The Afghan authorities have banned the game of chess, declaring it inconsistent with the norms of Islam. According to Atal Mashwani, a spokesman for the sports directorate in the country’s leadership, “from the point of view of Sharia, chess is considered a type of gambling,” which contradicts the local law “on the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice.” The Islamist authorities in Kabul are generally wary of any entertainment, seeing in them either sinfulness or “undesirable” Western influence.
The Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice of Afghanistan plays a key role in such prohibitions. It is this department, which was restored by the Taliban (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) after coming to power in 2021, with the authority to monitor compliance with strict Sharia norms in public life. The Ministry has issued a number of rules since its establishment. In August 2024, the Laws of Virtue and Vice were officially published, an extensive 114–page document covering aspects such as public transport, music, the appearance of citizens (including shaving beards) and the format of holidays.
In addition to the ban on chess, other forms of leisure have come under attack. In the summer of 2024, the Taliban authorities banned mixed martial arts (MMA) tournaments, deeming the sport too violent and “contrary to Sharia law.” An even more significant case is the order to remove the heads of mannequins in store windows.
In January 2022, the Office of the Ministry of Virtue in the city of Herat ruled that the mannequins with human features displayed in the windows violated Islam’s ban on idolatry. All store owners were ordered to decapitate the mannequins, which many were forced to do: videos of entrepreneurs sawing off plastic mannequin heads spread on social networks. In Kabul, the mannequins did not survive either: initially they were threatened with complete “execution”, but later the sellers found a compromise by starting to cover the dolls’ heads with bags or cloth.
The ideology of “promoting virtue and eradicating vice” is not unique to Afghanistan. This concept goes back to the medieval Islamic principle of “hisba” – the duty of authorities to ensure the observance of religious norms in society. There are many states in the modern world where there are similar institutions of religious police or moral censorship agencies.
Saudi Arabia has a Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, also known as the mutawa (religious Police). It was established in 1926 and for decades has carefully monitored the strict observance of the norms of Wahhabi Islam in the kingdom.
There have been cases where harassment of inspectors has led to tragedies. The most notorious incident occurred in 2002 at a girls’ school in Mecca: a fire started there and led to a stampede, but the police did not allow the schoolgirls who ran out onto the street to escape, as they were not wearing an Islamic veil. As a result, 15 girls died.
Saudi mutawa has struggled for many years with any manifestations of “vice” in everyday life. Concerts, cinemas, and celebrations of any non-Muslim dates, including Valentine’s Day, were actually banned. Back in 2008, the religious police, under threat of punishment, banned shops from selling roses, postcards, and red souvenirs for Valentine’s Day, even to the point that patrols seized red roses, plush hearts, and other “romantic” goods from the windows.
However, in recent years, Saudi Arabia has taken a course to mitigate such norms. In 2016, the powers of the Committee of Virtue and Vice were radically curtailed: now religious inspectors do not have the right to detain violators on their own, but can only transmit information to the police.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, several structures serve as “guardians of public virtue.” Officially, since 2005, “guidance patrols” have been running through the streets of Iranian cities. Their main task is to monitor compliance with the Islamic dress code, primarily the wearing of hijabs by women. Patrols often detain women on charges of “improperly wearing a hijab” – for example, if the headscarf has slipped slightly and strands of hair are visible or the clothes are considered too tight.
In addition to patrols on the streets in Iran, there is a whole apparatus of Islamic authorities that monitor the “right way of life.” These include special police departments, Sharia courts, and committees for the Islamization of society that emerged after the 1979 revolution. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Orientation controls that there are no images forbidden from the point of view of Islam in the media and advertising. In 2010, this ministry banned the publication of advertisements related to pets in the press – cats, dogs, etc., in order not to encourage Western pet fashion.
There is no separate Ministry of morals at the federal level in Pakistan, but the Council of Islamic Ideology performs similar functions. It is a body of theologians that makes recommendations to Parliament and the government on the compliance of draft laws with the norms of Islam. The Council has repeatedly blocked initiatives, citing Sharia law.
An illustrative case: in 2016, when the province of Punjab passed a law on the protection of women from domestic violence, the Islamic Council strongly opposed it. In response, he even prepared an amendment: he proposed legalizing the “moderate beating” of wives by husbands in case of disobedience. The Council explained: “It should be easy to hit, for example with a handkerchief or a hat, and in no case in the face.”
Indonesia does not have a religious police institution at the national level, but the province of Aceh lives in a special autonomous regime, where Sharia norms have been introduced since 2001. In Nigeria, in its northern Muslim-majority states (Kano, Kaduna, etc.), Sharia and Hisba councils have been operating since the early 2000s. In 2021, the state of Kano banned mannequins in store windows, as in Afghanistan.
Sometimes similar initiatives are found in countries where Islam does not dominate at all. In Uganda, a Christian-majority state, until recently there was a post of Minister of Ethics and Integrity, which was actually the “minister of Morality.” Simon Lokodo, a Catholic priest who held this position, gained fame. In 2013-2014, he promoted the “pornography law,” in which he tried to ban almost any revealing clothing. Lokodo stated that women should not wear miniskirts.
This legislative fervor, reminiscent of the era of dictator Idi Amin (he also introduced a dress code in the 1970s), caused a storm of indignation among Ugandan women and the #SaveMiniSkirt campaign on social media. As a result, the “law on miniskirts” was not adopted, although a general ban on “pornography” was introduced – in theory, anything could fall under it.
Peculiar forms of “moral police” are also found in Asian countries with the dominance of other religions. In India, for example, local authorities and radical organizations periodically organize campaigns against “indecent behavior.” In 2017, in Uttar Pradesh, on the instructions of the Chief Minister, yogi, “anti-Romeo squads” were created – groups of police officers (often with the assistance of activists) who patrolled parks and campuses in order to “protect women from harassment.” In practice, these groups quickly turned into a tool of moral supervision over young people: they grabbed couples in squares, demanded documents, called the parents of minors, and publicly humiliated young people – for example, they were forced to do push-ups or shaved their heads as punishment for communicating with girls.
In Myanmar (Burma), in 2015, under pressure from Buddhist nationalists, a package of “laws on the protection of race and religion” was adopted. They restricted marriages between Buddhists and non-Believers, and complicated the procedure for changing religions. And in Sri Lanka, Buddhist clergy regularly seek bans on what they consider offensive to believers: there have been cases where tourists have been arrested for tattoos with a Buddha or expelled for “inappropriate” behavior at temples.
Despite the differences in religious and cultural contexts, all of these structures share a common feature – the desire to impose a certain code of “correct” behavior on society by force. Many of the prohibitions look absurd or outrageous. Nevertheless, similar initiatives continue to arise in different parts of the world. Each of them serves as a reminder of how differently the concepts of virtue and vice can be interpreted in different societies and by what ridiculous methods they sometimes try to introduce this interpretation.