The Emergent Taleban-Defined University: enforcing a top-down reorientation and unquestioning obedience under ‘a war of thoughts’

“The Taleban see changing higher education as central to rolling back the fekri jagra, or war of thoughts, which they believe the foreign interveners and the previous government imposed on Afghanistan in the period 2001-2021, as part of a longer historical process. Higher education, they believe, must be realigned to ‘religious and national values’ and dominated by ‘an Islamic and Afghan spirit.’ In their view, this necessitates overhauling and reinventing higher education. So far, this has had two characteristics.”