The Taliban’s Ministry of Justice has published a law titled “The Regulation of Poetry Recitation Gatherings Law” in the official gazette, issued on the order of Hibatullah Akhundzada, the group’s Supreme Leader. According to a Taliban press release, this law is structured with a preamble, two chapters, and 13 articles. Under this Taliban law, poets have been ordered to refrain from criticizing the decrees, guidance, orders, and decisions of Hibatullah. Furthermore, the Taliban law has declared love poetry and the praise of a beloved to be prohibited. The Taliban emphasized that poets must avoid “praising boys and girls or inviting them for a romantic relationship with them” in their poems. Additionally, the Taliban law states that poems must be free from virtual love and undue emotions. However, several poets and social media users have strongly criticized this Taliban law, describing it as a product of Hibatullah’s medieval thinking. They have stressed that love poetry has historically served as a means to express deep human emotions and profound emotional bonds. According to them, no regime can chain human love and emotions by decree.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Justice has announced that this law regulates how poetry recitation gatherings are held, the content of poets’ verses at these gatherings, and the duties of the poetry evaluation board, with the group’s Ministry of Information and Culture serving as the enforcing authority. According to this Taliban law, poets are obliged, both before and during poetry recitation gatherings, to strictly avoid “insulting Islamic sanctities, demeaning and dividing ethnicities, languages, and Muslims, encouraging people towards non-Islamic ethics and improper customs, praising girls and boys and inviting friendship with them, and criticizing” the decrees, orders, and decisions of Hibatullah.
In this law, the Taliban have obligated poets to observe “Sharia policy” in their poetic content and ensure their verses are devoid of “undue desires and improper emotions.” According to this law, the Taliban’s Ministry of Information and Culture and its provincial directorates are required to register poetry gatherings and, after the verses are vetted by an evaluation board, publish them from a specific address.
A press release from the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice stated that, pursuant to this law, a poetry evaluation board will be formed, comprising a representative from the Ministry of Information and Culture as the head, and members including representatives from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Complaints Hearing Commission, and the Central and Provincial Ulema Councils of the group. According to this Taliban law, this board is tasked with evaluating poetry gatherings before and after they are held, identifying their positive and negative aspects, and taking action to eliminate the negative points and replace them with positive ones.
The Taliban will reward poets and singers who, through their poetry and prose, work in the field of “societal reform,” according to the group, through its Ministry of Information and Culture. However, violators of this order have been warned they “will be punished according to the rulings of Sharia.”
In this law, the Taliban have ordered poets to compose their verses in a manner that, according to the group, rejects “communism, nationalism, feminism, and democracy.” The Taliban have also briefly defined these concepts in the law and asked poets to cooperate in strengthening the group’s regime through their poetry.
By categorizing poetry and its recitation, the Taliban have declared that ethnic attan dances, clapping, whistling, jirgas on un-Islamic matters, and even some traditional customs and jirgas are considered by them to be part of “non-Islamic ethics and improper customs” and must be prevented.
Meanwhile, several poets and social media users have written in protest against this Taliban law that expressing poetic sentiment, poetry, and the description of a beloved are natural and human manifestations of expressing emotion that are realized through poetry. They have emphasized that throughout history, no regime has been able to prevent people from expressing their emotions, and poets have always written of love with their blood. According to them, henceforth, they will not submit to Hibatullah’s misogynistic and regressive thinking in expressing their own emotions.
Lily Ghazal, a female poet, reacted to the Taliban’s law on her Facebook page, writing: “The Taliban have banned love poetry, but can they ban the beating of hearts?” In further protest, she published a poem reflecting the fervor of love and expressions of emotion towards a beloved. In this poem, she speaks of the sweetness of her beloved’s lips and the warmth of their body, creating a passionate image of love and infatuation.
Ghazal wrote:
My lips on your lips tell a different tale,
The glory of dissolving in you has another display.
My fervor cannot endure these twists and turns,
In the embrace of your body, my body has a different curve.
Sanam Anberin, another female poet, wrote in reaction to the new Taliban law:
“Your kisses remain, on the line of my neck,
Your memories spill color on the flower of my shirt.
With the glory of your love, wherever I step,
A tulip blossoms from within the breaths of my body.
Fearlessly, I was lost in your eyes,
Happy am I, for you I would risk my heart at sea.”
Saadat Mousavi, in protest of the Taliban’s ban on love poetry, referenced the love story of Ahmad Shamlou and Aida, quoting a part of a ghazal by Shamlou and saying she had read it aloud.
Shamlou’s poem begins thus:
“Your lips,
With the delicacy of poetry,
Transform the most sensual kisses into such modesty.
That the cave-dwelling creature benefits from it
To become human.”
Hoda Khamoosh, a poet, by reciting a poem in protest against the Taliban’s law, said: “We stand against Hibatullah and the suppression of the loving and artistic voice that the Taliban have restricted; they have banned poetry recitation gatherings and poetry with specific themes. These restrictions particularly target women; women who sing songs and love aloud and have risen in protest with that very voice.”
Furthermore, the Women Aid Afghanistan Organization and several other protesting women have described the new Taliban law as an insult to the country’s culture and literature and deemed it a direct attack on the human spirit, freedom of thought, and artistic identity. The organization added, “We condemn this anti-cultural, anti-human, and anti-freedom decision in the strongest terms. The poetry of Afghanistan is a land of love, pain, freedom, and resistance, and no regime can silence the voice of poets.”
The organization wrote: “We call on all lovers, poets, and freedom enthusiasts to raise the voice of freedom louder against this anti-human decree by composing a love poem and accompanying it with protest hashtags.”
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
