Reciting the Quran Aloud: A Crime for Women under Taliban Rule

Photo: AFP

“They do not let us read the Quran. They want to erase us from religion and society.”

As part of the Taliban’s ongoing campaign of repression against women, the group’s departments for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has recently warned women and girls in several provinces not to recite the Quran aloud during religious ceremonies.

The move has sparked strong reactions from Afghan women and once again exposed the Taliban’s gender-segregated and deeply misogynistic system.

Women in the provinces of Ghor, Ghazni, and Badghis say the Taliban have justified this restriction by claiming that “men who are not mahram might hear their voices,” effectively limiting even worship and Quran recitation for women.

According to women’s rights activists, this decision is part of the Taliban’s systematic policy to silence women’s voices in all social and religious spheres.

Sama Ebrahimi, a girl from Ghor province, told Zan News:

“Right now, reciting the Quran aloud under the Taliban’s rule is considered a crime. My father is a mullah and always tells me to read the Quran, but the Taliban say a woman’s voice is haram. They have forced us to perform even our worship in silence.”

Shazia Moradi from Ghazni also described this decision as a direct attack on the religious and human identity of women, saying:

“They claim to be Muslims, yet they do not allow us to read the Quran. Little by little, they want to erase us from religion and society; and then accuse us of disbelief.”

Marzia Forozan, a religious studies teacher from Badghis, said that the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has warned women not to use loudspeakers or raise their voices during religious gatherings.

Analysts say this latest order marks another phase in the Taliban’s ongoing project to erase women; a project that began with bans on education, employment, media work, and travel without a male guardian, and has now extended to silencing their voices and symbolic presence.

Under Taliban rule, Afghan society has effectively become a single-gender society; schools, universities, government offices, and even mosques now bear an entirely male face.

Nazila Mashal, a social affairs expert, said: “By silencing women’s voices in the recitation of the Quran, the Taliban are now seeking to erase women’s spiritual and cultural presence from public life entirely.”

Political analysts argue that these policies are rooted not in religion, but in power calculations and social control. By excluding women, the Taliban are building a structure in which decision-making, religious preaching, and the very definition of Islam are monopolised by men loyal to the group; a society with only one voice: the voice of the ruling Taliban.