From the dusty lanes of Sperwan village in Kandahar’s Panjwai district and the barren deserts of Takhta Pul district emerges the story of a man who today rules Afghanistan through decrees and edicts, yet whose face and private life remain cloaked in secrecy.
Much about the life of Taliban leader Hibatulah Akhundzada exists in fragments, scattered between oral accounts, local narratives and limited public information.
Who is the man now known as the Taliban’s “Amir al-Mu’minin”, or Leader of the Faithful? And how did he rise from a village madrassa to become the most powerful figure in today’s Afghanistan?
Roots In Kandahar’s Harsh Frontier
Akhundzada was born into a religious and semi-nomadic family from the Noorzai tribe, specifically the Turkotai branch. His ancestral roots trace back to the Tangi area of Takhta Pul district in Kandahar, a vast desert belt stretching across Spin Boldak, Registan, Shorabak, Panjwai and Maiwand districts, and extending into Helmand province’s Garmsir, Bahramcha and Dishu districts.
The region is defined by drought, migration and survival. Water is scarce, farmland limited and livelihoods largely dependent on livestock herding. Residents move across difficult terrain shaped by sandstorms and harsh seasonal conditions.
Yet much of Akhundzada’s childhood appears to have been spent in Sperwan village in Panjwai district.
His father, Mullah Mohammad Khan Akhund, served as imam of the local Pay Maliko mosque. Villagers describe him as an ordinary religious cleric who lived modestly through teaching and leading prayers.
Afghanistan International reporter Abdullah Hamim, who travelled to the village, said residents remembered the family as simple and lower middle-class. Villagers appear to remember Akhundzada’s father more vividly than the Taliban leader himself, partly because Akhundzada spent much of his youth outside Panjwai and later in Pakistan.
According to local accounts, Akhundzada’s father maintained close ties with Mawlawi Abdul Rahim, a Noorzai commander associated with Mawlawi Yunus Khalis, one of the anti-Soviet jihadi leaders of the 1980s and a prominent faction leader within Hizb-e-Islami.
Public information about Akhundzada’s family remains limited.
Sources close to the Taliban leader say he has four sons from two wives. One of his sons was reportedly killed in 2017 during an attack on an Afghan security outpost in Helmand’s Gereshk district, allegedly by explosives he was carrying himself.
According to these accounts, his three remaining sons live in Kandahar. His youngest son is said to study religious subjects at a madrassa affiliated with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kandahar city.
Little is publicly known about his daughters or other members of his family.
The secrecy surrounding Akhundzada also extends to his inner security circle.
Sources familiar with his movements say three figures among his guards hold particular importance: two are his brothers-in-law and one is his son-in-law. They reportedly remain constantly by his side.
After the Taliban returned to power in 2021, his family settled in the Commando area of Kandahar city’s District 10. Before that, they reportedly lived in Quetta and the Kuchlak area of Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
Mystery, Rumours And Questions Over Identity
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Akhundzada’s life concerns speculation surrounding his identity and survival.
In 2018 and 2019, reports emerged of suicide attacks targeting the Taliban leader.
A source familiar with Akhundzada’s family told Afghanistan International that on 16 August 2019, he was wounded in a suicide bombing at his mosque in Kuchlak, near Quetta, during afternoon prayers. According to the source, one of his sons and a brother were killed in the attack.
But another narrative, circulating for years among some Taliban critics and local residents, goes significantly further.
According to these claims, Akhundzada himself was killed in the bombing.
One source alleged: “After the explosion, Hibatullah’s body was separated from his head. To prevent the collapse of the Taliban movement, his death was concealed, and his brother Hidayatullah began operating under Hibatullah’s name.”
The claims remain unverified.
However, they emerged at a time when the Taliban were already experiencing deep internal fractures.
The public revelation of the death of the Taliban’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, triggered serious divisions within the movement. The later killing of his successor, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, further intensified internal tensions.
For some observers, the announcement of a third leader’s death could have risked splintering the movement altogether.
Among some residents of Quetta and Kuchlak, rumours persist that the current Taliban leader is not the original Hibatullah Akhundzada but his brother Hidayatullah.
Afghanistan International has not independently verified these claims.
For many Afghans, the most striking aspect of Akhundzada’s rule is the contrast between his immense authority and his near-total invisibility.
The man issuing decrees that shape the daily lives of millions remains largely unseen, his image, movements and personal life tightly controlled.
To supporters, he is a hidden religious leader guiding the Taliban’s Islamic system. To critics, he is the secretive centre of an increasingly authoritarian regime.
And for many others, the question remains unresolved: is the man behind the curtain truly the same figure the Taliban claim him to be?
Residents of Kandahar who knew the Taliban leader’s family say the environment in which Hibatullah Akhundzada grew up played a decisive role in shaping his worldview and future path.
Sayed Dad Mohammad, a resident of Kandahar’s Zhari district, says Akhundzada’s father, Mullah Mohammad Khan Akhund, was a religious scholar and mosque imam whose family survived through teaching religion, leading prayers and traditional rural life.
According to him, Akhundzada spent his childhood surrounded by mosques, madrassas and conservative religious traditions because of his father’s clerical role.
“At that time, Kandahar’s rural society was deeply conservative, religious and traditional,” he said. “That environment had a profound influence on Hibatullah’s intellectual formation.”
Unlike many modern political leaders, Akhundzada received no higher education. His entire academic background was shaped through religious madrassas.
He began his early studies in Kandahar before continuing his education in Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s forced many Afghan clerics, fighters and families across the border.
Education In Pakistan’s Madrassas
According to Haji Nasrullah, a resident of Kandahar familiar with Akhundzada’s background, the Taliban leader gradually became known as a religious scholar, judge and mufti.
He said Akhundzada was among the early figures who joined the Taliban after Mullah Mohammad Omar established the group in 1994.
At the time, the Taliban portrayed themselves as a movement seeking to end corruption, insecurity and rule by warlords after years of civil conflict.
Akhundzada pursued religious studies in a number of madrassas in Quetta, Kuchlak and other parts of Pakistan’s Balochistan province. His studies focused on Hadith, Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), Quranic interpretation (tafsir), principles of Islamic jurisprudence and Sharia.
He later became a teacher himself and earned the title “Sheikh al-Hadith”, a respected designation within Deobandi religious institutions for scholars specialising in the sayings and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad.
Like many senior Taliban figures, Akhundzada’s ideological outlook was heavily influenced by Pakistan’s Deobandi madrassa network.
However, unlike several Taliban commanders who built reputations through military leadership during the insurgency, Akhundzada became prominent primarily through religious teaching, issuing fatwas and judicial work.
Within Taliban circles, he was regarded as a trusted religious authority whose responsibilities centred largely on religious rulings, ideological guidance and judicial affairs.
Trusted By Mullah Omar
Haji Nasrullah says Akhundzada enjoyed the confidence of Mullah Omar from the movement’s early years.
“Mullah Mohammad Omar had special trust in him and consulted him on important religious matters within the Taliban,” he said.
According to Nasrullah, Akhundzada was also considered one of the more hardline figures within the movement from the beginning.
“On many issues, he made decisions based strictly on his own beliefs,” he said. “Just as today he has blocked education.”
A resident of Kandahar and former Taliban member, who now opposes the group’s ideology, said Akhundzada taught Hadith, fiqh, tafsir and Islamic legal principles at several madrassas over the years.
Many Taliban members, judges, muftis and fighters, he said, once attended his classes.
After the Taliban first captured Kabul in 1996, Hibatullah Akhundzada rose steadily through the movement’s religious and judicial structures, gaining influence not as a battlefield commander but as a hardline religious authority.
During the Taliban’s first period in power from 1996 to 2001, Akhundzada served in several senior judicial and religious positions within the regime’s Sharia system.
His first known role was with the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Farah, where he was involved in enforcing the ministry’s strict social and religious directives on the population.
He later became head of the Taliban’s military court in Nangarhar and eventually served as deputy chief justice of the Taliban administration.
At the same time, he also taught at a Taliban-linked jihadist madrassa in Quetta, Pakistan, which was reportedly supervised directly by Mullah Mohammad Omar.
A former Taliban member from Kandahar, speaking anonymously, said the movement during that period imposed a rigid interpretation of Sharia law that included public executions, amputations, severe restrictions on women, bans on music and extensive social controls.
According to him, Akhundzada was regarded as a strong supporter of such policies and few inside the movement openly challenged his views.
Architect Of the Taliban’s Religious Judiciary
Within the Taliban structure, the Dar al-Ifta, the body responsible for religious fatwas and Sharia rulings, was considered one of the movement’s most powerful institutions.
Akhundzada remained closely connected to this apparatus for years and gradually emerged as one of its central figures.
The former Taliban member said Akhundzada’s responsibilities extended far beyond issuing religious opinions.
“Mullah Hibatullah issued religious fatwas regarding the war, prepared guidance for Taliban judges, set rules for Taliban fighters’ behaviour, provided religious justification for governance, offered Sharia-based solutions to internal disputes, and organised the appointment and training of judges for the religious courts,” he said.
His influence expanded particularly after the Taliban regime collapsed in late 2001 following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Former Taliban members say Akhundzada returned to Pakistan after the fall of first Taliban regime and became involved with the Taliban’s leadership council known as the Quetta Shura.
The Quetta Shura operated as the Taliban’s secretive leadership body during the insurgency years, overseeing military operations, organisational matters, political strategy and religious direction from across the border in Pakistan.
Another Taliban member, also speaking anonymously, said that although Akhundzada never developed a reputation as a front-line commander, he was widely viewed as the movement’s highest religious authority.
According to him, the Taliban gradually established parallel rural courts across large parts of Afghanistan during the insurgency years. Local residents frequently brought legal, tribal and family disputes before Taliban judges instead of approaching the then republic Afghan government’s courts.
Akhundzada was regarded as the head of this parallel judicial system.
He oversaw the appointment of Taliban judges, set religious principles for the courts and issued religious justifications for the insurgency.
The former Taliban member said Akhundzada’s positions during those years were, in some respects, even more uncompromising than they appear today.
The Man Who Rose From The Sands Of Sperwan
In May 2016, the Taliban faced one of the most sensitive moments in its history.
Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, successor to Mullah Mohammad Omar, was killed in a US drone strike at a time when the group was already struggling with a prolonged war, internal rivalries and growing instability within its leadership structure.
The Taliban’s system of allegiance and command had become increasingly fragile.
Against this backdrop, and while the insurgency against Afghan and international forces continued, Hibatullah Akhundzada was selected on 25 May 2016, just four days after Mansour’s death, by the Taliban’s 35-member leadership council as the movement’s new “Amir al-Mu’minin”, or Leader of the Faithful.
His appointment was widely viewed inside the movement as an attempt to reduce tribal tensions, prevent factional fragmentation and preserve a balance between the Taliban’s military campaign, religious authority and political structure.
A former Taliban member, Mullah Mohammad Younus, says the movement faced a serious leadership crisis following Mansour’s death.
According to him, Taliban leaders feared that appointing a military commander as the new leader could intensify internal rivalries and potentially split the movement.
At the time, Akhundzada was not associated with any major military faction and reportedly had relatively few internal opponents within Taliban ranks.
Pakistan, according to former Taliban figures, was also satisfied with his appointment.
“The Taliban believed Mullah Hibatullah possessed religious legitimacy, had remained close to Mullah Mohammad Omar, could maintain balance among different Taliban factions, preserve the movement’s religious unity and provide religious justification for both war and politics,” Younus said. “That is why the leadership council selected him as the new Amir al-Mu’minin.”
To strengthen internal cohesion, two influential Taliban figures were appointed as his deputies: Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob.
Since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021, Akhundzada has emerged as the group’s undisputed supreme authority.
Unlike previous Taliban leaders, however, he is widely regarded as an entirely non-military figure.
His influence has never primarily stemmed from battlefield command or military charisma. Instead, his authority has been built through religious rulings, fatwas, judicial rulings and his interpretation of Islamic law within the Taliban system.
Even after becoming Afghanistan’s de facto ruler, Akhundzada has remained largely absent from public view.
He rarely appears publicly, and most of his speeches, directives and political positions are communicated through written decrees, official statements or indirect messages delivered by Taliban spokesperson and senior officials.
Much of his personal life also remains deliberately concealed.
The Taliban release very limited information about the private lives of their senior leaders, and the secrecy surrounding Akhundzada has become one of the defining characteristics of his rule.
Some Taliban supporters argue that security concerns are a major reason for his invisibility. They point to threats from Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and rival militant groups, as well as the assassinations of previous Taliban leaders.
Others inside the group believe the secrecy also serves a symbolic purpose, preserving the sacred and untouchable image of the Amir al-Mu’minin.
When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, some Afghans and international observers expected the group to adopt a more moderate approach than during its first rule in the 1990s.
Over time, however, Akhundzada’s leadership has increasingly reconnected the Taliban to many of the policies and restrictions associated with its earlier regime.
Under his authority, the Taliban reimposed sweeping limitations on women and girls, enforced strict social controls and expanded the role of religious decrees in public life.
For critics, the group gradually returned to the ideological framework that first emerged from the madrassas and deserts of southern Afghanistan decades earlier.
