Religion and the State in China: The Limits of Institutionalization

Abstract

Written after Western forces fully pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, this chapter looks at the rise of the Taliban and its ideology and forecasts alternative futures based on the leadership, experience, and belief system of the Afghan Taliban. Part of this analysis considers the competing ideas and actors involved in the most recent takeover by the Taliban regime, which now includes a mix of Pashtun nationalism, severe Salafist trends, as well as the more pluralistic Hanafi influences that are present in the minds of the most recent multigenerational iteration of the Taliban. The chapter also looks at the roots of a modest political theology and the Taliban’s disdain for popular sovereignty and other democratic concepts, concluding with reflections on future possibilities for the people of Afghanistan who find themselves, once again, at the crossroads of another regime-change crisis involving a cultural upheaval.