributed to faulty curricula, however. Rather, they were the inevitable outcomes of the corruption and abuse of power by influential people during the Republic.

By contrast, the IEA’s efforts to reshape university curricula have been sudden, swift and opaque. At a 13 July 2025 meeting of the Ministries of Religious Affairs, Information and Culture, Education, and Higher Education, it was announced that a committee had been formed, composed of their respective representatives, who were tasked with reviewing books and referring “suspicious contents to clerics for further scrutiny” (The Independent). At the origin of this initiative lies, arguably, an order by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada urging the removal of books deemed liable to mislead and corrupt society.

The outcome of the newly formed committee’s activities did not take long to materialise. In mid-September 2025, a list containing 679 banned textbooks – described as “conflicting with Sharia and the IEA policies” – was issued to all universities in Afghanistan (BBC). At the same time, the committee also issued lists of university subjects that were now banned (18 courses), or that should be handled with caution and taught only within certain parameters (201 courses). The committee has remained active, however, releasing additional lists of textbooks to be excluded from teaching at various Afghan universities, including one listing 96 titles at Kabul University in mid-November 2025 (Hasht-e Subh).

The eighteen university subjects banned by the committee in mid-September were:

  • Fundamental Laws of Afghanistan;
  • Islamic political movements;
  • Good governance;
  • Electoral systems;
  • Afghanistan’s political system;
  • Political sociology of Afghanistan;
  • Gender and development;
  • Human Rights and democracy;
  • Analysis of the Constitution of Afghanistan;
  • Globalisation and development;
  • History of religions;
  • Sociology of women;
  • Moral philosophy;
  • Sexual harassment;
  • Employment diversity in relation to gender;
  • Small group leadership;
  • Gender relations;
  • Role of women in mass communications.

Six of these subjects relate directly to women or gender studies. The IEA may assume that, given women’s exclusion from universities, there are no prospective students for such courses, or that they are neither relevant nor appropriate for male students. Other subjects may have been considered redundant, such as studying a political system or constitution that no longer exist. Finally, subjects such as the History of Religions, Human Rights and Democracy, and Moral Philosophy might have been considered too controversial and potentially dangerous to be taught at all.

Additionally, more than two hundred other subjects, while still permitted, are subject to limitations and further scrutiny. Among them, one can find a much wider range of topics, from the somewhat expected, such as the History of Western Political Thought and Child Psychology, to the seemingly non-controversial, such as Consumer Protection Rights and the Solar System. Peace and Conflict Resolution is also included in this list.

The list of banned textbooks features a high proportion of titles by Iranian authors or published in Iran (310) and by women (140). Most of the banned books pertain to the curricula of the faculties of Law and Political Sciences, Administration and Public Policy, Sociology, Communication Sciences and Journalism, Educational and Professional Sciences and Psychology. The latter has been particularly affected, with its curriculum severely curtailed due to the elimination of a large number of subjects. Other faculties that have seen the elimination of a number of relevant textbooks include Sharia, Languages and Literature, History, Geography, and Economics. The Arts have also seen some titles banned, especially those on the history and critique of theatre and cinema – subjects that hold little appeal for IEA ideologues.

The sciences fare only slightly better, with a high proportion of excluded texts by Iranian authors, particularly in the faculties of Engineering and Physics. In the scientific fields, banned titles tend either to have been written by women or Iranians, or deal with issues the Taliban view as controversial, either because they are ideologically or politically sensitive, such as evolution by natural selection in Biology, or mining laws and international labour rights in Geology.

However, when it comes to sensitive topics, even if addressed by male Afghan authors, the same pattern applies in all faculties. Such topics include those concerned with fundamental rights, electoral systems, penal jurisprudence, Islamic philosophy – and even the history of Sufism. This means that writing about evolution is objectionable, even if by a Pashtun man. At the same time, the work of authors from Iran is rejected even when the subject is relatively innocuous, such as Techniques of Gilding. It seems it is unacceptable to read a book, even on a topic such as topographic drawing, if it has been written by a woman, whether Afghan or foreign. This cannot be due to concerns that the feminine gaze could alter the proper perception of landscape. IEA officials have acknowledged that there is a general ban in Afghan universities on teaching any book written by a woman (BBC). A similarly categorical justification has been offered for the ban on books by Iranian authors, which was motivated, in the words of a member of the committee to the BBC, by the need “to prevent the infiltration of Iranian content in the Afghan curriculum.” This, however, ignores the fact that even some Afghan authors writing in Dari are better able to publish in Iran, and that Persian has long served as the medium through which global knowledge and literature reach the Afghan public.

Besides the mostly Afghan and Iranian women and men, the translations of Western books, some by outstanding scholars writing well before the Taliban, are also banned. One such example is History of Afghanistan’s Political Relations by the doyen of Afghan Studies, the late Ludwig Adamec[2] (see AAN’s obituary). The works of many other foreign scholars of Afghanistan, as well as those of Afghan authors, had already been targeted in a previous proscription list issued by the IEA in October 2024 and aimed at the general book market and libraries, which is the subject of the next section of this report.

A somewhat random Index Librorum Prohibitorum

One could say that the state of the book market after the fall of the Republic was too bleak to justify the state seeking to exert intellectual control over what gets published and read. The Afghan book market had already largely gone cold after the Taliban’s ascent to power, owing to the flight of many intellectuals and educated youth and to the economic crisis, which rendered the purchase of books a relative luxury (Al Jazeera). Many potential readers still in Afghanistan have grown reluctant to spend money on books, given the reduced value of education and cultural capital in the job market, or the lack of access to education altogether. Many publishing houses have shut down and the country’s declining literary output has been only partially compensated for by various new publications tolerated or even promoted by the IEA (AAN). Despite this, in October 2024, Emirate officials informed libraries and booksellers that 433 books (though a couple of titles are repeated) were now subject to bans or restricted circulation.

The titles included both non-fiction and fiction by Afghan and international authors. Overall, the list is neither comprehensive nor fully representative of what is available to Afghan readers on bookshop shelves, in terms of world literature. It is, however, sufficiently varied to prompt one to describe it as somewhat random and therefore warrants a closer look to make sense of the reasons behind the selection of titles.

Roughly three-quarters of the books on the list are by Afghan authors, the rest by foreigners, including a substantial number of Iranians and Western writers, as well as some from Pakistan and a small number from other countries. Most of the books are simply banned, while ten titles on the list can be consulted, with authorisation, for research purposes only. Some of the latter are well-known works such as Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Freedom; acclaimed Albanian writer Ismail Kadare’s novel The Twilight of the Eastern Gods; and essays on postmodernity by David Lyon and Francis Fukuyama.

Most of the banned titles are about Afghanistan’s recent history and are written by both Afghan and foreign authors. Several prominent international scholars of United States foreign policy and of Afghanistan appear on the list, including Steve Coll, Bruce Riedel, Peter Marsden, Ahmad Rashid, Antonio Giustozzi, Christine Fair, Anand Gopal and Bette Dam. Notably, some of these authors explored a wide range of perspectives on the Afghan conflict, including Taliban viewpoints, during the insurgency and well before the Taliban had made their spectacular comeback.

The choice to ban these authors reflects one of the IEA’s clear concerns: rewriting Afghanistan’s recent history according to its own narratives. While effacing the large body of publications produced over two decades by Afghan and foreign authors might prove too monumental a task even for the IEA’s zealous censors, removing texts that extensively explore aspects of the Taliban’s insurgent modus operandi, leadership structures and regional links is more feasible. Notably, those titles that explore highly controversial issues, such as the use of suicide bombers against both military and civilian targets during the conflict or the movement’s relationship with Pakistan, have been earmarked for prohibition.

The issue of suicide bombers appears to be particularly sensitive for the IEA. A number of the relatively few titles devoted to the phenomenon appear on the banned list, including those by Afghan as well as foreign authors. So much so that even a dystopian black-comedy novel – The Suicide Shop by Jean Teulé – is included even though it does not deal with religiously or politically motivated suicide bombers, possibly because of the connection with suicide itself, which is clear from the title (retained in Dari), rather than because of its broader mockingly nihilist undertones.[3]

Books on the Islamic State and Afghan-Pakistani relations are also forbidden, including those by former Pakistani officials and titles dealing with issues such as the Durand Line. More generally, some books on the countries of the region, whether or not they specifically focus on their role in the Afghan conflict, are also banned.

Also featured are several books by prominent Republic-era figures and members of the intelligentsia. Of particular concern seem to have been the various biographies or memoirs devoted to slain anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massud, both the more serious and informative ones by historians and the hagiographic pamphlets produced by admirers across the globe. Works by, or related to, other notable military and political adversaries of the Taliban, such as Burhanuddin Rabbani, Qasim Fahim, Rashid Dostum, Abdul Ali Mazari, Muhammad Mohaqiq and Karim Khalili, all prominent members of the United Front (commonly known as Northern Alliance) and most also of the later Republican establishment, are also banned.

The same fate has befallen books about former communist president Najibullah or his policies, such as his national reconciliation programme. This seems a logical attitude towards a political figure whom the Taliban killed – and whose body they desecrated – when they first took Kabul in 1996. Other books by Najibullah’s biographer, the investigative journalist-turned-historian, Razaq Mamun, are also banned, as are works by members of the previous communist governments, such as Sulayman Layeq (see AAN’s obituary).

Another category comprises books on religion, whether on Islam or, more broadly, on religious or existential themes. Books on Shia theology – especially those on the Ahl al-Bait (the family of the Prophet) are targeted, not least because many of them come from Iran. For example, many titles by Iranian religious thinker Abdul Karim Soroush are banned as being against national interests and, at times, even against belief. Research on Afghan Shia communities is sometimes disqualified under the label of “disputed issues,” such as in the case of the volumes entitled A Profile of the Ashura Incident, by a research centre, and Hazaras by Hassan Poladi.

Books by Sunni theologians, however, have not been spared either. Some works on Sufism, including ancient and well-known Sufi treatises such as the Kashf al-Asrar [The Unveiling of Secrets], an 11th century spiritual Quranic exegesis by Herat’s most revered Sufi saint, Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, are also banned.

The Emirate appears to be taking a cautious attitude towards any debate over issues of theology or Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). In some cases, there is an ‘even-handed banning’, such as books that defend and support both sides of a dispute, such as in the case of Wahhabism. The IEA officially adheres to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence and rejects Wahabi doctrines, which are derived from the Hanbali school. The banning of its principal text, by Muhammad ibn al-Wahab, is, therefore, no surprise. However, the list also bans a refutation of Wahabism by two muftis, motivated by “research problems.”

Several other titles are banned on grounds that they proselytise Christianity. These also form a motley list, ranging from the 15th century devotional manual, The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, to the 1926 collection of aphorisms, Sand and Foam, by Lebanese-American writer, Khalil Gibran Khalil, who is also accused of blasphemy for his The Madman, the Forerunner and the Wanderer (1918). Other books by Christian thinkers or closely connected to Christian theology, such as the 5th century The City of God by Saint Augustine, Dante’s 14th century poem The Divine Comedy,and the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith (1830), are also on the list.

Then, predictably, there are books dealing with philosophical, socio-economic, and political systems opposed by the IEA, such as books by or about Karl Marx and titles about the Cuban Revolution.

As expected, a relatively large number of titles revolve around the condition of women in Afghanistan or feminism more broadly: from Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) by Simone de Beauvoir (published in 1949) to Kabul Beauty Schoolby hairdresser Deborah Rodriguez (2007), and Rachel Hollis’ self-help book Girl, Wash Your Face (2018). Titles by Afghan or Iranian female authors, from Women’s Political Participation by Fatima Jaffari to the Wives of the Prophet and Women with the Prophet by Marzieh Mohammadzadeh, are also banned, along with I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai. Again, no big surprise.

Alongside works by prominent Afghan novelists, the list includes a number of translations of Western fiction. Inexplicable, at least to the writer, is the seemingly random selection of some Western novels, especially as they hardly represent the full range of translated titles in Dari, if not Pashto, available to the Afghan public. The inclusion of Heinrich Boll’s The Clown (1963), a critique of Germany’s post-World War II society, its conformism, loss of values and the Protestant vs Catholic split, is one such. Even more puzzling is the appearance on the list of Renee Carlino’s novel, Swear on this Life (2016), which centres on “two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.” Of all plots of potential concern to the IEA, these are hardly the first that one would single out – unless maybe the IEA censors are way subtler than assumed.

Against national interests

The list provides a range of reasons for banning titles. In most cases, the books are deemed to be “against national interests.” This designation may stand alone or be coupled with other alleged transgressions, such as being contrary to “beliefs,” “culture,” “policies,” “principles” or “values.” More rarely, two or more of these terms also appear in combination, without “national interests” being at stake.

Broadly speaking, the charge of being against national interests is applied to all books about Afghanistan’s recent history, political figures opposed to the Taliban, the Hazaras or Shia communities in general, neighbouring countries and women’s rights. However, many texts dealing with world history or the history of world religions also fall under this category, such as Hendrik Willem van Loon’s The Story of Mankind, a 1921 book originally intended to explain global history to children.

Justifications can be quite blunt: Islamic State: Digital Caliphate (2015) by Palestinian-British author Abdul Bari Atwan is dismissed as “mind-numbing.” Occasionally, less generic accusations are formulated against specific titles. For example, some essays by pro-Republic Afghan scholars, together with memoirs by (retired) Pakistani generals, are labelled “negative propaganda,” while An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion by Michael C Rea and Michael J Murray (2008) is seen as going against Islamic principles and mid-17th century Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is considered to be against religion tout court.

Several books on Nawruz, the vernal equinox celebrated as the new year in many parts of Afghanistan and the wider region, are also banned. The text by an Afghan youth cultural association, Nawruz, a Celebration of Transformation and Insight, is denounced as “contrary to culture,” rather than being deemed against Islamic principles, as per the longstanding position of the Taliban and some conservative Afghan clerics. This designation substantiates the impression that, for the IEA, Afghan culture must totally overlap and coincide with a narrowly defined set of orthodox Islamic practices, leaving little room for anything else, created or perpetuated by the Afghan people over the centuries, or even, as in this case, millennia, to be considered culturally legitimate – or even allowed to exist. On a lighter note, “contrary to culture” is also the reason given for discarding The Rules of Love, a self-help manual for “happier, more fulfilling relationships” by Richard Templar (aka Richard Craze).

A story that is still unravelling

The published lists are by no means a definitive or exhaustive tool for deciding which books are allowed; booksellers have complained that individual IEA officials assess the permissibility of books according to their own judgement, both in shops and at customs checkpoints. According to these accounts, officials may decide on the spot to confiscate volumes that are not included on the list, based on their own understanding of the content or on the presence of images depicting living beings (The Independent).

Publishers have reported being instructed to contact the authorities and obtain permission from the Directorate of Information and Culture before printing new volumes (VoA) and have given accounts of the difficulties they have encountered in getting such approval.

Proscribing printed texts is not the only means through which the IEA has sought to circumscribe and control people’s access to information and knowledge. Since early October 2025, following a 48-hour nationwide internet shutdown, a number of filters have been applied to social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and X (BBC). Moreover, a set of rules for journalists and television and radio hosts had already been introduced (RSF); see also the 2024 Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which gives the ministry’s enforcers the power to ensure the media does not publish reports that “contradict Islamic law and religion,” “deride or humiliate Muslims,” or depict animate objects (article 17) (see AAN’s translation and commentary on the law).

During the past decade, some authors have argued that the recruitment of a new generation of Taliban, some of whom had received higher education and were exposed to the Republic’s education system, had increased the Taliban’s cultural sophistication (New Lines Magazine). Similar changes are apparent across Afghan society more broadly and the 2021 takeover was widely expected to enhance this phenomenon, as individuals from diverse backgrounds joined the ranks of the Taliban. Instead, taking control of the levers of power appears to have brought the more conservative elements of the leadership to the fore, revealing the comparatively limited influence of the younger members.

If the first list of banned books can be understood as an attempt to remove titles perceived as blasphemous, offensive or aberrant, or to erase rival narratives of Afghanistan’s recent history, the lists targeting university textbooks point to a more long-term and far-reaching objective. These later efforts seem to indicate that the IEA views book banning as part of the fight against cultural Westernisation, driven by the belief that modern education is part of an external political agenda aimed at promoting female emancipation and critical thinking as tools to weaken the fabric of the Afghan nation and its connection to Islam.

This viewpoint is outlined in a rare treatise on the juridical and political foundations of the IEA authored by one of its highest-ranking figures, The Islamic Emirate and its System of Governance, by Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the IEA’s Chief Justice, which was published in 2022 (read AAN’s review). While modern sciences and knowledge are discussed at length in three chapters of the book and acknowledged as necessary, their importance is downplayed. They are presented as subordinate to religious learning and as exposing Muslims to the risk of moral corruption. Studying them is permissible only to the extent necessary and in accordance with religious studies (Zan Times).

Even more than the theoretical principles expounded by Haqqani, recent IEA actions lend credence to the blunt words of one Afghan commentator: “The Taliban are staunch and uncompromising in their beliefs because they have always received a single-source education and they believe that diversity in the sources of knowledge leads to deviation and disbelief” (Hasht-e Subh).

After four years in power, the Taliban leadership has made clear that their vision of society and the world diverges from that of a significant segment of Afghanistan’s population – namely, those Afghans who benefited from higher education and exposure to global knowledge and culture prior to the takeover. They are, therefore, resolved to gradually reshape future Afghan generations by making sure that the youth who will be able to attend university, and indeed the wider reading public, are exposed only to those notions that align with the Taliban’s own beliefs. Whether these notions alone will provide future generations of Afghans with a sufficient foundation of knowledge to meet the challenges of rebuilding their war-ravaged country, only time will tell.

Edited by Jelena Bjelica and Roxanna Shapour

References

References
↑1 The term ‘modern education’ has been used in Afghanistan to differentiate the state schooling system or that offered by secular private institutions from the religious-centred madrasa education. For recent developments in madrasa education see Sharif Akram, Living a Mullah’s Life: The evolution of Islamic knowledge among village clerics, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 20 July 2025.
↑2 Originally published in English as: Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs to the Mid-Twentieth Century: Relations with the USSR, Germany, and Britain (1974).
↑3 Indeed, some authors whose works have been proscribed argued that the IEA censors did not even bother to read the full books, but rather banned those whose titles raised their suspicions (Radio Azadi).

 

What Afghans May Read: Banned books under the Islamic Emirate
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Tajikistan-Taliban border clashes: What’s behind them, why it affects China

December 26, 2025
By Yashraj Sharma
Al Jazeera
Published On 26 Dec 2025
Attacks by unknown assailants entering Tajik territory appear to target Chinese businesses and workers.

Tensions are flaring along the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border in Central Asia with the Tajik government reporting multiple armed incursions this month, straining its fragile relationship with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders.

More than a dozen people have been killed in attacks by men whom Tajik authorities call “terrorists” and the resulting clashes with Tajik forces, officials in Dushanbe and Beijing said. Victims include Chinese nationals working in remote areas of the mountainous former Soviet republic.

In the latest fighting this week, at least five people were killed in Tajikistan‘s Shamsiddin Shokhin district, including “three terrorists”, officials said.

Tajikistan has long opposed the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a country it shares a largely unsecured 1,340km (830-mile) border with.

Despite cautious diplomatic engagement between the two countries to adjust to new regional realities, analysts said, the frequency of the recent border clashes risks eroding the Taliban’s credibility and raises questions about its capacity to enforce order and security.

Here is all we know about the clashes along the Tajik-Afghan border and why they matter:

What’s happening on the Tajik-Afghan border?

The border runs along the Panj river through the remote, mountainous terrain of southern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan.

On Thursday, Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security said in a statement that “three members of a terrorist organisation” crossed into Tajik territory on Tuesday. The committee added that the men were located the following morning and exchanged fire with Tajik border guards. Five people, including the three intruders, were killed, it said.

Tajik officials did not name the armed men or specify which group they belonged to. The officials, however, said they seized three M-16 rifles, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, three foreign-made pistols with silencers, 10 hand grenades, a night-vision scope and explosives at the scene.

Dushanbe said this was the third attack originating from Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province in the past month that has resulted in the deaths of its personnel.

These attacks, Tajik officials said on Thursday, “prove that the Taliban government is demonstrating serious and repeated irresponsibility and non-commitment in fulfilling its international obligations and consistent promises to ensure security … and to combat members of terrorist organisations”.

The Tajik statement called on the Taliban to “apologise to the people of Tajikistan and take effective measures to ensure security along the shared border”.

Tajikistan has not suggested what the motive for the attacks may be, but the assaults have appeared to target Chinese companies and nationals working in the area.

How is China involved in all this?

Beijing is Tajikistan’s largest creditor and one of its most influential economic partners with a significant footprint in infrastructure, mining and other border-region projects.

China and Tajikistan also share a 477km (296-mile) border running through the high-altitude Pamir Mountains in eastern Tajikistan, adjacent to China’s Xinjiang region.

Two attacks were launched against Chinese companies and nationals in the last week of November. On November 26, a drone equipped with an explosive device attacked a compound belonging to Shohin SM, a private Chinese gold-mining company, in the remote Khatlon region on the Tajik-Afghan border, killing three Chinese citizens.

In a second attack on November 30, a group of men armed with guns opened fire on workers employed by the state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation, killing at least two people in Tajikistan’s Darvoz district.

Tajik officials said those attacks had originated from villages in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province but did not disclose any affiliation or motive behind the attacks.

Chinese nationals have also come under attack in Pakistan’s Balochistan province and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

China’s embassy in Dushanbe advised Chinese companies and personnel to evacuate the border area. Chinese officials demanded “that Tajikistan take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese enterprises and citizens in Tajikistan”.

Who is carrying out these attacks?

While the attackers have not been identified, analysts and observers believe the attacks carry the hallmarks of the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in Khorasan Province (ISKP), which, they said, aims to discredit Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders.

“The ISKP has attacked foreigners inside Afghanistan and carried out attacks on foreigners inside Afghanistan as a key pillar of their strategy,” said Ibraheem Bahiss, a Kabul-based analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank.

“The aim is to shatter the Taliban’s image as a security provider with whom the regional governments should engage,” Bahiss told Al Jazeera.

How has the Taliban reacted to these attacks?

Kabul expressed its “deep sorrow” over the killings of Chinese workers on November 28.

The Taliban blamed the violence on an unnamed armed group which, it said, is “striving to create chaos and instability in the region and to sow distrust among countries”, and it assured Tajikistan of its full cooperation.

After this week’s clashes, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister, said Kabul remains committed to the 2020 Doha Agreement, its deal with the United States for a phased foreign troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in exchange for Taliban commitments to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for attacking other countries.

Addressing a police cadet graduation ceremony at the National Police Academy in Kabul on Thursday, Haqqani said Afghanistan posed no threat to other countries and the door to dialogue remains open.

“We want to address problems, distrust or misunderstandings through dialogue. We have passed the test of confrontation. We may be weak in resources, but our faith and will are strong,” he said, adding that security had improved to the extent that Taliban officials now travel across the country without weapons.

The Taliban insists that no “terrorist groups” are operating from Afghanistan. However, in a recent report, the United Nations sanctions-monitoring committee cited the presence of multiple armed groups, including ISKP, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda, the Turkistan Islamic Party, Jamaat Ansarullah and Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan.

Jamaat Ansarullah is a Tajik group linked to al-Qaeda-aligned networks and active primarily in northern Afghanistan near the Tajik border.

How are relations between Tajikistan and the Taliban?

For decades, the relationship between Tajikistan and the Taliban has been defined by deep ideological hostility and ethnic mistrust with Dushanbe one of the group’s fiercest critics in Central Asia.

In the 1990s, Tajikistan aligned with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, led by Afghan military commander and former Defence Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud.

After the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Tajikistan stood as the lone holdout among its neighbours in refusing to officially recognise the new government.

However, pragmatic diplomatic engagement quietly began about 2023, driven by economic necessity and shared security fears over the presence of ISKP. Stepping up the restoration of relations, a high-level Tajik delegation visited Kabul in November, the first such visit since the Taliban’s return to power.

But the two governments continue to trade accusations that the other is harbouring “terrorists”, the major thorn remaining in their bilateral relationship, and that drug smuggling is occurring across their border.

The Tajik-Afghan border has long been a major trafficking route for Afghan heroin and methamphetamine into Central Asia and onwards to Russia and Europe, exploiting the area’s rugged terrain and weak policing.

“The rising frequency [of the clashes] is new and interesting and raises a point: whether we might be seeing a new threat emerging,” Bahiss said.

Badakshan province, from which Tajik authorities said the attacks on Chinese nationals originate, presents a complex security situation for the Taliban as it has struggled to stem the threat from armed opposition groups, Bahiss added.

This security issue has been further complicated by the Taliban’s crackdown on poppy cultivation in the province, he said. The Taliban has faced resistance to this policy from farmers in the north. This is largely because the terrain of Badakshan means poppies are the only viable cash crop.

How is the Taliban faring with other neighbours?

Since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, some of its neighbours have maintained a pragmatic transactional relationship while others have not.

Relations with Pakistan, previously its patron, have particularly deteriorated. Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistan Taliban. Tensions over this issue boiled over in November when Pakistan launched air strikes in Kabul, Khost and other provinces, prompting retaliatory Taliban attacks on border posts.

Dozens of people were killed before a ceasefire was brokered by Qatar and Turkiye. However, both sides have engaged in fighting since, blaming each other for breaking the fragile truce.

The Taliban denies Islamabad’s allegations and has blamed Pakistan for its “own security failures”.

Meanwhile, the Taliban is now invested in developing a new relationship with Pakistan’s archrival, India, with delegations visiting Indian cities for trade and security discussions. New Delhi was earlier part of the anti-Taliban alliance. However, that approach has changed with the deteriorating ties between Pakistan and the Taliban.

Tajikistan-Taliban border clashes: What’s behind them, why it affects China
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Law, Control, Fear – and some Defiance: Citizens and enforcers talk about the ‘promotion of virtue and prevention of vice’

December 23, 2025

Kate Clark • AAN Team

Afghanistan Analysts Network

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It has been more than a year since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan introduced a new vice and virtue law. This law lays out what behaviour and actions the Islamic Emirate deems obligatory or forbidden for Afghan men and women. It gives its enforcers wide-ranging powers to both police and punish ‘wrongdoers,’ who have no recourse to a court, nor right to appeal. Male enforcers are also among the very few men legally allowed to deal with unrelated women as part of their duties. This policing of women causes great distress and anxiety among Afghans. It plays on the fear of women and their families that they will be ‘dishonoured’ if unrelated men question them on the street or, far worse, take them into detention. Yet, fear is also mixed with defiance. The ramifications of the August 2024 law have been profound, as Kate Clark and the AAN team found when they heard from those experiencing it, both as citizens and enforcers.
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.

Changing Afghans’ dress and behaviour to comply with the Emirate’s vision of sharia has been an abiding mission of the Taliban since they first emerged as a movement, but it is now being enforced with far greater reach and capacity. Unlike their first period in power, the second Emirate is able to pursue this mission without the distraction of war. In full control of Afghanistan’s territory and backed by a functioning state apparatus inherited from the Islamic Republic, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is a powerful and well-resourced tool of the state for reshaping everyday life.

Drawing on interviews with women and men in Kabul and other provinces, as well as vice and virtue enforcers themselves, the report offers a window into how the Taliban’s morality law operates in practice. It examines how its enforcers seek to control behaviour and clothing on the streets and in workplaces, creating an atmosphere of fear that drives not only compliance but also defiance.

For many Afghan women, negotiating public space has become an arduous experience. Interviewees describe being admonished and threatened for what they wear, their movements, and for being outside without a close male relative, a mahram. Although we encountered men who fully support their female relatives wearing ‘normal’ clothes and going out unaccompanied, many families have resorted to policing wives, daughters and sisters to avoid them being harassed, publicly humiliated or detained. The overall effect has been a narrowing of women’s lives and heightened anxiety.

Enforcement, however, is uneven and the report documents regional variation as well as acts of defiance. Some interviewees challenge the Emirate’s interpretation of Islam itself, rejecting its fixation on outward appearance — such as the length of men’s beards or the visibility of women’s hair as missing the point of what is right and wrong and of what they, as Muslims, should be enjoined or forbidden to do. These tensions point to the limits of enforcing obedience through fear, even as fear remains a central tool of control.

The report also interviews enforcers to find out more about who they are, how they are recruited and trained and how they experience policing a population that often fears or resents them. All were from outside Kabul, but working in the capital and they found it an alien and alienating city. None felt comfortable interacting with unrelated women. Yet all the women we interviewed in Kabul had experienced intrusive interactions with enforcers in public places or women-only workplaces. The law gives male enforcers the power and opportunity to breach spaces generally considered — by culture and practice — to be exclusively female, as well as public spaces – streets, markets and shops – in which women could expect to be respected. It has left women vulnerable to abuse by men who act with all the authority of the state.

Earlier this year, we published A Year of Propagating Virtue and Preventing Vice, which examined the law’s impact in its first year. This report goes further and deeper, offering a granular picture of how the vice and virtue law is being enforced — and experienced — in Afghanistan.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour and Rachel Reid 

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.

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Law, Control, Fear – and some Defiance: Citizens and enforcers talk about the ‘promotion of virtue and prevention of vice’
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Arrested Development in Kabul: Housebuilding between legal hurdles and rising demand 

December 20, 2025

Nur Khan Himmat

Afghanistan Analysts Network

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Shortly after its return to power in August 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) imposed new curbs on building in the capital. This, together with follow-up regulations issued by the Kabul Municipality and the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, has entirely changed how the building sector operates in the capital and made it difficult for the average citizen to navigate the system. The restrictions caused an almost complete stop to construction, and that exacerbated an unemployment crisis caused by the withdrawal of foreign financial support to Afghanistan when the Taliban took power. Construction is important because, in major cities like Kabul, it has traditionally employed large numbers of skilled and unskilled labourers. AAN’s Nur Khan Himmat has reviewed the new construction regulations and interviewed workers, businessmen and those wanting to build a home to better understand the impact of the new regulations on jobs and the Kabul property market. 

I own a factory here in Kabul making toilet pipes. We used to produce three types of pipe, until the IEA’s new building requirements ruined my business. I waited for about a year after they announced the building permits, hoping things would improve and construction work would pick up again. While I waited, I gave pipes on credit to shopkeepers worth four million afghani [USD 60,600]. But they couldn’t repay me because they couldn’t sell any pipes; there was no construction in the city. My sales dropped significantly, eventually reaching zero. This is when I left and moved to Lahore because I thought I’d spend all of my money for nothing. I used to employ 40 people. Now I have only two employees. One is guarding my factory and the other is an engineer; I changed his duties to marketing officer. He’s now going to the market to see if we can recover those four million afghani from the shopkeepers.

Businessman Shah Mahmud was not the only interviewee to lose customers or entire businesses because of the post-2021 building regulations in Kabul. He was quick to close his business in Afghanistan and move to Pakistan to run “a much smaller enterprise” that, as he said, “is not very prosperous.” However, many others were slower to change. We heard from ten more interviewees, all men in Kabul: six working in house construction, either as skilled or unskilled day labourers or as business owners producing construction materials. The remaining four interviewees were: a property owner who had only customary ownership deeds to his house, a house owner who had secured a construction permit, a land developer, and a neighbourhood representative (wakil-e guzar). Some of the interviewees wished to remain anonymous.

Decades of unregulated housebuilding 

Land development and construction were Kabul’s most profitable economic sector for the best part of the two Republican decades (2001-21). Spurred on by the massive influx of foreign funds and seen as an investment by many prominent Afghans, house-building in the capital only showed signs of slowing when the number of internationals began to reduce after 2014 (with the end of NATO’s ISAF mission and a reduction in civilian aid) and in the last years of the Islamic Republic, when some members of the Afghan elite began to relocate out of the country.[1] At a lower level, namely that of less wealthy Afghans moving from the provinces to Kabul in search of security or employment, housebuilding continued up to the very fall of the Republic.

Most of the construction, however, did not comply with the law. By 2004, informal settlements accounted for 70 per cent of Kabul’s residential areas, according to the World Bank and this percentage only increased over the years. Despite all being called ‘informal settlements’, they are actually very varied, ranging from the palace-style mansions built by powerful land-grabbers in central neighbourhoods like Sherpur to little more than shacks giving shelter to newly-arrived families settling in peripheral or steep-sided areas of the city. While the informal settlements built by families constructing their own homes prevented a major crisis of homelessness in the capital, allowing the city’s housing to keep pace with the arrival of newcomers, including displaced persons and returnees, they also posed a future challenge to any government wanting to regulate the urban landscape and implement a master plan.[2]

The issue of what type of ownership document one has is a critical thread running through this report. Most property owners – 80 per cent, according to a former housing minister – only have an urfi qabala, customary deeds, which are not legally recognised, under both Islamic law and Afghanistan’s civil law.[3] Only a sharia qabala, a legal ownership document, is recognised by the courts. However, as this report will show, even those holding a sharia qabala often struggle to get permission from the authorities to build.

The birth of the construction permit

One of the first decisions of the Islamic Emirate after taking power in August 2021 was to stop unplanned and unapproved construction. Kabul Municipality banned house construction in Kabul on 27 September 2021: the aim, according to a Pajhwok report (Pajhwok), was to prevent illegal high-rise buildings. Several months later, on 13 May 2022, the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (MUDH) explained in a statement that “the houses and buildings constructed without proving ownership have created problems and have caused barriers and delays in urban development.” It went on: “Carrying out unauthorised house construction impacts the assets of our compatriots. Most of the time, it threatens the lives of compatriots and impedes the implementation of the government’s huge and beneficial plans.”

However, on 22 August 2022, the ban was lifted. Kabul Municipality said the change of heart was due to the need for urban expansion, job creation, economic activity, and the provision of facilities for those who wanted to construct high-rise buildings. The Kabul Municipality’s Spokesman, Niamatullah Barakzai, told Azadi Radio: “The people who possess land and want to build houses, they can apply for permission from the Kabul Municipality. First, the Land Department[4]  will check their ownership documents, whether they are legal or customary and after they have been confirmed, the municipality will issue permission [to build] within three days.” However, this opportunity to apply for a permit lasted only six months, most of them in winter, when harsh weather – snow, frost and below-zero temperatures – makes it impossible to build.

Then, eight months later, on 24 April 2023, the policy was again reversed. The Ministry of Urban Development and Housing Spokesman, Muhammad Kamal Afghan, said (Salam Watandar):

Construction work has been banned across Kabul because most tall buildings as well as residential and commercial buildings have been built in places in Kabul that contradict the master plan. These have caused problems. Therefore, construction has been banned for a short time.

He did not specify how long the “short time” would last. Then, on 11 May 2023, MUDH clarified in a statement that the ban applied only to construction without a permit:

All respected citizens are hereby informed to refrain from constructing houses arbitrarily in the cities. The unplanned and unsystematic construction of buildings and houses has created many problems in cities, hindered equitable development and resulted in time inefficiencies and the waste of the Emirate’s and citizens’ resources.

Kabul Municipality echoed this, with spokesman Barakzai saying on 22 September 2024: “House construction in Kabul is permitted and each inhabitant of Kabul can build a one to ten-storey building.” He further explained that the permission was conditional on there being proof of land or house ownership and on permission for house building from the municipality having been obtained (Salam Watandar).

The purpose of the new requirement was to create “a beautiful Kabul,” Barakzai said in the Kabul Municipality accountability session held in late July 2025: “Therefore, it is indispensable for every single owner of a house to have a legal document from the Land Department to prove that the house belongs to him.”[5] Barakzai also said that the IEA did not want houses to be built and then destroyed and it did not  “want to be criticised after the destruction of houses because of road construction or any other plan of the government.” (RTA)

From our observations, it seems that building permits are mainly issued to large investors constructing buildings of five to ten stories – exactly the type of building the initial September 2021 decree was designed to stop. Several buildings of this type currently under construction are visible, for example, in the Qala-e Fathullah area of district 10. Interviews with ordinary and poor Kabulis, on the other hand, suggest they are ignored in the Land Department and are unable to get permission to build homes. The building of ordinary homes stopped with the arrival of the Emirate and has barely restarted, unlike the high-rise buildings that are now under construction. The overall effect of contradictory statements and government bodies’ mixed attitudes, combined with the difficulties of navigating the required paperwork, has been to slow house construction. That has also hurt employment in Kabul, especially for the poorest – most construction workers are day labourers or labourers working for a company.

Labourers and businessmen speak about the downturn in construction

Day labourers who previously worked in construction told us they were now unable to find work. One man, with a family of nine, said they now depend on one of the daughters, who is employed as a teacher at a private school and earns 3,000 afghani [USD 40] per month, because he cannot find work. He used to go to a chowk (square) every day from 6:00 am to 11:00 am seeking work for the day. Under the Republic, he said he would find work as a day labourer, but not anymore. After seeking work every day for the last five months, he had become disillusioned and begun to look for other ways to earn some money:

I knew there was no work to be found [in Kabul]. I’m in debt for about 20,000 afghani [USD 300]. I tried to go to Iran. There were smugglers in Nimruz province who could have taken me to Iran and our villagers were willing to lend me money to pay them, but I couldn’t even afford to get myself to Nimruz. 

Other interviewees had also tried to get to Iran – some with more success. Another day labourer described how he had managed to get there, but only to stay for a few months:

When the IEA banned construction and I couldn’t find work in Kabul, I got a passport and a visa for Iran and went there. The work was good, but I wasn’t allowed to stay long. Iran also made the conditions for staying stricter for Afghans. I didn’t get a visa extension, so I had to come back.

Some interviewees had lived off their savings but soon spent them and then were living hand-to-mouth, as another day labourer described:

Before the arrival of the Emirate, I always had around 400-500,000 afghani [USD 6-7,000] in my bank account. But now I have no money at home. I haven’t paid the rent for four months – I struggle to find the money for it. I have spent eight years in this house. Luckily, the owner puts up with my poverty.

Another day labourer told AAN:

I can hardly find any work nowadays. I tried to get my son engaged and married. He was engaged and we held the nika ceremony. I thought work would pick up again, but it hasn’t. My son’s been waiting for the past three years to bring his wife home, but there just isn’t enough money to cover the wedding expenses. 

Traders involved in house construction, such as those that produce or sell lintels or iron rods, are also affected. Several iron-melting factory owners in Kabul told Salam Watandar in April 2025 that the new requirements for house construction had severely affected their businesses and caused a nationwide decline in iron production. The news website quoted a representative of Rahim Gardizi Group in Kabul, Masihullah, who said the new requirements had also led to job losses. Their business, which had previously employed 400 to 500 people, could now afford only 80 to 90. The article also quoted the head of Mesam Iron Factory, Shafiq Ahmad, who described how badly his business was affected as market demand plummeted. “We were producing 200 tonnes of iron daily,” he said, “but now we can’t produce even 50 tonnes.” His experience was echoed by the owner of another company that sells construction materials:

My business has been severely affected. I sold construction materials for house construction, including beams, gates, cement and other items. We were two partners. When the Emirate banned construction at the very beginning, my partner said he wanted to sell his share. He said he didn’t think the Emirate would allow people to build houses anytime soon. I bought his part of the business from him. He was fortunate; he went to Dubai and began working there, while I was stuck with the company.

The company owner said 70 people used to work for him, including drivers, day labourers, blacksmiths, painters of beams, and others. The collapse of the market in Kabul has meant a plummeting in the number of labourers he can employ:

My business has now all but stopped. I can hardly meet my own expenses, including my company’s rent and some money for my family’s daily needs. I’ve been waiting for four years for construction to fully restart and for my business to flourish, but it hasn’t. Only seven people are now working with me. 

Carpenters, who used to manufacture doors and cupboards for the new houses, have also been hit. One man who worked for a company with more than 400 employees, including as many as 80 carpenters, said that a few months after the new requirements, the company had gone out of business:

We were told to go home. They promised they’d call us back to work once house construction was allowed again. We kept calling the owner, but the company never resumed operations. I waited for six months. When I realised that it was the end, I rented a shop on the outskirts of Kabul. It’s now been more than two years since I opened my own shop. But believe me, I can only find enough work to pay the rent for my shop. My life used to be good! I was earning a good wage under the Republic. I have now spent all the money I earned over the last twenty years. Fortunately, one of my sons is abroad with his family. He sends some money from time to time and I live off that money. 

Nowadays, many families depend on daily wages, if work can be found, or, like the carpenter, remittances sent by relatives abroad. As reported in a previous AAN report on remittances from the Gulf, these are a lifeline for many households and for the country as a whole: the World Bank estimated total remittances in 2022 at 1-1.2 billion USD, double the amount sent home in 2019. As a means of comparison, in 2022, UN shipments of dollars used to pay for humanitarian aid amounted to 1.8 billion USD. (AAN). Since the collapse of the Republic, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have migrated to Western countries and many send money to their impoverished relatives in Afghanistan. Remittances from Iran and Pakistan, on the other hand, have been shrinking because of the high number of Afghans forced to return from those countries.

Impact of the new requirements on homeowners

AAN also heard from several homeowners and a wakil-e guzar (neighbourhood representative), all of whom said that for those with only customary documents (urfi qabala), the new regulations amount to an outright ban on building. It is impossible for them to get permission because the IEA says the land they want to build on is state land. They cannot build new homes nor build extensions to their existing houses. However, the interviewees also said that, even for holders of legal deeds (sharia qabala), getting a building permit was extremely difficult, as there is an additional hurdle: the deeds need to be verified by the Land Department. Trying to get that verification, they reported, is complicated and marred by bureaucratic delays and corruption.[6]

The IEA is strictly enforcing the requirement for a building permit, with government engineers and other employees patrolling the city’s various districts, making it impossible for citizens to build a house without one. When needed, the IEA enlists district police officers for this purpose. They check for construction work and ask owners to show them their written permission from the municipality. If they do not have a permit, the police order them to halt the work. If the owner does not stop, they return with officials from the municipality and machinery to pull down houses and destroy whatever work has been carried out. A wakil-e guzar told AAN that they had been told in a WhatsApp group to inform the head of the district whenever they noticed construction work in their area. “If any construction work is found ongoing,” he said the message stated, “and the representative of the street or wakil-e guzar has not informed the relevant officials, they will both be dealt with according to the law [ie held accountable].”

One of our interviewees, Gul Alam, who possesses only customary ownership documents, told us about the new room in his two-bedroom house that he had wanted to build to accommodate his newly-married son:

I was adding a room for my son, who was getting married last year. I’d started work when the municipal officials arrived. They asked me for my permit and then stopped me building the room. I waited for nine months, but there was still no progress. Finally, I rented out my house for 5,000 Afghani [USD 70] a month to someone else and I rented a house with four rooms [for myself] for 9,000 Afghani [USD 130].

Yet, proving land or house ownership and securing a permit from the ministry and municipality is a lengthy and tedious process, as a land developer explained:

I have a lot of experience in this, know the offices and officials very well, and know how to get permission. Still, it takes me more than three months to get a house construction permit. It must take poor people, who are unfamiliar with government offices and this kind of work, twice as long.

According to a house construction company, it does take that long – more than six months – for an ordinary person to get proof of ownership from the Land Department and Housing. That can also entail, said the developer, either getting a recommendation from someone with good connections or facing a demand for a bribe. Another interviewee, Ahmad Khan, who does have legal deeds for his land, said:

I had my sharia qabala in my hand. I wanted to build a house for myself in District 7. I went to the municipality to get permission. I was told to go and bring proof that the land where I want to build the house belongs to me. I struggled for two months, but couldn’t get the proof of ownership I needed to get a permit to build a house. Finally, I decided to continue paying rent for the house I live in, which costs 8,000 afghani [USD 120]. I gave up because I knew I would either have to pay a bribe, although nobody had asked for one, or have a trustworthy person recommend my case. I didn’t know anyone to give me a recommendation and I didn’t want to pay a bribe either. Therefore, I gave up trying to prove my ownership. 

Like Ahmad Khan, others who tried to use their legal documents to prove land ownership and obtain a building permit also reported failure, while others, like this man, said they did finally succeed, but only after paying a bribe:

I have legal documents and I tried to get permission to build my house from the Emirate. First, I tried to prove ownership of my land using my legal documents, but because of bureaucracy and the lengthy process, I couldn’t prove it and couldn’t get a building permit. I struggled for more than a year. I was exhausted and abandoned the application in the middle of it all. But then I found an Emirate official in the relevant department and asked him to help me. We agreed that I’d give him USD 2,000 and that he’d help me get a permit. I gave him the sum in advance and, finally, I built my house.

According to another homeowner, although there is less demand for bribes under the current government than under the Republic, when such requests are made, the amounts are enormous. “People can’t just adopt the shortcut of giving a bribe and getting a go-ahead for their construction work. It would cripple the house owner financially.” Despite the IEA’s repeated claims of easing the permission process, all our interviewees said that, in practice, it remains complicated.

Maybe the most telling is a story of a homeowner who possesses a customary document and tried to obtain permission to rebuild his house. For this, he went to the relevant department but was told that customary document holders are not allowed to build houses at all. Ultimately, he decided to seek help from someone in the government. He said he got in touch with an Emirate official and made a deal with him, though the outcome was ultimately disastrous:

I gave a 2,000-model Corolla car to this Emirate official. He instructed me to proceed with the construction of the house. I began working on it, feeling confident that no one would stop me. For about two months, I worked on building my house. After that period, officials from the municipality, along with the police, arrived and brought a crane to demolish my home. I pleaded with them many times not to destroy it, but despite my pleas, they demolished my house and left. Additionally, my 2,000-model Corolla, which is worth around USD 5,000, was lost.

Trying to sell a house

The next problem for those holding deeds, whether legal or customary, is trying to sell the house. AAN heard from a property dealer in Kabul who said the new requirement was also affecting the housing market: “When attempting to sell someone’s home, buyers request proof of ownership from the Land Department, which most people don’t have.” Selling land with only customary documents, he said, is even more of a challenge: “The IEA has repeatedly sent us letters warning that we [property dealers] should not sell land, houses, shops or other assets belonging to people who only possess customary documents.”

On 1 August 2025, the IEA circulated a draft law on land deeds (AAN received a copy).[7] It states that the IEA will sell land to those claiming to own it by the possession of customary documents, subject to certain caveats, that they have not been found guilty of land-grabbing themselves, and with a limit on the maximum amount of land they and their relatives can re-purchase (see caveats in footnote 7). The law would also outlaw those identified by the Land-Grabbing Prevention and Restitution Commission as usurpers of land from buying land. It remains unknown when the law will be ratified and when land prices will be finalised.

The future of Kabul’s housing market

Kabul Municipality’s most recent move, in late July 2025, to allow and even promote building activities, demonstrates the government’s interest in attracting investment and raising funds through issuing building permits. But these policies have also restricted the ability of most residents to build or make improvements to their houses and have sharply reduced employment in one of Kabul’s most important labour markets.

After years of crisis, the property market in Afghanistan, especially in Kabul but also in other major cities, has seen increased demand and rising prices, which have only intensified since the start of mass forced returns of Afghans from Iran and Pakistan – more than four million since September 2023 (IOM). Most returnees seek to settle in cities, although not all are permitted to do so by the IEA. While many face economic hardship, some still have cash to invest – whether to pay rent in advance or to purchase flats and houses. This has intensified competition in the housing market, with many Kabul residents complaining about eviction pressures driven by rising rents.

Supply, however, has not kept pace with demand. Although high-profile construction projects have restarted and some partially constructed buildings are now being completed, including high-rises that had long been abandoned due to the ban or lack of funding, these are largely driven by large investors rather than ordinary residents. For the average Kabuli seeking to build or expand a home, getting a building permit for those with legal documents is difficult and complicated, and for those without recognised ownership documents, it is next to impossible.

The decline in property sales caused by the new regulations has not led to a fall in land or house prices. As AAN reported in December 2024, prices did fall after the collapse of the Republic, but only for about two years. Since then, demand has picked up, but supply has not, pushing property prices – and rents – to skyrocket. They are now almost back up to where they were during the Republic. Afghans with some capital to invest, such as households with family members abroad sending remittances, are trying hard to invest in property. But property, especially property that can be legally sold, has become increasingly difficult to find and this heightened demand, in turn, keeps driving up prices.

The IEA’s attempt to regulate Kabul’s long-out-of-control construction sector and to prioritise government and municipal planning in urban development has so far been only partly successful, for example, in building roads. These gains, however, have come at a very high cost for Kabul residents, both old and new. Policies which end up creating roadblocks in the lives of ordinary citizens risk opening the door to abuse and corruption, as law-abiding citizens are forced to seek loopholes and shortcuts to get around them. Addressing the crises in employment and housing in a fair and equitable way will require a major readjustment to the policies implemented so far.

Edited by Jelena Bjelica, Fabrizio Foschini and Kate Clark

References

References
↑1 For a backgrounder on Kabul’s political economy under the Islamic Republic, see Fabrizio Foschini, Kabul and the challenge of dwindling foreign aid, United States Institute of Peace, 2017.
↑2 For more on the impact of the lack of planning on water supply and sewerage, see Mohammad Assem Mayar, Afghanistan’s Urban Water Dilemma: Why are Afghan cities running out of water?, AAN, 17 September 2025.
↑3 The acting Minister of Urban Development and Housing, Hamdullah Numan, said on 28 June 2023 that “80 per cent of land in Afghanistan is owned by people who only have informal documents, which are not acceptable to the courts, based on current rules and regulations” (Pajhwok).
↑4 The Land Department, formerly part of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing during the Republic, was later brought into the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock by the IEA. Subsequently, the IEA announced the Land-Grabbing Prevention and Restitution Commission would be elevated to a permanent ministry in late 2024 and that all the Land Department’s tashkil (authorised staff) would merge with the new ministry. However, the ministry has yet to receive its tashkil, no minister has been appointed and no site has been designated to house it.
↑5 In the accountability sessions, held in the last years of the Republic and now under the Emirate, senior officials relay to journalists, radio listeners and television viewers the achievements of their ministry or other state body during the previous year. See Martine van Bijlert, How The Emirate Wants to be Perceived: A closer look at the Accountability Programme, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 9 July 2024 and Kate Clark and Roxanna Shapour, What Do the Taleban Spend Afghanistan’s Money On? Government expenditure under the Islamic Emirate, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 16 March 2023.
↑6 See Rohullah Sorush, Months, Years and Thousands of Afghanis Later… Stories of Afghans battling bureaucracy, AAN, 7 July 2025, for a flavour of what it is like to get a document from a government body. Although Sorush does not deal with land deeds, the difficulties faced by those trying to get passports, IDs, driving licences or marriage certificates are similarly Sisyphean.
↑7 Below are highlights from the draft law, drawing on AAN’s unofficial translation:In the first line of article 15 of the second chapter of the draft, it is stated that land which has been reclaimed by the Land-Grabbing Prevention and Restitution Commission shall not be sold to those who have been identified as land grabbers by the court.

Line 4 states: “The land resituated by the mentioned commission shall be sold to the current owners at a specified price [prices will be specified by the authorities after the ratification of this law by the supreme leader of the IEA].”

Line 5 states that if a person has more than four nomra of land [1,200 square metres], the excess will be repossessed by the IEA. This excess land will not be sold to the current owner or their blood relatives, or spouse or any underage offspring.

Line 6 states that if a person has more than four nomra of customary land, the excess will be taken from them and distributed to other entitled persons.

However, the law has not yet been ratified, so land prices continue to be determined by supply and demand and prices set by the owners.

Arrested Development in Kabul: Housebuilding between legal hurdles and rising demand 
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Afghanistan: Forced returns to Taliban rule must end as latest figures reveal millions unlawfully deported in 2025

December 16, 2025

Amnesty International

16 December 2025

All forced returns of refugees and asylum seekers to Afghanistan must immediately end, Amnesty International said, as the latest UN figures revealed that Iran and Pakistan alone have unlawfully expelled more than 2.6 million people to the country this year. About 60% of those returned are women and children. Thousands of others have been deported from Turkey and Tajikistan.    

The figures come as the Taliban intensify their attacks on human rights with devastating effect particularly on women and girls, and the country remains in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, which has been further exacerbated by the recent series of natural disasters. Afghanistan’s deepening humanitarian crisis increases the real risk of serious harm for returnees and underscores states’ binding non-refoulement obligations under customary international law, which prohibits the forcible return of anyone to a place where they face a real risk of grave human rights violations.

This year, European states have also ramped up efforts to forcibly return Afghans, with media reporting Germany, Austria, and the European Union in negotiations with the de facto Taliban authorities to facilitate forced returns.

“Despite the Taliban’s well-documented repression of human rights, many states, including Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan Germany and Austria, are clamouring to deport Afghans to a country where violations particularly against women, girls and dissenting voices are widespread and systematic. This is without even mentioning the dire and deepening humanitarian crises, with more than 22 million people – nearly half of the country’s population – in need of assistance,” said Smriti Singh, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for South Asia.

This rush to forcibly return people to Afghanistan ignores why they fled in the first place and the serious dangers they face if sent back

Smriti Singh, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for South Asia

“This rush to forcibly return people to Afghanistan ignores why they fled in the first place and the serious dangers they face if sent back. It shows a clear disregard for states’ international obligations and violates the binding principle of non-refoulement.”

Under the Taliban, women and girls are being systematically erased from public life. They are banned from education beyond the age of 12, their freedom of movement and expression are denied, and they are prohibited from working with the UN, NGOs, or in state affairs – except in exceptional cases such as airport security, primary education, and healthcare. Those who worked for the former government – specifically members of the Afghanistan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) – or those criticizing the Taliban’s draconian policies, including human rights defenders and journalists, also face continued severe reprisals.

Amnesty International conducted 11 remote interviews: seven with those who were forced to return to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan, and four with Afghan refugees and asylum seekers who were at risk of immediate deportation from Iran and Pakistan, between July and November 2025. One of the four interviewed, fearing arrest by the Taliban, managed to return to the country from which she had been deported.

Attacks against former government employees

Following recent cross border clashes with the Taliban, Pakistan has intensified its efforts to deport Afghan refugees. Meanwhile, in Iran, at least 2.6 million Afghans were registered in 2022 for temporary protection and access basic services, including public education, work authorization and state healthcare, via a “headcount” document. However, on 12 March 2025 Iran’s Centre for Foreign Nationals and Immigration Affairs, which falls under the Ministry of Interior, announced that “headcount” documents for Afghans would automatically expire from the start of the year 1404 on Iran’s calendar (corresponding to 21 March 2025), and that access to socioeconomic services would be terminated.

The Iranian authorities’ mass expulsions scaled up in the aftermath of the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran in June 2025, and between July and October 2025, over 900,000 Afghans were unlawfully expelled from Iran, out of 1.6 million between January and October 2025.

Shukufa* worked with the former Afghan government and at an international organization prior to the Taliban takeover in August 2021. She fled to Iran in early 2022, but was forcibly returned a few months later after her visa expired. Immediately after returning, she fled to Pakistan where she managed to register for asylum with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). But in June 2025, the police raided her house, and she was deported to Afghanistan along with her family members.

She described the situation under the Taliban: “We cannot freely leave our home… there are no job opportunities. Girls’ schools are closed. There are no employment opportunities. We [as former government officials and activists] cannot directly go to the Taliban-run offices for fear of being recognized.”

Several former government officials, members of the former security forces, and activists who spoke to Amnesty International said that they live in fear and could not return to their provinces or previous residences due to their past work and activism. Despite announcing a general amnesty for those who worked under the former government, the Taliban have persistently targeted former government officials and members of security and defence forces with arbitrary arrests, torture, unlawful detention, and extrajudicial killings.

These abuses have continued, including against individuals who have been forcibly returned. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 21 instances of arbitrary arrest, torture, and ill-treatment, along with the killings of 14 former members of the security and defence personnel between July and September 2025 alone. On 21 November, an Afghan media outlet operating from abroad reported that Taliban had arrested five former security personnel who had been deported from Iran and were on their way to their home province, Panjshir.

Shukufa*, who worked with the previous government, said: “I cannot go the place where I previously lived. Someone else is staying in the house. We have rented a house in a different location… My husband worked in the security agencies. He is also afraid for his security.”

Gull Agha*, who worked in the security and defence agencies prior to August 2021, was forced to return from Iran in April 2025 after his “headcount” document was declared expired. He said the Iranian officials had claimed that he and other Afghan nationals could re-enter Iran by applying for work visas at the Iranian consulate and embassy in Afghanistan without acknowledging the grave risks Gull Agha and others like him would face if returned to Afghanistan.

He said: “Though we were told that (in Afghanistan) we can refer [ourselves] to the Iranian Consulate for a work visa, since I am a former security personnel, I cannot go and apply for a [Afghan] passport at the passport department. It has all my biometric data.”

He also said those who had approached the Iranian consulate were told no such ‘work visa’ programme existed.

In August 2025, a survey by UNHCR reported that 82% of the returnees were in debt due to displacement, a lack of jobs, and loans taken to meet basic needs upon arrival in Afghanistan.

Persecution of women and girls

Despite facing some of the worst gender-based discrimination in the world – amounting to the crime against humanity of gender persecution – women and girls are being deported to Afghanistan in large numbers. According to UN estimates, half of those deported from Pakistan were women and girls, while 30% of deportees from Iran up to June 2025 were women and girls.

All states must immediately stop forced returns and uphold their non-refoulement obligations under international law

Smriti Singh

Women’s rights activist Sakina* fled to Pakistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021 but was forcibly returned in September 2025, despite being registered with UNHCR and being listed on a US humanitarian resettlement programme.

The Taliban twice arrested and beat members of Sakina’s family to reveal her whereabouts. Upon her return to Afghanistan, she moved to a different province before escaping the country again.

“I did not leave the house during my stay in Afghanistan. Women are afraid of the Taliban. I felt [hope] had died in people because of the fear from the Taliban. I was not only afraid that the Taliban would recognize me, but also, I was afraid that the Taliban would arrest me for not wearing hijab,” Sakina told Amnesty International.

“All states must immediately stop forced returns and uphold their non-refoulement obligations under international law. Failing to do so means ignoring the grave dangers Afghans face and turning away from their legal and moral responsibilities. States must also widen and fast-track resettlement routes and recognize Afghan human rights defenders, women and girls, former officials, journalists, and others at increased risk, as prima facie refugees,” said Smriti Singh.

*Names changed to protect identities

Afghanistan: Forced returns to Taliban rule must end as latest figures reveal millions unlawfully deported in 2025
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Afghan Women Spoke: The People’s Tribunal for Afghan Women listened

December 14, 2025

Rachel Reid

Afghanistan Analysts Network

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The judges of the People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan have found the Taliban guilty of the crime against humanity of gender persecution. Although this civil society tribunal does not have the force of law, it was conceived as a platform that could powerfully amplify the voices of women from both inside and outside Afghanistan, engage national and international media and provide evidence for any future prosecutions. The hearings were held in Madrid in October, after which the international panel of eight judges reviewed the evidence. They delivered their verdict in The Hague, where they also warned of the political ramifications of any normalisation of the Emirate’s diplomatic status. AAN’s Rachel Reid attended both the hearings and the verdict and heard from prosecutors, witnesses, organisers and experts about what the tribunal set out to do and what its findings might yet set in motion. 

The People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan’s panel of judges read their final judgment during a session in The Hague. Photo: Rachel Reid, AAN, 11 December 2025
These are not just my words; this is the pain of women who have been silent for the past four years and could not speak out. They were alive but not living; they were just breathing.
The words of Witness 14 at the People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan, dedicating her testimony to all the women she described as having been silenced for the last four years. Her testimony was just one of many memorable moments in two days of hearings. Some witnesses gave their testimony in person, though some concealed their identities; testimony from inside Afghanistan came in the form of voice notes or written statements with simultaneous translation.

The Tribunal comes at a time when several countries are moving toward diplomatic engagement with the Emirate, despite, often at the same time, decrying its restrictions on women and girls. The fear of creeping normalisation was one factor driving the setting up of the Tribunal. It was requested by and primarily organised by four Afghan NGOs, with the assistance of the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT), which has convened such tribunals since 1979, often to address crimes that would otherwise not be tackled by international justice mechanisms. Although the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders for the crime of gender persecution in July 2025, the Afghan organisers fear that arrests might be a distant prospect.

The witnesses provided the emotional power of the indictment, presented by four Afghan prosecutors, in which they accused ten individual Taliban leaders and the Taliban as a group and as the de facto rulers of Afghanistan of the crime of gender persecution and several other violations of international human rights law. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), which defends its policies towards women as religiously ordained, ignored multiple requests to provide a defence.

The tribunal was livestreamed in its entirety by Afghan media via satellite TV across Afghanistan and beyond, with around 350,000 people watching or engaging both the hearings and verdict on social media. People attending the hearings received photographs of friends and relatives in Afghanistan watching the proceedings in real time, in secret.

This report will provide an overview of the indictment and the testimony, as well as hearing from witnesses, organisers and experts on the tribunal’s political and legal significance.

The Hearings 

The hearings were held in Madrid from October 8-10. They were opened by the Executive Director of Rawadari, Shaharzad Akbar, with a clear enunciation of the reasons why they had brought it into being:

We want this tribunal to be a platform to share the struggle of women, as well as to highlight their inspiring resistance. This tribunal will enable them to claim their right to be seen to speak and to demand justice in the face of the world’s most extreme system of gender-based oppression… The Taliban for now, make themselves untouchable through brutality. They maintain their violent patriarchal dystopia through the stolen lives of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. We will not relinquish those lives. We will not relinquish hope. This tribunal puts on record the suffering of our sisters. It’s a form of resistance and remembrance. 

Akbar was personally instrumental in instigating this People’s Tribunal, but the event itself was a feat of organisation by Rawadari and three other Afghan NGOs, Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO), DROPS (Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies) and Human Rights Defenders Plus (HRD+). Organising such a tribunal often takes a year or more: this event was pulled together in just eight months.

The hearings were held over two days in Madrid at the offices of the Madrid Bar Association, a nineteenth-century building with gilded décor and walls lined with law books, lending the event a sense of grandeur. Around 100 people attended, mostly victims and survivors, along with some invited experts, UN officials and observers from the International Criminal Court. The panel of eight international judges sat on an elevated podium throughout the proceedings.[1]

The four Afghan prosecutors, Benafsha Yaqoobi, Orzala Nemat, Moheb Mudessir, and Azadah Raz Mohammad, had submitted their indictment to the judges in advance of the hearings and opened proceedings by presenting their core allegations. The indictment focused on the crime against humanity of gender persecution and numerous violations of international human rights law.[2] The prosecutors also made a case for the codification of a new crime of gender apartheid, a campaign initiated in 2023 to put the systematic and institutionalised nature of the Emirate’s policies towards women on a legal par with existing laws against systems of racial apartheid (explored in this AAN report). The prosecutors encouraged the judges to add their authority to the gender apartheid campaign in their verdict.

The indictment named the Taliban as a group and the State of Afghanistan as responsible for these crimes, as well as listing ten IEA leaders whom they said bore individual criminal responsibility (spellings as per the indictment):

  • Habatullah Akhundzada (Supreme Leader);
  • Sirajuddin Haqqani (Minister of Interior);
  • Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob (Minister of Defence);
  • Abdul Ghani Baradar (Deputy Prime Minister);
  • Noor Mohammad Saqib (Minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs);
  • Sheikh Muhammad Khalid Hanafi (Minister for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice);
  • Shaikh Abdul Hakim Haqqani (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court);
  • Neda Mohammad Nadeem (Minister of Higher Education);
  • Habibullah Agha (Minister of Education); and
  • Abdul Haq Wasiq (Director of the General Directorate of Intelligence, GDI).

In her opening statement, Azadah Raz Mohammad explained that the prosecutors would establish that “the Taliban’s policies on gender persecution are not isolated or random. They’re systematic, institutionalised, and intentionally directed at women and girls solely on the basis of their gender. This is the very essence of gender-based persecution under international criminal law.”

Another prosecutor, Orzala Nemat, told AAN that the indictment had taken them months of work. The team had reviewed and cross-referenced evidence from academic journals and “credible” organisations and institutions, as well as considering the international treaties and conventions to which Afghanistan is a signatory, to clarify the legal framework. They also had a careful process of selecting witnesses, as well as interviewing the witnesses “several times, to make sure that the witnesses are ready and prepared to come and present their testimony in this tribunal.”

The witnesses

The testimony from the witnesses brought the many aspects of the crime of gender persecution into sharp focus. Their accounts were at times harrowing, yet the witnesses spoke with dignity, defiance and clarity of purpose. Several witnesses spoke of being assaulted in the streets, detained and tortured. Others spoke of the mental and financial strain caused by the sudden loss of their jobs, hopes for higher education and career ambitions.

For their security and that of their family members inside Afghanistan, witnesses were identified only by number rather than by names. Some came to the hearings in person, having fled into exile since 2021, though many still covered their faces. Others, still inside the country, sent testimony in the form of voice notes or written statements, which were read aloud by volunteers in the room, with simultaneous translation into three languages (Dari, Pashto and English).

As an indication of how determined some were to testify, one woman who could not send her audio testimony because of the two-day internet blackout in Afghanistan, made a risky and difficult journey to the border of a neighbouring country, just to find an internet connection and send her statement.

Protests, detentions and torture 

Several of the witnesses had been part of the protests in the early weeks and months of the Emirate’s rule. Witness 22 recalled 15 August 2021, when the Taliban took over Kabul: “On that day, we lost everything we believed in.” She explained why she had felt she had no choice but to take to the streets: “The Taliban, from their very first days, denied women the right to education. And day by day, their restrictions increased, which was intolerable for us. So, we resorted to protests.”

Witness 13 had been a schoolteacher, originally from Herat. She too got involved in the protests but went into hiding after seeing other women arrested and tortured. In 2023, she was arrested, along with her two daughters: “I was tortured in their dreaded torture chambers in the worst ways. Due to their savage beating, my brain was damaged and my neck was severely injured; my ears bled for a full month.” She was eventually released after mediation by village elders, but said the experience left her whole family traumatised and forced them into exile: “[It was] the fear and dread that my children might be tortured that forced us to leave our homeland, my mother. I didn’t begin protesting in order to leave it.”

Several witnesses spoke of abuse at the hands of security forces. A woman, who is ethnic Hazara, described being sexually harassed by the notorious religious police from the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue Ministry, saying they had joked that it was halal – Islamically permitted – because she was Hazara. Witness 3 told of her attempt to seek protection from her violent husband, whom she had been married to at the age of ten. She said her husband’s violence “intensified with the arrival of the Taliban.” With nowhere else to turn to, she sought help from the Taliban:

When I took my petition to the Taliban, they tore it to pieces. They dragged me out of the police station; they beat me and told me that I was “a bad woman. … He is your husband. He is your owner. He has the right to beat you. You’re a bad woman. A woman who goes to the authorities to complain – we should put a bullet in her head and get rid of her. You are a bad woman” 

Eventually, she ran away but was quickly arrested and returned to her husband. She ran away for a second time and this time, found some women protestors in Kabul to stay with. But then, the house was raided:

They beat all the girls and took our phones. They said, “You’re raising your voices against Islam,” but we were only asking for our rights: the right to work, the right to education, the right not to be forced into a marriage, and not to have our children taken from us. What crime had we committed that the Taliban tortured us and beat us? … The moment the Taliban attacked us, I thought it was the last day of my life. They said, “You are women. Women are the second sex. What we are doing to you is correct; it is stated in Islam.” They arrested all the girls and beat us. Some girls fainted and fell on the ground. The Taliban showed no mercy. We asked them to let us take a girl to the doctor, they said, “No, you are women. Women are deceitful.” They beat us, tortured us and insulted us.

Denial of education

The testimony and evidence presented were broken down by the prosecutors into several strands of the crime of gender persecution, as well as other violations of international human rights law, including the denial of education. Multiple witnesses spoke of this as a crushing loss. 

Witness 18 said the ban had erased “our hope, plans, and the decisions we‘d made for our future.” She had tried to register for a post-graduate degree but was told: “Who gave women so many rights? You had seven or eight years of education, that’s enough for you, you have already learned too much.”

Witness 13, a former teacher, recounted her struggle to console girls whom she said would ask her: “What is our sin? What should we do? What crime have we committed besides pursuing an education?’ I’d encourage them to remain steadfast and resilient, but I’d cry to myself.” Several women recounted bruising interactions with Emirate-appointed officials at universities, including Witness 7. She tried to get her education certificate from the university where she’d studied, but said she was told: “You women committed prostitution for twenty years and now you want to continue those things? The Islamic Emirate has arrived.”

Denial of employment

For some witnesses, the loss of educational opportunities was tied to the loss of employment. Witness 14 said that taken together, these restrictions stripped women of their “autonomy and even dignity.” The impact of job losses was described in terms of the damage to mental health, as well as pushing families into poverty, particularly those where women were the primary breadwinners. Witness 19 was a journalist, who, like most women journalists, was forced out of her job. She and other journalists tried to hold a press conference to draw attention to the job losses, but were barred from doing so and detained.

They were holding their weapons, standing above us as if we were dangerous criminals – murderers – waiting to be executed. It was terrifying. One of them sat facing us, speaking in a vulgar and aggressive tone. He said, “We’ve come to make the country Islamic, to bring back the ways of Islam, and to make people true Muslims. But you’re making us look terrible to the world. You’re giving us a bad name.” 

She said one of the Talibs shouted profanities and said: “How dare you, a woman, come here among non-mahrams and stand in front of me and speak?”

After she was released, she decided to go into hiding for a few days, but two days later, the Taliban raided her house:

They asked my husband, “Where is your wife?” My husband said, “I don’t know, she left yesterday, but she hasn’t come back home yet.” They told him: “What kind of man are you — letting your wife leave the house without a mahram, and you sit here without a care in the world, not even knowing where she is?” Then they beat him. They beat him right there in front of my children. My youngest, who was seven at the time, was terrified and screaming. My eldest tried to stop them – he shouted for them to stop beating his father — and they beat him too. 

The family later managed to get over the border, but even from their place of relative safety, the trauma of those experiences endures:

The mental state of our whole family is, unfortunately, not very good. From my husband and me to my youngest son – we’ve all been deeply affected. Since the day the Taliban beat his father, my youngest has been in shock. Even after all these years, he still wets the bed at night. He’s older now, but he must still wear diapers. I have nightmares. At the slightest sound, I wake up with a start … thinking they’ve come back for us.

Denial of healthcare

Access to health services was another focus of the prosecutors’ case, as witnesses described the combined effects of Emirate policies on women’s ability to access even basic medical treatment. Time and again, witnesses spoke of not being able to receive care due to the restrictions on women’s movements, the constraints on the ability of women health workers to work, the segregation which prevents male doctors from treating female patients and the acute shortages of female doctors and nurses. From Kandahar, Witness 9 said: “There are no female dentists at all in the province and probably just one or two female doctors in the entire city. They have completely banned male doctors from treating female patients. Female patients are now even banned from seeing female doctors.” The situation, she said, was like going back in time, with women dying “because of very simple illnesses,” particularly now that women were having to give birth at home, “like a century ago.”

Women with disabilities 

Some of the witnesses described difficulties and discrimination on multiple fronts, not least women with disabilities. Witness six, originally from Khost, lost the use of her legs in a suicide bombing in 2013 and has used a wheelchair or walker ever since. She described an encounter with the Vice and Virtue police when she was trying to get to her doctor’s office. Even though she was wearing a long dress and hijab, she was told her clothes were “inappropriate.”

I explained to them that I was disabled and used a walker to move. I told them that if I wore longer or heavier clothing, as they demanded, it would get caught under my walker or wheelchair and cause me to fall and injure myself. But they refused to listen. They said, “No matter what your condition is, you must wear the clothing we prescribe. If we see you again dressed like this, we’ll take you to the police station.” I was terrified. With tears in my eyes, I returned home.

She said that since the incident, she has stopped going out, “and every day I feel the walls closing in on me.” She also described the frustration of being unable to leave the house by herself:

Even when I need to go somewhere, I cannot find a mahram to accompany me, as required by Taliban rules. This dependency is deeply painful. The emotional wound of being treated as helpless is worse than my physical disability. There is no cure for that pain.

An Islamic scholar’s challenge to the Emirate

Towards the end of the hearings, the prosecutors invited evidence from an Indonesian Islamic scholar, Dr Nur Rofiah, who teaches at the University of Quranic Sciences in Jakarta, Indonesia and was representing the Congress of Indonesian Women Ulema. Rofiah condemned the Taliban’s “misusing of the Islamic sharia against women,” stating that “Islam views men and women as equal human beings,” with the “right to seek knowledge and to access economic resources, healthcare services and other essential aspects of life.”[3] She also challenged the Taliban’s notion that women are the source of fitna (temptation to sin): “Is it women or the mindsets about women as sexual objects that is the source of fitna?”

The Emirate’s (non-) response 

During the course of the hearings, the judges repeatedly invited any representative of the Taliban to present their defence. Prior to the hearings, a letter was sent to the IEA’s Foreign Ministry, requesting their participation and offering assistance. No response was ever received. The Emirate’s silence reflects its longstanding stance of rejecting international scrutiny and dismissing attempts to hold its leaders accountable. When the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for gender persecution for the Emirate’s Amir and Chief Justice, for example, deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat, defended their record as upholding “the religious and national values of the Afghan people within the framework of Islamic Sharia.” The Emirate, he wrote, “does not recognize any legal obligation under the Rome Statute and deems the previous administration’s accession to this statute to be devoid of legal validity”  (statement issued on X on 19 February 2025). The question of whether the Emirate can withdraw Afghanistan from the Rome Statute is a subject of debate, given that it is still recognised by the member states of the Rome Statute or the United Nations (as argued here in the European Journal of International Law).

The judgement 

At the close of the hearings, the judges gave a preliminary verdict. One, Dr Ghizaal Haress – an Afghan constitutional lawyer and former Ombudsperson of the Republic – sent a powerful message to Afghan women: “The panel of judges assure the women of Afghanistan that they have been heard.”

The judges spent two months considering the indictment, testimony and other evidence they had been given. They came together in The Hague on December 11 to deliver their verdict. It upheld everything the prosecutors had asked for and added some pointed recommendations.

First, the judges found that the “Taliban’s sustained and deliberate campaign of gender persecution, carried out through edicts, institutional decrees, and systematic violations, constitutes a direct and egregious violation of international criminal law.”

While recognising that gender apartheid is not yet recognised in international law, the judges basically accepted the prosecutors’ argument in its favour, saying: “The situation in Afghanistan meets the constitutive elements of an apartheid-like system, an institutionalized regime of segregation, exclusion, and domination,” and recommended that the UN and member states should support its codification. The judges also confirmed that there had been multiple violations of international human rights law:

[T]he Taliban have intentionally, and severely deprived women and girls of fundamental rights, including the right to life, the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the right to personal liberty and security, the right not to be subjected to arbitrary detention, the right to education, the right to work, the right to health, freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of association, the right to bodily autonomy, and the civil and political rights of participation. 

The judges described the impacts of gender persecution in terms of physical harm done to women and the psychosocial ill-effects on women, girls and men, as well as on the social fabric of Afghanistan. The judges observed that, while many witnesses were able to speak relatively freely about some forms of physical abuse, any “reference to rape and sexual violence in custody is subtle,” though they did draw attention to a witness who said: “Even our colleagues and friends in Taliban prisons were raped, oppressed and tortured.”

The judges were clear about the Taliban’s criminal responsibility, both individually and as a group. Although the judgment did not ascribe specific crimes to any of the ten individuals named by the prosecutors, it said:

Statements from Taliban leaders explicitly justify their decrees and bans through an ideological framework that prioritizes male dominance and defines women as subordinate under a restrictive interpretation of Sharia. …The system is not the result of isolated or spontaneous acts but rather a State-organized and systematic policy designed to exclude women and girls from all aspects of public life, restrict their freedoms, and subordinate them to male authority. 

Alongside their legal findings, the judges also warned about the danger of normalising the Taliban administration, which had been a common refrain of witnesses. Citing Russian recognition in July 2025 and the “dangerous” trend for increased diplomatic presence in Afghanistan and the appointment of Taliban officials abroad, the judges said:

First, the immediate political impact is that it will embolden the Taliban while simultaneously diminishing international leverage. … Second, the normative and human rights impact of normalization is profound. It risks undermining the universality of women’s rights by signalling that women’s freedoms can once again be sacrificed for political convenience. Third, the effect on global norms and precedents is deeply troubling. It erodes the longstanding taboos against normalizing regimes of institutionalized oppression. … Finally, normalization will severely harm Afghan women and girls. … [it] erodes hope, weakens advocacy, and ultimately reinforces the Taliban’s control over society, prolonging their repressive rule. 

They made a series of recommendations, starting with a call to the Taliban to reverse a host of repressive policies. They also urged the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Muslim countries and Islamic institutions and scholars to issue fatwas and legal opinions “publicly rejecting the regime’s restrictions on women as having no basis in Sharia and violating established Islamic principles of justice, dignity, and equality.” On the subject of normalisation, they were concrete, calling on governments to “suspend diplomatic relations and revoke accreditation of Taliban-appointed diplomats” until there is verifiable and sustained progress. They also criticised the efforts of several European states to deport Afghans, including some women (DutchNews).

Hope and validation: Reactions to the tribunal

The tribunal offered a rare occasion for Afghan women to be centre stage, Witness 1 told AAN in The Hague:

This tribunal is important to me both as an ordinary woman and as a woman who was imprisoned in a land where a woman’s voice, her identity, her honour and her human dignity are being trampled on. … Even if the tribunal doesn’t have an immediate impact – today or tomorrow – the very fact that I can formally tell my story means that I’m taking back my honour and the human dignity that were crushed under the Taliban’s feet and in their prisons.

Many of the organisers, prosecutors and witnesses said they had been contacted by friends and family inside Afghanistan to say how important it was to see their experiences reflected at the hearings. Witness 2 told AAN that women inside Afghanistan had thanked her for being their voice at the tribunal:

Many people in Afghanistan saw the People’s Tribunal on TV, on YouTube, in the media, especially women, they secretly watched it, which was so important because they don’t have any way to be seen or heard, they can’t go to the streets and they can’t demonstrate or protest. This gives them hope. 

The UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, who was present in both Madrid and The Hague, described the verdict as a milestone that represented a “powerful vindication for victims and survivors.” Bennett told AAN that, irrespective of any other impacts, the testimonies were a form of transitional justice:

The official record of a hearing where witnesses gave their testimonies will stand as an important part of the story of Afghanistan, the records of Afghanistan. Truth-seeking and truth-telling is a very important tool, and actually a right, in any kind of transitional justice process. It does not replace judicial accountability, but it complements it and has been found to be a very important affirmation in other countries as well to victims of human rights violations.

Several prominent international experts delivered messages of support at the closing of the session, in person or by video, including Dr Mustapha Sheikh, a professor of Islamic Studies at Leeds University in England, who called on Islamic scholars to speak up:

Afghan women are being subjected to discrimination, segregation, dehumanisation and systemic erasure. Because this cruelty is being justified through religious language, scholars of Islam have a heightened obligation to correct the misuse of Islamic law and to name this oppression for what it is.

The road ahead

The four NGOs that organised the tribunal issued a statement at the end of proceedings, concluding: “Afghan women have spoken. The judges have spoken. The law has spoken. Now the world must respond.”

With this verdict, the organisers and other activists will turn their attention to advocacy and more campaigning to build wider public support. Although the tribunal has no legal authority, its judgment can still have practical impacts. The findings could be helpful to prosecutors, whether at the ICC in their ongoing investigation, or national prosecutors pursuing investigations under universal jurisdiction in years to come. One of the prosecutors, Azada Raz Mohammad, said she hoped the tribunal’s evidence would serve as an important archive for prosecutors, as well as for the new UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Afghanistan, which will support the work of prosecutors (for more on this mechanism, see this AAN report).

The findings could also influence the decisions of states as they debate their engagement policy with the IEA – the judges specifically reminded states of their duty to act under international law in the face of some of the most egregious crimes. For Director of DROPS, Mariam Safi, follow-up with diplomats will be key, particularly given what she described as her “utter frustration” at the “normalisation” of the Taliban. She listed the United States “speaking to the Taliban about reopening its embassies in Kabul,” and in the week the hearings took place, India inviting the Taliban foreign minister to visit, “Germany allowing Taliban authorities to enter the country in order to work in the consulates,” and regional countries “that have already accepted the credentials of the Taliban.”

Organisers hope that hearing the opinions of Islamic scholars in both the tribunal’s hearings and the verdict session of the tribunal will strengthen their advocacy with Muslim-majority states and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. This is not straightforward: Akbar said that some efforts had been made to hold the tribunal in Islamic countries, which “did not receive a positive signal,” though she notes they had limited time. Similarly, it was hard to find male Hanafi scholars to publicly support or participate in the hearings, though Mustapha Sheikh told AAN that this should not be understood “simply as indifference or tacit approval of the Taliban’s policies.” Rather, Sheikh said, “In many Muslim contexts shaped by colonial rule and its aftermath, political engagement by religious scholars has been securitised” so that organised religious activities of Muslims are perceived as a ‘threat’. As a result, Muslim scholars have internalised a form of defensive quietism, in which public engagement on issues framed as ‘political’ (human rights, gender justice, international law) is perceived as “endangering institutional survival, legal status or personal safety.”

There are precedents of Islamic scholars condemning aspects of the Emirate’s regime, however, which offer potential building blocks for activists wanting to take the findings of the tribunal forwards.[4]

Lessons from other People’s Tribunals

People’s tribunals were born of frustration in earlier times, with the then diplomatic status quo. The first was the International War Crimes Tribunal in 1966, better known as the Russell Tribunal, which examined US aggression and war crimes in Vietnam.[5]These tribunals differ in scope and context, but all were created to respond to grave abuses when formal institutions were unable or unwilling to act. The Permanent People’s Tribunal was set up in the 1970s and has now held over fifty sessions, including two previous sessions on Afghanistan in 1981 and 1982 to look at Soviet aggression and war crimes.[6]

One of the inspirations for the Afghan People’s Tribunal was the Aban Tribunal, a tribunal set up by Iranian activists in 2021 to investigate the Iranian state’s violent response to protestors in 2019, which was carried out with impunity and under a media blackout.[7] The main organiser, Shadi Sadr, told AAN that tribunals offer a powerful alternative at a time when international law and judicial mechanisms are in crisis:

Many atrocities are happening as we speak around the world, but the international justice system would be only capable of dealing with a very few of them and even [when] the international justice mechanisms are available, most of the time they are incapable of providing real justice and remedy to the victims. When it comes to women, the situation is even worse. 

Women’s tribunals have drawn attention to the inequities of formal justice institutions, including the International Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery, which pushed the Japanese state towards recognising and apologising for the use of rape and sexual slavery by Japan’s Imperial Army in the 1930s and 40s.[8] The 2015 Women’s Court in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, also gave voice to the experiences of women who had been raped and sexually abused during the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.[9]

The beginning of accountability 

The tribunal’s verdict was delivered in The Hague, symbolically important as the home of the International Criminal Court. While the court has already issued arrest warrants for gender persecution for Amir Hibatullah and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the reclusive leaders are not likely to travel anywhere where they might be arrested, so their arrests seem a long way off. The ICC prosecutor could have requested additional arrest warrants for other Taliban leaders from the court, but as of November 2025, it had changed its policies so that the default approach will be to issue arrest warrants confidentially, so as not to deter arrest opportunities (MSN). The tribunal judges pointed out that there are also no current prosecutions under universal jurisdiction and encouraged states to make greater use of their ability – and duty – to investigate. All of this makes criminal accountability seem a rather distant prospect.

In this context, the tribunal’s decisive verdict, in The Hague, does have more than symbolic power. In helping establish a public record of the crimes perpetrated by the Taliban, it could influence diplomatic decisions and raise the cost of normalising relations with the Taliban, disrupting what Shaharzad Akbar described in her opening statement as “the crime of silence.” This tribunal, she said, puts victims and survivors at the heart of the process and “makes visible the invisible.” Akbar says that the message they want to send to the Taliban is that the world is standing with Afghan women, but that the normalisation trend makes it “hard to send that message now.”

If the volume of Afghan media coverage is any indication – organisers cited coverage by more than 20 Afghan outlets, including 18 hours of live broadcasting – the tribunal was a noteworthy event. If the Emirate pays any attention to the tribunal, it will no doubt be to dismiss it. For the organisers, however, the tribunal’s most enduring legacy is in the archive of testimony, the indictment and the judges’ verdict – material that can be used as tools for advocacy, public engagement and, potentially, future prosecutions. In his remarks after the verdict, Bennett said that too often victims are marginalised by justice mechanisms, whereas this tribunal “should serve as a model for future human rights efforts.”

For the women who testified, the hope is that being heard — on record, at the tribunal, and before the world — is not an end in itself, but the beginning of accountability. It may be many years before a criminal court hears their testimony, but as Witness 1 said: “I’m waiting for the day that I see the Taliban in front of a judge and the Taliban in prison.”

Edited by Roxanna Shapour and Kate Clark

References

References
↑1 The Panel of Judges consisted of: Rashida Manjoo (South Africa), who acted as president of the panel; Elisenda Calvet-Martínez (Spain); Mai El-Sadany (Egypt/United States); Marina Forti (Italy); Araceli García del Soto (Spain); Ghizaal Haress (Afghanistan); Emilio Ramírez Matos (Spain); and Kalpana Sharma (India). Their biographies are available on the People’s Tribunal website.
↑2 The full list of crimes in the indictment are: Crimes against humanity, particularly the crime of gender persecution under Article 7 of the Rome Statute; other inhumane acts codified in the Rome Statute; violation of Afghanistan’s binding obligation under core international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention Against Discrimination in Education (CADE), the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (CPRW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD), and the Convention against Torture (CAT).
↑3 The full Expert Opinion On Women In Islam by Dr Nur Rofiah refers to jurisprudence on all of the points noted above, and more.
↑4 For example, education for girls was declared an Islamic right in the Islamabad Declaration for Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities, which was supported in January 2025 by senior muftis, scholars and Islamic bodies and councils, including the Saudi scholar, Mohammed Al-Issa, Secretary-General of the Muslim World League and President of the Association of Muslim Scholars (Amu TV).
↑5 For more on the Russell Tribunal, see Tom Krever, Remembering the Russell Tribunal, London Review of International Law, 2017. See also Marcos Zunin, Russell Tribunal, Oxford Public International Law, 2024.
↑6 A session was held in Stockholm in 1981 (PPT verdict in Italian), and in Paris in 1982 (also in Italian). A British Pathe television report on the 1982 session is viewable here.
↑7 For more on the Aban Tribunal and other examples, see Shadi Sadr, International Justice System v. People’s Tribunals: A Fictional Hierarchy, Opinio Juris, April 2024.
↑8 It is also known as the Tokyo Tribunal. A transcript of the Tokyo Tribunal judgement has been archived by the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice. This 2020 documentary about The legacy of the Tokyo Women’s Tribunal is still accessible via the London School of Economics.
↑9 For more, see Andrea Oskari Rossini, Sarajevo, the Women’s Tribunal, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa, May 2015.

 

Afghan Women Spoke: The People’s Tribunal for Afghan Women listened
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Afghanistan’s Trade Via Alternate Routes Bypasses Pakistan Closures

December 8, 2025
Khaama Press
Ankit Kumar, Assistant Professor (Research) at SICSSL, specializes in modern warfare, geopolitics, and nuclear policy. He has consulted for India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Defense and contributed to leading think tanks and international publications. He is pursuing a PhD on nuclear policy ambiguity with India as a case study.

Afghanistan’s authorities have intensified efforts to diversify trade corridors, gradually reducing dependence on Pakistan following repeated and lengthy border closures that have disrupted bilateral commerce. Major crossings such as Torkham and Chaman – which previously accounted for an estimated 40 percent of Afghanistan’s official trade – experienced extended shutdowns throughout late 2024 and into 2025 amid escalating allegations related to cross-border militancy and security incidents. These closures, often lasting several weeks, have reportedly inflicted monthly losses exceeding USD 200 million on Afghan exporters of perishable fruits, vegetables, and dried nuts. Imports of fuel, wheat, and pharmaceuticals were also delayed, contributing to domestic inflation and periodic shortages. In response, Kabul has increasingly prioritised alternative routes, including India via Iran’s Chabahar Port and new air links, alongside expanded overland connections with Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, aiming to build a more resilient, multipolar trade network less vulnerable to sudden disruptions.

The deterioration in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations since 2021 has intensified tensions. Islamabad’s concerns regarding Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) activities inside Afghanistan and Kabul’s objections to Pakistan’s visa restrictions have compounded mistrust. The situation escalated in October 2025 during border clashes that prompted indefinite closures under counter-terrorism justifications. Prior to these developments, annual bilateral trade was estimated between USD 2.5 and 3 billion, with Afghanistan exporting around USD 1.5 billion in agricultural produce while importing fuel and basic commodities through Karachi and Gwadar ports. That figure is now believed to have fallen below USD 1 billion. Afghan agricultural products, such as grapes, have reportedly sold for significantly higher prices in Pakistani markets amid supply volatility, while hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani cargo trucks were left stranded near border points. Analysts suggest that although Pakistan sought to pressure Kabul regarding militant sanctuaries, the interruptions have also reduced Pakistan’s leverage as Afghan traders increasingly rely on costlier yet more predictable alternative routes.

A central component of this shift is the Chabahar International Transport and Transit Corridor, where India has maintained a long-term investment strategy. New Delhi’s USD 500 million contribution to Chabahar, operational since 2018, offers Afghanistan direct access through Iranian ports without requiring Pakistani transit. During Afghan Acting Industry Minister Nooruddin Azizi’s visit to India in November 2025, the sides discussed streamlined visas, lower air-freight tariffs, and expanded cargo flights from Delhi, Amritsar, and Mumbai to Kabul, with the objective of raising bilateral trade toward USD 1 billion. Chabahar has already facilitated the delivery of 1.5 million tonnes of Indian wheat and pulses since 2022. More recently, Afghan pomegranates and raisins have reached Indian markets within days rather than weeks. Although U.S. sanctions complicate Iranian port operations, Chabahar’s reduced docking fees and quicker customs processing have reportedly increased cargo volumes by 30 percent year-on-year.

Northern trade corridors to Central Asia also present expanding opportunities. Trade with Uzbekistan was estimated at USD 1.1 billion in 2024, supported by the Hairatan rail terminal and the Termez bridge, with 2025 targets approaching USD 2 billion across commodities including Uzbek flour, machinery, and Afghan minerals. Turkmenistan’s Torghundi crossing has seen fuel and construction material volumes rise, while Kazakhstan has proposed a USD 3 billion regional transport roadmap focused on road upgrades and dry ports. Afghanistan’s participation in the Ashgabat Agreement since 2018 underpins multimodal rail-and-road connectivity extending toward the Caspian region and aligning with segments of China’s Belt and Road Initiative through the Wakhan Corridor. Taliban officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, have encouraged Afghan traders to prioritise alternative routes, describing Pakistan’s measures as economically restrictive. Supporters of diversification argue that Afghanistan could gain a more central role as a regional transit hub, including potential energy import and export projects such as CASA-1000.

The diversification approach, however, faces significant constraints. Infrastructure limitations – including inadequate road quality, insufficient cold-chain storage, and limited rail connectivity – raise transportation costs by an estimated 20 to 40 percent for time-sensitive exports. Security risks persist on northern routes, while fluctuating Iranian transit regulations and tariffs in Central Asia add additional challenges. Afghanistan’s projected economic growth of around 2.5 percent in 2025 remains closely tied to imports, and customs revenues have reportedly fallen by roughly 25 percent due to border disruptions. Humanitarian concerns persist regarding wheat imports, particularly during drought periods. Nevertheless, analysts argue that forced diversification may create opportunities in value-added processing of Afghan agricultural products, expanded mineral exports to Asian markets, and joint logistics ventures that could gradually narrow the country’s approximately USD 6 billion trade deficit.

These evolving trade patterns also carry broader geopolitical implications. Pakistan risks strategic isolation as Afghanistan deepens economic cooperation with India and Central Asian states, while emerging transit alternatives potentially dilute the influence of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). For Afghanistan, long-term success will depend on sustained infrastructure investment and diplomatic engagement, including efforts to secure sanctions relief for Iranian-linked ports. If diversification strategies continue and logistical barriers are addressed, Afghan officials estimate that non-Pakistani trade could rise to USD 10 billion by 2027. While the current shift has been shaped by prolonged border tensions, policymakers emphasise that a broader network of trade partners may offer Afghanistan greater economic resilience and stability in the years ahead.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Khaama Press.

Afghanistan’s Trade Via Alternate Routes Bypasses Pakistan Closures
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Ali Faqirzada is an Afghan refugee. He deserves to stay in America

December 8, 2025

Thu 4 Dec 2025 10.30 EST

On 14 October, Ali Faqirzada – an Afghan refugee, a resident of New Paltz, New York, and a computer science student at Bard College – arrived for an interview at a federal immigration office on Long Island. He was applying for political asylum, a designation for which he was – and remains – a perfect candidate.

In his native country, Faqirzada had assisted the American government and Nato with projects designed to improve the lives of Afghan women and help them get an education. But after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the ministry where he, his mother and sister had worked was bombed by the Taliban, and one of its employees was murdered.

Understandably concerned that they would be tortured and killed like so many Afghans targeted by the Taliban for their cooperation with humanitarian agencies, the Faqirzadas made their way to Mexico, and from there to the US, where they immediately applied for refugee status. Six family members have already been granted asylum after having successfully made the case that repatriation to their Taliban-controlled homeland would probably mean a death sentence.ad

When Ali Faqirzada went for his 14 October interview, it seemed probable that his petition would also be approved. According to Malia Dumont, a military veteran formerly deployed in Afghanistan and now chief of staff and vice-president for strategy and policy at Bard, Ali is a brilliant, generous, community-minded student who has worked in New York state as a hospital security guard, a position of great trust and responsibility.

In a more reasonable, more compassionate country, the immigration official would have walked around the table, shaken Faqirzada’s hand, and thanked him for how much he has done on behalf of his people and our own. In a more recognizably American country, the interviewer would have congratulated Ali on how obviously he is thriving in his adopted land and on the good chance that he will go on to make valuable contributions to our society.

But that is not what happened. That is not how the story went in Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s America. Immediately following his interview, during which he convinced the authorities that his claim of “credible fear” was justified, Faqirzada was arrested by ICE agents and sent to the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, a for-profit prison operated by the GEO Group. He has been there ever since, in a cell with 12 other men, where his access to books, water, and halal food has been severely restricted. According to visitors, he has devoted his energies to maintaining the morale and the welfare of his fellow inmates.

The merits of Ali’s case and the sheer absurdity of the suggestion that the genial, well-liked college student could pose any sort of terrorist threat has prompted an outpouring of popular support.

Among his advocates are Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and himself a refugee from the Nazis, who has stated that wisest course in such situations is to be as vocal – to make as much noise – as possible. Others who have spoken out on Faqirzada’s behalf include the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, Congressman Pat Ryan, a Democrat of New York, the communities of New Paltz and Stone Ridge, New York, and the Episcopal bishop Matthew Heyd, who led a vigil in November outside Delaney Hall.

Their efforts to free Faqirzada have been complicated by a 29 November government ruling that has paused the final approval of all asylum applications. It’s the newest and most drastic addition to a series of recent measures – including the temporary cessation of the US Refugee Admissions Program on 20 January – that have made the process of asylum-seeking steadily more challenging. In addition, there is now a pause on new immigration from Afghanistan and on the issuing of green cards to Afghans already residing in the United States. Decisions on the granting of asylum are made by the Department of Homeland Security and not the judiciary, thus making it easier for the Trump administration to drastically curtail the flow of refugees.

The sweeping new changes targeting Afghans were enacted in the aftermath of the tragic Washington DC shooting of two national guard soldiers, one fatally, by an Afghan national who had worked with the CIA and whose application for asylum had been thoroughly vetted and approved.

Common sense – a trait that the Republican party has claimed as an essential aspect of their political agenda – suggests that a genial, kind-hearted, highly motivated computer science student and hospital security guard should not be held accountable for someone else’s crime. Nor should the entire Afghan community, many members of which have fled great danger at home, be punished for the actions of one man and made to worry about whatever safety and stability they have managed to find in our country. There is great confusion, uncertainty and a dispiriting lack of clarity about what precisely these new measures mean and how to proceed from here.

Many questions remain about Ali Faqirzada’s detention. How long will he continue to be held prisoner at Delaney Hall? How will the new rulings affect his chances of being granted the protections he clearly deserves? But perhaps the most important questions are the ones that we have been asking ourselves since January 2025 and that we will likely ask ourselves for years to come. How did we let this happen – and what can we do about it now?

  • Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ali Faqirzada is an Afghan refugee. He deserves to stay in America
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Report: 20% of all US aid to Afghanistan was ‘wasted’

December 5, 2025
Responsible Statecraft
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction issued a scathing final analysis

The United States wasted up to $29 billion dollars during its two-decade long effort to transform Afghanistan into a stable and democratic state, according to a major new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

The wasted funds account for roughly a fifth of the $148 billion that the U.S. spent on reconstructing Afghanistan — a sum greater than what Washington spent to rebuild Europe after World War II, in inflation-adjusted terms. Among the most wasteful projects were a $7.2 billion effort to eliminate opium production in the country as well as a $4.7 billion program that tried and failed to build local state capacity.

The report marks the final update from SIGAR, which will officially close up shop early next year. Over its 17 years of existence, the office used its uniquely focused mandate to ferret out cases of waste and fraud while making recommendations about how to avoid further abuses. According to the report, its efforts led to 171 criminal convictions while saving taxpayers as much as $2.5 billion.

SIGAR was among the most influential critics of America’s nation-building efforts abroad. Its work revealed not just individual instances of waste but also the more fundamental problems that plagued Washington’s reconstruction efforts. “Over two decades, the United States invested billions of dollars and incurred thousands of casualties in a mission that promised to bring stability and democracy to Afghanistan, yet ultimately delivered neither,” the final report says. “The rapid collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021 laid bare the fragility that had been concealed by years of confident assertions of progress.”

The office pointed out “contradictions” in the U.S. approach in Afghanistan, arguing that “the relentless pursuit of reconstruction resulted in perpetual Afghan government dependency, fueled corruption, and in some cases strengthened the very insurgency it sought to undermine.”

It is unclear whether Washington has fully grappled with the critiques put forward by SIGAR over the past 17 years. Congress chose not to create a special inspector general for Ukraine aid, for example, opting instead to coordinate oversight through the office of the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Former SIGAR John Sopko argued that this approach would be insufficient for properly tracking the $187 billion that the U.S. has given Ukraine. “Just look at the amount of money we’re spending,” Sopko told RS in 2023. “When you pour that much money in, even if it’s the most noble cause in the world, you can’t help but waste a lot.”

Report: 20% of all US aid to Afghanistan was ‘wasted’
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