Afghanistan's Taliban morality ministry pledged on October 14 to implement a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things, with journalists told the rule will be gradually enforced.
Not mixing fabrics and certain food practices were originally based on lived experience, like safety guidance, before getting coopted by religion. Kosher practices avoid cross contamination, and mixed fabrics could have something to do with temperature regulation in desert areas where it swings between extreme heat and cold daily. Or it could have existed to discourage lying about prodict quality by those who would sneak in poor quality materials.
When religion got ahold of these concepts they were absolutely twisted into controlling people.
These are not rules of Islam though. On the contrary Islam made many rules of Judaism obsolete, taking away complication in religion. Islam also provided a much clearer theology than Christianity and specifically rejects the "trinity", "holy people" and other concepts contrary to the oneness of god.
What the Taliban and other Salafi/Wahabi people do, is quite fringe and it is infuriating that the Brits and later the Americans helped the Saudis to seize power in Arabia and furthered these extremist interpretations.
According to wikipedia, that isn't even a problem within the Quran itself, but rather a hadith (oral tradition) from some other fellow: "Sahih Bukhari explicitly prohibits the making of images of living beings, challenging painters to "breathe life" into their images and threatening them with punishment on the Day of Judgment."
But they still have TV, right? They did the last time the Taliban was in charge. I remember a news segment about it way back when the war started. The programming was mostly a bunch of religious stuff and their idea of news. So I guess no more news? Or no more TV? Or just text...
That's accurate to historical Islamic practice, unlike a lot of their crazy shit, but nobody else does it because it's going to be insanely difficult to work with.
Except historically the arts flourished under Islamic rule. While Islam does have an anti icon streaks it was never enforced save for the depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
Obviously I'm not pro Taliban or this, but one thing that has been amusing me has been the US institute for peace decrying the fact that they outlawed poppy production again because it increases poverty. Western media on the subject is a mixture of it's bad and it won't work (they've actually reduced poppy production by over 90 percent though). Pre war we were justifying sanctions due to heroin production, post war it actually increased under American administration and the fragile kleptocracy we encouraged(which "banned" poppy production), and now it's bad they're slashing and burning poppy fields.
Are you Taliban and want someone dead, but frustrated with your fundamentalist movement's pesky adherence to the rule of law? Upset at the heretic you can't quite get proof of? Overbearing parents trying to arrange another marriage?
With new Taliban Ban on Images of Living Things®, you are back in the driver's seat. Just take a picture of your target. After it's done, the authorities will be practically begging you to murder that person to prevent the inevitable consequences, including the collapse of society and the rending of the fabric of space-time.
What is just so nuts is how much of an outlier and how incredibly new the bullshit the Taliban is doing, yet there are people who insist that all Muslims are copies of them...
Islamic fundamental extremism didn't really find its way into Afghanistan until the 80's. It was transplanted by the Saudi government who were in part supported by the United States as a way to counter the Soviet invasion.
If you actually ever get the chance to meet an actual Afghan family, I think you would be surprised of how kind they generally are, hospitality is a cornerstone of their culture.
I think it's important to realize that the cultural identity of the Taliban to America isn't actually based off of Afghan culture, it's based off of the Saudi, and that the Afghan people are the real victims of this .
I've met a few people from Afghanistan, but I can't say if they are representative of the country, because they did have to leave.
But they were very nice people indeed.