Enayatullah Sahar, Taliban’s Director of Education in Bamiyan, has instructed district education departments to collect and remove "Shia Jurisprudence" textbooks from "schools where students follow both Hanafi and Jafari jurisprudence”.
Sahar stated that a new book is being prepared and will be distributed to teach both forms of jurisprudence.
In an official letter addressed to the education departments of seven districts in Bamiyan, it has not been specified which jurisprudence textbooks should be collected. However, sources from Bamiyan told Afghanistan International that the process of collecting Shia jurisprudence books from schools began in recent days.
Similarly, sources from Balkh province in northern Afghanistan reported that the process of collecting Jafari jurisprudence educational books from schools in parts of this province has also started.
Previously, the Taliban halted the teaching of Jafari jurisprudence in universities and higher education institutions in Afghanistan.
In the past three years, resuming the teaching of Jafari jurisprudence in educational and higher education centres has been one of the main demands of the Shia Ulama Council from the Taliban.
However, in March 2023, the Taliban's Ministry of Higher Education formally rejected the Shia Ulama Council of Afghanistan's request to include Jafari jurisprudence in the educational curriculum.
The Taliban ministry justified its decision in a leadership council meeting resolution, stating that accepting this request would lead other sects in Afghanistan to also demand separate curriculums.
