RASC News Agency: According to sources in Kapisa on, April 4, The Taliban have dismissed 24 professors from Al-Biruni University, accusing them of affiliation with Hizb ut-Tahrir. Local sources report that these dismissals followed a religious exam administered by the Taliban, in which the professors were deliberately failed. However, analysts suggest this move was politically and ethnically motivated, serving as yet another attempt by the Taliban to consolidate ideological control over academia. According to insiders, the dismissed professors were highly qualified academics with master’s and doctoral degrees from prestigious international institutions, including Al-Azhar University in Egypt, Oxford University, and Bilgi University in Turkey. These scholars, who had years of experience in their respective fields, were removed under dubious justifications.
Several of the dismissed professors stated that the exam was elementary, and they had provided accurate responses based on Hanafi jurisprudence. However, the Taliban arbitrarily deemed their answers incorrect. They further alleged that their removal stemmed from their intellectual independence and unwillingness to conform to the Taliban’s extremist ideology. Additionally, no appeals or objections were permitted, as the decision had been enforced at the direct order of the university administration under Taliban influence. Since seizing power, the Taliban have systematically sought to transform Afghanistan’s universities into religious seminaries, sidelining modern academic disciplines and replacing seasoned professors with clerics from Taliban-affiliated madrasas.
The group’s policies have particularly targeted non-Pashtun intellectuals, with Tajik and Hazara professors facing disproportionate dismissals. Over the past three years, similar purges have been reported across multiple universities, with the Taliban citing dubious academic evaluations as justification. Recently, the group dismissed two professors from Kabul University, claiming they had failed competency assessments a pattern increasingly observed in Taliban-controlled institutions.
By replacing academics with religious clerics, the Taliban are not only undermining Afghanistan’s already fragile higher education system but also entrenching a rigid ideological framework that suppresses intellectual diversity. As a result, the country’s universities are rapidly losing their status as centers of learning, instead becoming instruments of religious indoctrination and political control.
