They call it the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice, but the Taliban are actually reestablishing an empire of fear. In the empire of fear, people don’t dare step out of line, not out of an authentic understanding that the path of moral and ethical uprightness is preferable to the alternative, much less out of love for God, but because they are afraid of what would happen to them if they did depart from Islam’s vision of morality. Were people unable to choose to do evil, their choosing of the good is merely a manifestation of fear and the power of coercion. Those who have no choice but to be good demonstrate nothing about whether their beliefs enable or inspire them to choose the good when they could just as easily not do so.
“The Taliban is bringing back its feared ministry of ‘vice’ and ‘virtue,’” by Haq Nawaz Khan, Ellen Francis, and Adam Taylor, Washington Post, September 8, 2021:
The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, morality police roamed the streets, implementing the group’s austere interpretation of Islamic law — with harsh restrictions on women, strictly enforced prayer times and even bans on kite-flying and chess.
Nearly 20 years later, the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is back….
It was disbanded by then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and replaced by the Ministry for Hajj and Religious Affairs. Karzai’s cabinet approved a less powerful Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Discouragement of Vice in 2006 amid pressure from conservatives….
Accounts from the time detail forces patrolling the streets, shutting down shops and markets at prayer time. They beat people caught listening to music and frowned upon dancing, kite-flying and American-style haircuts.
Squads of the ministry’s morality police punished those who disobeyed modesty codes, with beards too thin or ankles that showed. They banished girls from school and women from the workplace and the public eye. A woman could not venture outside without a male guardian….
“The ministry has not started working yet. Its duty will be to preach virtues and teachings of Islam, and prevent people from vice [and] unlawful acts,” he said. “It is an important ministry.”…
gravenimage says
Afghanistan: Taliban bring back their Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice
……………
This is orthodox Islam–“enjoining the good and forbidding the wrong”. This is Hisbah–incumbent on all pious Muslins to enforce–with violence, if necessary.
This is in the Qur’an:
“Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity.”
— Quran 3:104
“Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are transgressors.”
— Quran 3:110
And the Hadith:
Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri reported that the prophet Muhammad said, “Whoever amongst you sees an evil, he must change it with his hand. If he is not able to do so, then with his tongue. And if he is not able to do so, then with his heart, and that is the weakest form of faith”.
And we have all seen what Islam considers “virtue” and “vice”. This is not how civilized and decent people think.
PRCS says
IMO, the West’s primary failure re: Afghanistan is the fairytale belief that it could ever be recreated as a democracy.
Theocracies govern in accordance with “divine” law.
Islam is a totalitarian theocracy. It is that “nation’s” official religion. 99.7% of its population is Muslim.
Despite the reality staring them in the face, so-called journalists, leftists, and our “leaders” never did, still don’t, and likely never will understand that.
Infidel says
One thing I was wondering: does Saudi Arabia still have this ministry? I read that their powers were greatly eroded by the 2016 reforms of MbS
So now countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and so on would have stricter islamic laws than even Saudi Arabia, which is saying something
Wellington says
As usual with evil, projection is a major characteristic. Was with Nazis, ditto for Marxists, and for 1400 years with Buttlims.
As here with the Taliban (and what wonderful and devout Buttlims they are).
Buraq says
The only “religion” to make vices out of virtues: independent thought, freedom of expression, women’s rights. The list goes on. Clowns!
Grace says
Will Biden acknowledge and admit–“I did that” a sticker being posted on American gas pumps deserves to be spread around, . Does the pretender in the White House even realize the whirlwind he has unleashed?
somehistory says
One of the things the media shared 20 years ago, was the taliban going about with their whips and sticks enforcing their form of “law” on the poor women and children.
Diane Sawyer and Ashely Banfield “were there” after the military had made the streets safer, but even then, they had to don the required clothing.
Viewers could witness stoning of rape victims in pits of sand, the oh-so-virtuous taliban members administering “justice.”
There is no virtue, no value, no law and no justice in islam. No freedom, no fairness, no equal treatment, nothing good in all of islam.
Yes, a “ministry of vice.” The taliban are the very epitome of vice
It is demonic through and through.
gravenimage says
+1
Fred van de Bunt says
They are full of vice themselves, thinking they have the right to force THEIR law of God.
Vanity is a sin under Gods ruling, and the one that sees oneself as the vain ruler of God is a sinner, that will not lightly be judged upon.
Those Taliban will burn eternally, ruthlessly, mercilessly under Gods commands.
Hugo says
You are just as close minded as they are.
gravenimage says
So you believe that staunch anti-Jihadist Fred van de Bunt is as close minded as the Taliban who are using little girls as sex slaves, mass shooting victims in the head, and burning women to death for “bad cooking”? On what possible basis?
Wellington says
Huge difference, Hugo. Fred is going to let God alone deal with them while, per Islamthink, Muslims also have the right in addition to Allah to deal with the “wayward.”
So very tired of the moral equivalency reasoning out there. It’s tedious. It’s wrong. It’s uninformed. And it’s stupid.
Wake up, Hugo.
PMK says
Tyranny and freedom cannot co-exist. Islam is tyrannical at its core. It requires absolute and total power in order to function. As long as Muslims tolerate it and seek to spread it, there is nothing anyone can do for them.
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
Just you wait! There’s bound to be a bumper crop of Nobel Prize winners coming out of this backward half-assed regime comprised of illiterate homicidal hillbillies and their browbeaten citizenry.
Hugo says
But this cannot be true, Barak Obama said that there is no religion more peaceful than Islam.
tim gallagher says
Islam is a barbaric load of crap. Islam’s concepts of vice and virtue are, when compared to civilised, decent, non-Muslim countries, totally upside down. Muslims would not recognise virtuous behaviour if it came up and bit them on the bum. However, they do know how to indulge in every imaginable vice known to man. That is pretty much all that they spend their useless lives doing – indulging in endless inhumane vice.
CogitoErgoSum says
I hope they learn the virtue of fasting too – from just about everything, especially food.
Infidel says
You mean real fasting, right? Ramadan is just flipping night and day – they fast during the day, feast at night, and at the end of that month long ‘fast’, many become obese
CogitoErgoSum says
Yes, I mean fasting until pig meat starts looking good to them and they want to plow under their poppy fields to grow turnips.
OLD GUY says
Prevention of VICE, are you kidding me. Islam is Vice, Murder, Rape, Drugs, Child forced Marriage, Honor killing, Wife beating, having sex with a corpus and don’t forget throwing gays off of high-rise buildings while having sex with young boys.
What VICE did I leave out?
Come on lefties help me out here.
Is this what you want for America?