KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the group quickly launched what officials called a “purification” campaign aimed at stripping the country of civil laws and institutions to build an entirely Islamic society.

A year and a half later, the Taliban has gutted the country’s justice system in its campaign to forge a religious emirate, by scrapping the constitution and replacing the legal code with rules based on a draconian interpretation of Islamic law. The Taliban has filled prisons to overflowing, deprived men and women of basic civil rights, and eroded social safety nets meant to protect the most vulnerable Afghans. It is also seeking to transform the media, using it to promote its vision for the country and restricting content deemed un-Islamic, including music and the presence of women.

The Taliban’s critics say this effort has replaced a social order based on rights with one maintained by fear and intimidation. Taliban officials and some Afghans, however, credit the campaign with improving security and eliminating corruption 

“We have returned humanity to the country,” said Mawlewi Ahmad Shah Fedayii, a prominent imam with close ties to the Taliban, speaking outside his mosque in Afghanistan’s second city of Kandahar. He said Taliban rule has improved the lives of all Afghans, including women, and given the people greater freedom of speech. “Before, women were forced to work, to labor, but now they are kept at home and treated like a queen,” he said.

Fedayii, who has preached in Kandahar for over a decade, blamed Afghanistan’s problems under the previous government on “man-made laws,” which allowed corruption, violence and poverty to flourish. “They had a constitution half taken from Islamic law, but the other half was corrupt laws,” he said. “If you had half a glass of pure milk and then poured dirty water into it, you wouldn’t drink it. It makes the entire drink dirty. It was the same with the constitution.”

Taliban judges say they either burned the books containing laws from the previous government when they moved into abandoned courthouses after the 2021 takeover or left the legal volumes untouched on the shelves.

Within recent months, the purification campaign has escalated further, with the Taliban formalizing these legal and policy changes. The group’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, has become more vocal about subjecting alleged criminals to Islamic law, and this has translated, for instance, into more frequent public beatings.

“The rulers are compelled to make efforts to create an Islamic sharia system and bring reforms to [Afghan] society,” a deputy Taliban spokesman, Qari Muhammad Yousef Ahmadi, told The Washington Post. He said imposing the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law “is a blessing for the government, the people, and it pleases God.”