The Taliban in Afghanistan is establishing thousands of new religious schools and exerting its control over other educational institutions. This will likely create a generation susceptible to violent extremism.
Keywords: Taliban, madrasas, Afghanistan, extremism, conflict transformation
The Taliban regime has embarked on a transformation of Afghanistan’s education system since the withdrawal of US troops from in August 2021.
The regime has systematically changed the curricula of schools and universities and dramatically expanded and homogenised the madrasas, religious schools, as part of a deliberate strategy of building a totalitarian system of control. The Taliban’s dramatic expansion of madrasa networks, funded and directed by state resources, represents an unprecedented attempt to reshape a new generation through the systematic production of ideologically aligned constituency on a scale never before witnessed in the region.
The dramatic expansion of the madrasa system is central to the Taliban’s strategy of building and consolidating an ideologically repressive regime, in which Islamic education is a central pillar of control and regime consolidation. By taking the madrasas out of their traditionally diverse and community-oriented structures, the system is designed to train a generation of loyal ideological clerics whose education is based on the Taliban’s violent and intolerant interpretation of Islam.
The implications of institutionalising madrasas as instruments of totalitarian consolidation are multifacetedundermining state capacity, deepening sectarian divisions, and creating new threats to regional and international security.
Background to madrasa transformation and violent conflict
Before the advent of modern state education, madrasas were the primary medium of education for not only the ulema (religious scholars) but also civil servants, poets, historians and astronomers in the Islamic world. For example, Dars-i Nizamiyya (the Nizami Curriculum), which was introduced in the early 1700s under the Mughal Empire, included both studies of the Quran and rational sciences such as philosophy, logic, and mathematics. These centres of learning were sidelined by education systems introduced by the British in the Indian sub-continent and Tsarist Russia in Central Asia. Consequently, for much of the 1900s the madrasas co-existed as a parallel system of education alongside the formal schools that became known as maktab in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s first public school, the Habibia High School, was established in 1903 in Kabul. Taught by a combination of local and Indian and Turkish teachers, the school primarily attracted and educated members of the aristocratic and royal family for bureaucratic and military positions. In subsequent decades, the government gradually expanded these public schools in Kabul and other provinces for the wider population. However, enrolment remained limited and local madrasas continued to serve as the primary centres of education in remote and regional areas. These centres were pedagogically diverse, reflecting the traditional pluralism of theological thought and local adaptation.
The madrasa sector began to experience a radical transformation due to waves of Islamisation in the region during the 1980s. In Pakistan, General Ziaul Huq embarked on a policy of Islamisation in Pakistan after seizing power in a coup in 1977. This was followed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in the predominantly Shi’a Iran, that politicised and radicalised a large section of the Shi’a religious networks and institutions across the region. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 caused religious mobilisation that was framed as holy war, or jihad, and was supported by a coalition of Islamic and Western countries. The ensuing conflict fundamentally transformed the ideological orientation and political economy of madrasas. In Pakistan, funding from Gulf states and local government support led to the mushrooming of madrasas that adopted a more radical curricula, including a fundamentalist Salafi outlook that was effective in training a generation of militant fighters against Soviet forces across the border in Afghanistan. Due to Ziaul Huq’s support, and the new geopolitical relevance of these networks, the number of madrasas in Pakistan increased from 900 in 1977 to 8,000 registered and 25,000 unregistered, with about 500,000 students in 1988. The combination of these factors gave rise to new madrasas that were ideologically militant, economically more independent of local communities, and pedagogically more homogenous and radical.
In the meantime, millions of people fled Afghanistan across the border into Pakistan. Without access to formal education, many families enrolled their children in these madrasas which also provided boarding and food. Most notable was the Deobandi Darul Uloom Haqqania madrasa, outside Peshawar, which ‘educated more Taliban leaders than any school in the world.’ As Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid documents, the networks of madrasas also provided some of the largest sources of recruits for the Taliban’s military campaigns in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Madrasa expansion since 2021
Since the US withdrawal in August 2021, the Taliban has embarked on an unprecedented programme of madrasa expansion as part of its broader programme of building and consolidating its repressive regime. The Taliban has supplemented private donations with public resources, despite severe fiscal constraints, to register existing madrasas and build new ones. It has also centralised madrasa governance and replaced previously diverse orientations with standardised curricula.
In August 2023, Taliban’s Ministry of Education announced there were 6,830 officially registered madrasas across Afghanistan, which shows a dramatic increase from 1,212 under the former government until 2021. By September 2024, the ministry reported to have registered more than 21,00 madrasas, including 19,669 general madrasas, 1,277 dar al-hefaz (institutions focused on studies and memorisation of the Quran), 115 dar al-olum (high-level centres of learning) and 39 orphanages. The combined student population was 3,678,200. In terms of the number of institutions, the madrasas exceed the total number of 18,000 public and private schools in the country. In September 2025, the number of madrasas increased to 22,972. In May 2025, the ministry also reported the allocation of 87,592 salaried positions for the madrasa sector to which 73,738 personnel were already recruited.
Despite growing concerns about the Taliban’s educational policies, some madrasas are funded by foreign sources. In 2022, the Turkish humanitarian group, Aid & International Development Forum, signed an agreement with the Taliban’s Ministry of Education to build five large religious schools across five Afghan provinces. Uzbekistan, a neighbouring state that enforces strict control on religious education domestically, directly financed a massive a $US6 million flagship madrasa in Mazar-e-Sharif.
The dramatic increase appears to be the result of registration and standardisation of existing madrasas as well as the establishment of new ones. Therefore, the total number may include small centres of religious learning at local villages that were previously autonomous from the state. However, it is also clear that the Taliban regime is dedicating and diverting extensive resources from other critical public services to build new schools. In April 2022, the Taliban’s Minister of Education announced a plan to build 3-10 madrasas in every one of Afghanistan’s more than 400 districts. In June 2022, the Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzadah, issued a formal decree to establish jihadi madrasas in every province, which, as the name indicates, focuses on combining religious education with militant ideology. These institutions teach centrally approved curricula by salaried clerics, and each include a dormitory housing 500-1,000 students.
The Taliban has changed both the curricula and staff of formal education (schools and universities) to align with Taliban ideology, removing subjects and resources deemed ‘un-Islamic and reducing technical and scientific training. In August 2026, the regime ordered that the teaching of law, political science, and international relations subjects and degrees be phased out from the curriculum of private universities, which had emerged as relatively more open and critical institutions of learning and teaching before the Taliban’s return to power. These changes are so profound that many in the university sector claim it amounts to the ‘madrasafication’ of the sector. This trend is also reflected in the distribution of resources and public buildings from general public education to support madrasa expansion. There are multiple reports of dozens of school buildings, especially girls’ schools, technical training centres, and teacher training institutes being converted into madrasas or dormitories for religious students.
Militarisation and ideological control
The Taliban aims to turn educational institutions into a centralised state-funded programme that trains a new generation of supporters from whom they can recruit fighters and suicide bombers, as they have done so historically. The madrasa system is directed by departments such as the General Directorate of Jihadi Schools of the Ministry of Education, which produces and oversees a uniform curriculum, including Taliban approved textbooks, that emphasise dogmatic theological and world views. Students and teachers at schools and universities are required undertake an examination which is reportedly prepared by the General Directorate of Intelligence and tests participants’ familiarity with the Taliban’s history, its leaders, and ideology. High-ranking regime officials openly reinforce this militaristic intent. For example, in December 2023, the Taliban’s acting Minister of Migrants, Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, emphasised that in addition to religious education, madrasa students must also be instructed in ‘jihadi and military thoughts so that they are prepared to defend the country and Islam at any time.’
The rapid proliferation of these schools also serves as a structural tool for totalising political control and consolidating power at the local level. By establishing several madrasas in every district, the Taliban is establishing a nationwide network of clerics and institutions that are financially independent of local communities, and politically loyal to the regime. The expansion of the madrasa system and the privileges provided by the regime to the clerics are restructuring power relations at village, district and provincial levels. This top-down imposition of a strict Deobandi orthodoxy aims to eliminate and actively discriminate against the localised, pluralistic religious and cultural practices historically native to Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and sectarian communities. In short, by replacing critical thinking with dogmatic instruction and the systematic denial of diversity of religious thought and practice, the regime uses these institutions to neutralise rival political and religious discourses and ideologies and ensure that local communities remain tightly bound to the dictates of its central leadership.
Economic control
This aggressive institutional saturation also functions as an economic mechanism to dismantle the legacy of the secular urban middle class and completely reshape the national labour market. Under the previous regime, state investment flowed predominantly into public schools and universities, fostering a generation of secularly trained technocrats, medical doctors, lawyers, engineers, and administrators.
The Taliban is actively reversing this dynamic by de-skilling the future workforce in modern civic education, critical thinking and public administration. Tens of thousands of madrasa graduates are issued certificates, which qualify them for recruitment as teachers in public schools and civil service agencies, despite lacking critical skills and wider training for these roles. In March 2024, some 51,000 graduates of Taliban madrasas sat for an examination which, if successful, would qualify them for appointment in the civil service and Taliban court system.
Trained civil servants are systematically being replaced by youth whose educational background is limited entirely to Taliban-sanctioned religious texts. By making madrasa enrolment a condition for accessing aid, the regime is also exploiting the economic vulnerability of families. This dynamic ensures that the future administrative apparatus of the country will be populated entirely by individuals who are dependent on the Taliban’s political patronage.
Marginalising ethnic and religious minorities
The Taliban’s madrasa network also intensifies internal conflict by further marginalising Afghanistan’s ethnic and religious minorities, most notably the Shia Hazara community. By institutionalising a rigid, Pashtun-centric Deobandi orthodoxy through the national curriculum, the regime systematically empowers radical, sectarian mullahs at the expense of moderate Sunni schools of thought and established Shia religious traditions. Shi’a madrasas, which have resisted control by the Taliban, are not entitled to receive funding and support provided by the Taliban regime. In fact, the Taliban madrasa teaching portrays non-Hanafi Islamic traditions ‘as guilty of bid’ah’ (invention of religion), and their adherents as part of conversion campaigns to Sunni Islam. Shi’a religious institutions and rituals are subjected to increased surveillance and intervention in Kabul and the Shi’a Hazara majority provinces of Bamyan and Day Kundi, where Taliban loyalists and madrasa graduates are appointed as members of the expanding Vice and Virtue forces, police commanders, and government officials. The teaching of Shi’a jurisprudence is excluded from schools and universities, and Shi’a students are subjected to increased discrimination in university classrooms and dormitories. This top-down erasure of indigenous religious pluralism reinforces the political, economic and political marginalisation of communities such as the Hazaras, Ismailis, and even moderate Sunni scholars and traditions.
Serious limitations on the education of girls
Following the regime’s absolute ban on girls’ public secondary and higher education, millions of girls and women were left with no prospects for education beyond primary school. The Taliban claims that special madrasas for women are an alternative avenue for women’s education and literacy. However, these institutions must be seen within the broader system of the Taliban’s gender apartheid in which madrasas for women are designed to reshape students according to the Taliban’s worldview, focusing on women’s submissiveness, modesty, and the divine justification of patriarchal structures. The weekly curriculum of female madrasas includes 12 subjects on religion and only four on science, mathematics, computer and social sciences.
Implications for peace and conflict within Afghanistan
The unprecedented expansion of the madrasa network demonstrates the complex relationship between conflict dynamics and religious education. Under the Taliban, these institutions are rapidly emerging as major drivers of long-term conflict and insecurity. The Taliban regime clearly aims to consolidate totalitarian control by training and embedding a new generation of centrally trained, ideologically synchronised mullahs across every public institution to police public consciousness and pre-emptively neutralise alternative religious and political discourses and visions. However, this aggressive prioritisation of ideological loyalty systematically hollows out the competence that will be required for long-term survival of the regime and state.
The costs of training and maintaining the madrasa network is also likely to be destabilising. Following the 2021 Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s economy contracted by a quarter, with national GDP dropping from $US20 billion to roughly $US14 billion. This triggered a widespread contraction of the private sector, leaving the state apparatus as the main source of employment.
Humanitarian aid has averted mass famine and the economy has shown some signs of recovery, but Afghanistan is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian situations globally. In 2026, some 28 million of its estimated 40 million people are in poverty, and shrinking international aid further threatens the fragile economy. The high costs of religious education, which also includes budgets for the ulema councils at national and provincial levels and an expanding Vice and Virtue police is compounded by systematic replacement of technocrats with ideologically compliant but technically incompetent madrasa graduates.
Therefore, the Taliban’s programme of building totalitarian control through madrasa expansion faces a major structural paradox: The madrasa system helps the regime establish a monopoly of control while also accelerating the erosion of structures and state capacity on which it depends for long-term survival.
By subjecting young men to an extremist curriculum that glorifies martyrdom and violence against perceived enemies, the regime normalises and institutionalises a militant worldview. This combination of intense indoctrination and economic precarity will create a huge cohort of graduates that neither the economy nor the Taliban’s political structures can sustain and absorb. Therefore, in the long-term, the madrasas are likely to be timebombs that will exacerbate factional politics, including the Kandahar networks, the Haqqani Network, and various field commanders that maintain competing spheres of influence over different regional madrasa networks. The graduates of these institutions may also find willing recruiters in the form of the Islamic State–Khorasan and other extremist networks that share a similar religious outlook with the Taliban but compete with it for resources and control.
Implications for peace and conflict beyond Afghanistan
The security risks of extremist madrasa education extend far beyond Afghanistan. Historically, the expansion of cross-border, madrasa-educated networks exacerbated sectarian conflicts in Pakistan and enabled transnational jihadist networks that grew far beyond what their founders anticipated in the 1980s. The contemporary expansion under the Taliban operates on a much larger scale, creating an unprecedented reservoir of potential recruits for sectarian conflicts and transnational militancy. Facilitated by fluid cross-border movement between Taliban madrasas and regional networks, particularly within Pakistan, these institutions will drive another wave of regional radicalisation that can be exploited by a range of transnational networks and actors. Consequently, the Taliban’s madrasa system risks training a generation of radical militants who can neither be absorbed by the local economy nor necessarily controlled by the regime’s own networks.
Image: A Taliban Humvee carrying armed men in Kabul street, Afghanistan, August 2021. Credit: Voice of America/Wiki Commons.
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