The Taliban continue their harassment of the culture in Afghanistan. Dozens of musical instruments and equipment were burned in a bonfire this Saturday in the province of Herat. The reason for burning: consider that music is immoral.
"The promotion of music leads to moral corruption and the reproduction of music misleads the youth," said Aziz al-Rahman al-Muhajir, head of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Herat province. .
Some of the items burned in Herat included a guitar, a harmonium, two string instruments and a tabla (a bongo-like kettledrum), as well as amplifiers and speakers. Many of the instruments had been seized in spaces intended to celebrate weddings in the city.
Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban authorities have continuously imposed laws to enforce their austere vision of Islam. Among the various measures, the ban on playing music in public.
"The people of Afghanistan have been denied artistic freedom... The burning of musical instruments in Herat is just one small example of the cultural genocide taking place in Afghanistan under the leadership of the Taliban," said Ahmad Sarmast, founder of the National Institute of Music of Afghanistan, to the BBC.
The Taliban government reported on July 19 the burning of other musical instruments that had been confiscated in previous months, considering that they went against the strict interpretation of Islamic or sharia law.
The authorities destroyed those equipment and instruments that "were used for the promotion of music and degeneration," the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said in a statement.
In a separate statement, the ministry urged Afghan citizens "not to play music at wedding parties," as well as to avoid unnecessary expense and traditions at such ceremonies.
Instruments such as the timpani, the guitar or the rabab (similar to the lute) are part of the variety of classical music sounds that set the scene for weddings and musical programs in Afghanistan, until they were banned when the Taliban came to power.
Although the strict interpretation of Islamic law prohibits music in any form of expression, most religious scholars point out that only music that employs negative poetry or is considered to mislead people into anti-sharia ways of thinking should be banned.
From the mid-1990s to 2001, during the period when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, the broadcast of music at social gatherings, television and radio was prohibited.
