The Taliban is a perfect example of political Islam and its deceptive game with Sharia. The members of the group know how to use tactical measures to make Sharia implementation a tool for political bargaining.
In the latest case, the spokesperson of this group has said that their Amir al-Momineen has ordered the judges to implement Sharia rules such as retribution, cutting off hands and stoning to death. Those who are familiar with the history of this group know that the Taliban have used people’s fear of applying Sharia law as a means of blackmail. Both blackmailing the people of Afghanistan and blackmailing the international community.
During its first rule in the 1990s, the group tried hard to attract the attention of the United States and, consequently, the international community, to be recognized or at least negotiated as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. To do so, the Taliban first entered into negotiations with brokers related to oil companies and then found lobbyists inside the United States, but the stigma of cooperating with an extremist group was too heavy for anyone to give in too easily. Zalmay Khalilzad has mentioned a part of it in the book Envoy, including Mr. Karzai’s support for the Taliban. As those efforts remained fruitless, the Taliban took other measures. First, they increased oppressive restrictions on the people inside Afghanistan, such as executing the sentence of stoning, cutting off hands, and retribution, under the pretext of not praying, listening to music, and trimming their beard. As these remained fruitless, the Taliban took over the destruction of Buddha statues in Bamiyan, hoping that high-ranking delegations from the world would flow to Kandahar and meet with their Amir al-Momineen, but the result was only the sending of some penniless and incompetent Arab mullahs from UNESCO, making the Taliban even more frustrated. They also laughed at the beard of those Arab scientists and blew up the statues. The only thing that the Taliban hoped to draw the world’s attention to was the activities of Al-Qaeda and its bases in Afghanistan, and they sheltered Osama with this hope. Although the United States entered into negotiations with this group to arrest Osama, it did not promise recognition and only agreed to give a sum of money in return, and this was something that was promised to the Northern Alliance several times, but was not accepted. The only action that made the world take the group seriously was the September 11 incident, but this time it was taken seriously in a different way, and as a result, it completely defeated the Taliban in less than three months.
The group has now restarted that game, using the threat of Sharia enforcement as an excuse for renewed blackmail. In these days, when whispers of the formation of a new government are heard, the group is known to order itself to close the women’s bathrooms, assigns its intelligence to arrest, torture and exterminate women civil activists, and assigns its own judges to carry out the sentences of stoning, cutting off hands and retribution in kind. All these are aimed at lowering the expectations of the other side in negotiations and making them satisfied to the minimum. It has another goal in mind at the same time, and that is to send a message to its naïve soldiers that although we receive money from America, we have not forgotten the application of Sharia law!
