Some Shia followers in Afghanistan are expressing serious concern over the Taliban’s continued religious pressure on adherents of their faith. They say that under various pretexts, the Taliban are seizing Shia properties and public sites, including mosques, madrasas and clinics, one after another on different charges, and are arresting, insulting and humiliating religious elders of this community.
Continuing their seizure of properties and public sites belonging to the Shia community of Afghanistan, the Taliban have recently closed the Khatam al-Anbiya complex in western Kabul. Sources have confirmed to the Hasht-e Subh Daily that fighters from the Taliban Ministry of Justice raided the Khatam al-Anbiya complex in Dasht-e Barchi yesterday and shut down this Shia cultural and religious center. According to sources, Taliban forces also arrested Syed Hassan Fazelzada, the head of the complex.
The Taliban Ministry of Justice has claimed that the land of the complex belongs to the state and must be vacated. Witnesses have also said that the Taliban sealed the gate of the complex’s mosque. In addition, an image of a notice posted on the mosque’s gate has circulated on social media, showing that this Shia religious site was shut down by the Taliban Ministry of Justice.
Hussain (pseudonym), a follower of the Shia faith, says the Taliban’s recent actions, in addition to the group’s longstanding hostility toward Shia Islam, are rooted in recent political developments in the region. According to him, Taliban ideology is fundamentally shaped in opposition to Shia Islam and anti-Shia sentiment, and the group’s justice minister is now carrying this out more openly.
This Shia follower says: “Through these actions, in addition to their longstanding policy of seizing the properties of Hazaras and Shias, the Taliban are exerting a kind of pressure aimed at restricting and bringing Shia educational centers under their control, because they are anxious and fearful of regional developments.”
Mohammad also believes that over the past five years, despite repeatedly promising Shias security, protection of life and property, and safeguarding of their assets, the Taliban have been unable to conceal what is truly on their minds any longer, and have made their anti-Shia policy more overt. According to him, although Shias in Afghanistan have never sought religious tension and still do not, the Taliban’s conduct is widening the religious divide among followers of different faiths in Afghanistan.
This Shia follower says: “Among ordinary people in Afghanistan, the religious divide is very small. Shias and Sunnis in Afghanistan show more tolerance and mutual accommodation toward one another than in many other Islamic countries, and they share in each other’s grief and joy. But the Taliban’s repressive conduct is creating a rift and distance between followers of different faiths, and this is dangerous for Afghanistan’s future. These Taliban actions are building up a great deal of resentment that will one day erupt. It would be better if they abandoned their anti-Shia policies and their repression of Shias.”
Ahmad, one of the Shia Hazaras who has experienced detention by the Taliban, tells the Hasht-e Subh Daily that the Taliban’s conduct while seizing Shia religious properties goes against common norms and culture in Afghanistan. According to him, when seizing properties, the Taliban subject Shias, particularly Hazaras, to very ugly and humiliating treatment.
This man recounts his experience of detention by the Taliban justice minister as follows: “The Taliban justice minister told us plainly, in my presence, that you Hazara people have come this far, and that is already too much. Your job was to be shepherds, farmers and porters.” Out of fear of being identified, he declines to give his name or further details in this report, saying that he will one day put into writing the bitter and painful experience of his detention.
Nevertheless, several Shia Hazara social media users have also reacted to the closure of Shia cultural and religious centers by the Taliban. According to them, the Taliban will eventually seize a great deal of land and property from Shias, particularly Hazaras, under various pretexts, and this process will not remain limited to their religious centers alone.
Mohammad Jawadi, a Shia, wrote in reaction to the closure of the Khatam al-Anbiya complex in Kabul: “The issue is that our scholarly, cultural and religious assets are being lost one after another and unjustly confiscated, while we remain caught up in a devastating dispute between Sadats and Hazaras.”
Mr. Jawadi added: “The regrettable thing is that we lost a very important center. This is not just about the Khatam al-Anbiya madrasa; it is about the large Khatam al-Anbiya complex itself, which housed the madrasa, the student dormitory and the library. The Hazrat Fatima al-Zahra Hospital and the large Shahid Mazari prayer ground were also located there, and all of these are being unjustly confiscated.”
This comes after the Taliban seized and vacated the Khatam al-Nabiyin seminary in Kabul, and last week also revoked the operating license of Khatam al-Nabiyin University, halting the institution’s activities. Students of the university told the Hasht-e Subh Daily last week that they were concerned about their uncertain fate, saying that the university’s gates had been closed to them by the Taliban and that hundreds of students had been left without a future.
It is reported that around three thousand two hundred undergraduate and graduate students across nine faculties, including medicine, engineering and social sciences, were studying at the university in Kabul, with around seven hundred students at its Ghazni branch.
Previously, the Khatam al-Nabiyin seminary, one of the religious educational centers for Shias in Afghanistan, had also been shut down and vacated by fighters from the Taliban Ministry of Justice. Fighters from the group had also arrested several officials and instructors from the seminary.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
فشار فزاینده طالبان بر شیعیان؛ چرا مراکز مذهبی و دانشگاهها بسته میشوند؟
