Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, has called on religious clerics to promote the preservation of the Taliban administration from their pulpits, saying the Islamic narrative of jihad originated in religious schools.
Speaking on Wednesday at a ceremony for students at a religious seminary, Baradar said clerics “must, alongside their religious duties, also strengthen among the people the spirit of preserving the Islamic system and national interests.”
Baradar said religious seminaries form the foundation of jihad and ideological thought. He said the narrative of the obligation of jihad emerged from madrassas, spread to villages and cities, and developed into action and confrontation that, in his words, “defeated the great armies of disbelief.”
Speaking amid signs of internal differences within the Taliban administration, Baradar added that religious schools “must, under all circumstances, preserve their main and fundamental path.”
His remarks follow a speech a day earlier by Neda Mohammad Nadeem, the Taliban’s minister of higher education, who warned of “distrust” and “divisions” within the Taliban during an address at a jihadist madrassa in Kabul, saying the survival of the administration depends on maintaining unity.
The comments also come days after Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister, criticised the group’s treatment of the public in a speech in Khost province last Friday.
In that address, Haqqani denounced what he described as a “government of fear and intimidation,” saying: “We, who were once condemned by the world’s empires, now lack tolerance and instead condemn and humiliate our own people.”
Haqqani urged Taliban officials to treat the population in a manner that would reduce hostility and resentment.
