In August 2021, after taking over the Kabul throne in a dramatic way, the Afghan Taliban strategised the national education system by establishing more religious seminaries, and the number had swelled to 23000 in May 2025. Experts and human rights observers describe this as a systematic effort to exploit religious education for long-term ideological control and militant recruitment. Religious seminaries traditionally played a positive role across the Islamic world, with an undeniable contribution in producing scholars, philosophers, and jurists within a pluralistic intellectual tradition. However, the Taliban’s recent approach represents a sharp break from this heritage.
The education policy of the TTA regime is not about preserving Islamic learning but about transforming the so-called teaching discourse into a mechanism for ideological control with an obvious desire to seek blind obedience from the students. Historically, religious seminaries or Madaaris encouraged intellectual diversity, debate, and informed engagement with philosophy, science, and literature. Significant contributions of the Muslim scholars to the fields of philosophy, medical science, mathematics, and geometry are proven and acknowledged worldwide. Contrary to this bright tradition, TTA shifted the focus to armed struggle by using the pretext of a controversial interpretation of Jihad. As per available reports, the Taliban interim government desires to establish three to ten state-funded ” madrasas” in every district of Afghanistan.
It is also a bitter fact that over a period of time, colonial disruptions, nationalist movements, and the rise of political Islam narrowed the scope of religious education. The unelected Afghan Taliban regime represents the most extreme outcome of this politicisation, which is based on a totalitarian reinterpretation of Islam that rejects pluralism and critical inquiry on matters related to statecraft, governance and human rights. After 2021, TTA moved quickly to reshape Afghanistan’s entire education system, not only expanding madrasas but also redesigning school curricula.
It is a bitter fact that over a period of time, colonial disruptions, nationalist movements, and the rise of political Islam narrowed the scope of religious education.
Analysts at international media have referred to leaked internal documents revealing the Taliban’s plans to fully remodel education, replacing existing curricula with content aligned to the Taliban’s self-style ideology. The regime has explicitly stated that schools for girls will not reopen until the ideological overhaul process is complete. The Taliban’s strategy seeks to embed their worldview into Afghanistan’s social fabric by shaping young minds, thereby securing long-term control and ensuring generational continuity of their rule. Access to food aid, employment, and social services is increasingly linked to families sending their children to Taliban-approved schools.
This effectively coerces participation in an education system designed to produce ideological loyalty rather than independent thought. According to UN assessments, the Taliban also maintain links with more than 20 regional and global extremist organisations, reinforcing concerns that this educational expansion serves a deeper terror agenda. The implications extend far beyond Afghanistan. The exploitation of religious education on such a massive scale in a poorly governed country like Afghanistan merits a collective response from regional and international stakeholders. Pakistan, being the major sufferer, has explicitly raised concerns about terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. This is neither good for the regional peace nor suited to the interests of common Afghan citizens.
The writer is a freelance contributor based in Islamabad.