IB History Emergence of Taliban Rule Including Sharia Law Notes

Taliban Rule and Sharia Law: Afghanistan to 2002

Origins and rapid expansion

1. The Taliban emerged around Kandahar in 1994 among religious students and former mujahideen fighters, with Mullah Mohammad Omar emerging as its central leader. Early support for the movement reflected exhaustion with civil war as much as commitment to its ideology.
2. Roadblocks, extortion and factional warfare had already damaged trade and civilian security across southern Afghanistan, and many communities initially welcomed a force that removed abusive local commanders.
3. The Taliban captured Kandahar in 1994 and Herat in 1995, and Kabul fell in September 1996 after rival forces withdrew rather than fight. These rapid victories combined real military momentum with negotiated surrender by exhausted opponents.

Pakistan's support and the Islamic Emirate

1. Pakistani officials saw the Taliban as a force capable of stabilising trade routes and limiting the influence of rival Afghan factions, and their support included access, advice and material assistance. The Taliban nonetheless retained its own Afghan agency despite this extensive foreign backing.
2. The Taliban proclaimed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and Mullah Omar adopted the title Commander of the Faithful. Authority under this system remained highly centralised in Kandahar and only weakly institutionalised elsewhere.
3. The regime enforced a severe, Deobandi-influenced interpretation of Islamic law, with punishments that included public executions and amputations. Religious policing of this kind became a defining instrument of Taliban rule.

Social control, opposition, and international isolation

1. Women were excluded from most employment and girls' secondary education, and their dress, movement and access to health care were tightly restricted. This gender policy imposed profound social and economic costs on Afghan society as a whole.
2. Hazara Shia communities faced persecution and massacres under Taliban rule, and the killing of civilians at Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998 became especially notorious. This religious and ethnic violence undermined Taliban claims to have restored national order.
3. The Northern Alliance retained territory in the northeast, and Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the Taliban's leading military opponent right up until 2001. Afghanistan therefore stayed divided despite Taliban control of most of the country's territory.
4. Only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ever recognised the Taliban government, and the regime's hosting of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda deepened its diplomatic isolation and drew international sanctions well before the US-led intervention of 2001.