The Taliban has fired hundreds of beardless men from Afghanistan’s security detail over their clean-shaven appearance. The regime has also eviscerated thousands of musical instruments deemed to be fostering too much vice, keeping the ministry for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice very busy, The Telegraph reports.
Mohibullah Mokhlis, the director of planning and legislation at the virtue and vice ministry, told a press conference in Kabul that “281 beardless officers were identified, confirmed and dismissed” from the security services in the past year.
“The hairstyles of 450 military mujahideen were corrected to comply with Sharia law,” he noted. “And some who repeated the [hairstyle] violation were sent to military courts.”
The Taliban has actually outlawed barbers in some parts of the country from shaving or trimming beards, saying the dictate is part of Sharia law. This week, the leadership staged a massive parade of military hardware left by US force during President Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Kabul in 2021. Women living in the ultra-Islamic regime can only travel if they’re married.
Muslim men must grow a beard that is at minimum, the “length of a fist”, in accordance with Islamic law, which is resolutely observed by the Taliban.
Not being properly hirsute in Afghanistan is forbidden because the beard is considered “a distinctive feature” that men are blessed with to “set them apart from women” by the “divine wisdom of God”.
Former Taliban security forces told The Telegraph that their were fired for either shaving their beards or not growing one of mandatory length. “I cannot grow a beard, and they constantly called and harassed me,” said one officer who recently lost his job. “Around three months ago, the commander told me that I could no longer stay in the unit because of my beard.“ I joined them for financial reasons, but throughout my year with them, I faced lots of harassment over my inability to grow a beard. They would say I wasn’t a true Muslim,” he said.
“About 10 other people were also told that day not to return,” he added. “Some of them were middle-aged men with lots of experience, but they were dismissed simply because they did not have beards. I mean they cannot have one.”
The Taliban has also been highly engaged in ridding the country of musical instruments, demolishing 21,328 of them in the past year alone. Jalil Ahmad, a former guitar instructor in the western city of Herat, told how a Taliban morality squad invaded his house to confiscate and destroy all the musical instruments they could find – after beating him up.
“They knocked on the door, and I saw them through the window. I told my family not to open it, but one of them climbed over the gate and jumped into the yard. He unlocked the door and five more officers stormed into the house,” he said. "Cause they did not have beards, I mean they cannot have one.”
