See,

Bruno Philip, “Les talibans, pointilleux « imitateurs » du Prophète; Héritiers idéologiques d’une école coranique orthodoxe fondée en Inde au XIXe siècle, les nouveaux maîtres de l’Afghanistan associent un puritanisme religieux extrême et un « réformisme » social des codes de l’honneur tribal, Le Monde, le 6 septembre 2021 (03h57, mis à jour à 16h17).

Bruno Philip of Le Monde has written a deeply insightful analysis of the historical origins of the religious beliefs of the Taliban, which helps us understand why so many of their beliefs and practices take us back to the seventh century and the time of the Prophet Muhammed (530-632 AD or CE).

Philip’s article is of fundamental importance for understanding the internal constraints  within the Taliban belief system which pose huge obstacles to the adoption of measures protecting human rights including the rights of women.

These beliefs date from a time 1400 years ago, long before the Magna Carta in England in 1215, and over 1100 years before the Enlightenment in Europe and America, and the declarations of human rights in Virginia (1775) and in France (1789)–the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

This belief system is characterized by an extreme puritanism, and an obsessive imitation of the Prophet Muhammed in manners and dress (e.g., long beards):

Les talibans appartiennent à un courant doctrinal spécifique de l’islam et c’est ce modèle auquel ils n’ont cessé de se référer depuis la création de leur mouvement, en 1994. Puritanisme, lecture littérale du Coran, « imitation » stricte du Prophète, et cela dans les détails les plus triviaux − de la longueur de la barbe à celle du pantalon, ce dernier devant descendre à mi-chevilles, et pas plus bas : c’est le souci pointilleux de se conformer à ce point à Mahomet qui constitue leur strict credo.

Philip notes that the Taliban are under the influence of two strict schools of Islam:

Les talibans sont sous la double influence de l’école « deobandi », une madrasa fondée en 1867 dans le nord de l’Inde britannique, et du wahhabisme, forme officielle de l’islam en Arabie saoudite. L’école deobandi incarne un mouvement réformiste qui visait à propager chez les musulmans du sous-continent indien une version austère de la religion. Il s’agissait de « purifier » un islam jugé dévoyé en exaltant l’authenticité d’un retour aux origines.

Significantly, Philip points out that the expression of philosophical doubt may be considered a sin. He quotes the well-known Pakistani journalist Amed Rashid as follows:

« (L)es talibans ont clairement déprécié la tradition deobandi d’enseignement et de réformes en raison de leur rigidité, récusant tout concept de doute [philosophique], sinon pour en faire un objet de péché, et considérant toute possibilité de débat comme une hérésie en puissance ».

Finally, noting that the Taliban, though rooted in the traditional culture of the Pashtuns, have replaced the traditional jirga (assembly of leaders) with shura or councils made up of mullahs, and sometime oppose traditional Pashtun customary law, known as the Pashtunwali. These differences extend to some fundamental questions, such as the right of women to inherit property.

Philip concludes as follows:

Entre obsession du corps des femmes, puritanisme extrême et projet « national » transethnique pour un nouvel Afghanistan, les talibans n’ont pas d’autre horizon théologique que celui d’une « imitation » pointilleuse du Prophète, seule référence religieuse qui constitue le socle de leur vision du monde.

With their “obsession with the female body, extreme puritanism, and national trans ethnic project for a new Afghanistan,”

(T)he Taliban have no other theological horizon than than that of a punctilious “imitation” of the Prophet, the sole religious reference which constitutes the bedrock foundation of their vision of the world.

Philip’s insightful article raises fundamental questions about the viability of Taliban promises to form an “inclusive” government and to safeguard human rights in general, and women’s rights in particular.

It is perhaps highly significant that Mollah Baradar, the leader of the relatively more moderate and conciliatory faction of the Taliban, was passed over for the top government position and given only a secondary role in the recently-announced Taliban interim government.

The Trenchant Observer

The Trenchant Observer has been following Afghanistan closely since 2005, when he worked in Kabul as the Team Leader of group of six lawyers charged with advising the government on modernizing its criminal justice process to better meet international human rights standards.

The Trenchant Observer is an international lawyer with a historian’s eye.  A former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he received the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science in International Law (S.J.D.), he is also a summa cum laude graduate of Stanford University, where as an undergraduate he received the James Birdsall Weter Prize for the Best Senior Honors Thesis in History.