Taliban Music Ban: Musical Instruments Burned in Afghanistan

In July, thousands of dollars worth of musical instruments went up in smoke in a huge bonfire compiled by the morality police, who have been searching vehicles and homes to enforce the nationwide ban on music. In the western city of Herat, a guitar, a harmonium, a drum, amps, and speakers were sent into fire.

When the Taliban took over the country in August 2021, many musicians fled the country to Pakistan and India in fear that the group would enforce the ban on music. It happened during their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001. Those who remained in Afghanistan had no choice but to abandon their music career. Many burned and hid their musical equipment. Musicians caught by the morality police were humiliated and beaten with their instruments were burned. Music schools and universities have been empty for almost two years. 

The Taliban imposes a harsh brand of justice for territorial control and implements the strictest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world. Since the group seized power in Afghanistan, they have banned music and television, put women out of work, and jailed men whose beards were deemed too short. 

Music in Talibanism is considered un-Islamic. They believed music would cause “moral corruption” and “the youth to go astray,” an officer at the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry told BBC. Sermons and readings of the Koran, Islam’s holy book, have now replaced songs once heard at weddings and radios. Music of all forms was strictly prohibited in social gatherings, broadcasts, and radio. The morality police would also check MP3s and CDs in people’s homes and cars to ensure the restriction was in place. 

Music is one of the nine things — TV, which is considered an insult to Islam, men shaving beards, keeping birds, flying kites, objectionable literature, the internet, women going out alone, and labor’s day — being outlawed in the country.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where music is illegal. The bonfire in Herat isn’t the first instance where the Taliban burned music equipment. There have been many others reported. However, despite the Taliban’s intensifying restriction on music and all forms of entertainment, Afghan musicians residing abroad like Aria have not given up hope on preserving their cultural heritage.