Taliban Turn Out the Lights: Kabul’s Ban on Corneal Transplants Blinds Afghans in the Name of Islam

In yet another edict that defies both medicine and mainstream Islamic scholarship, the Taliban regime has ordered surgeons in Afghanistan to stop corneal transplants, the only treatment that can restore sight to people blinded by corneal disease or injury. According to doctors who spoke to The Telegraph, Taliban officials have ruled the procedure impermissible under their reading of Islamic teachings, and hundreds of Afghans every year will now be denied sight-saving surgery.

The order was reportedly delivered verbally, with surgeons told to halt operations and the transplant programme stopped in August. Patients already registered for surgery, including victims of bomb blasts, have simply been turned away.

This is not an isolated decree. In December 2024, the regime imposed a sweeping ban on organ transplants, declaring the transplant of the heart, kidneys and lungs “un-Islamic.” Afghan Islamic scholars questioned that justification at the time, pointing out that leading contemporary jurists allow voluntary donation. The corneal ban extends the same twisted logic to the eyes.

The Taliban’s claim to speak for Shariah collapses under scrutiny. Research on Islamic legal opinions finds that Islamic jurisprudence overwhelmingly supports corneal donation as a permissible and charitable act. Across the Muslim world, from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, corneal transplants are routine. What Kabul calls religion is in fact the regime’s own narrow, self-serving interpretation, imposed on a population that has no voice.

Pakistan has seen this pattern before. Earlier this year, the Pakistan Ulema Council declared the Taliban’s new penal code un-Islamic, saying it contradicts the Quran and Sunnah and offends human dignity. The corneal ban confirms what Pakistani scholars have warned: the Taliban are using the name of Islam to justify cruelty.

The contrast with Pakistan could not be sharper. Through partners such as the Illinois-based Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA), free corneas have been supplied to Pakistan since 2017, restoring sight to 10,000 people. APPNA says the Taliban’s directives have severely disrupted the programme and has urged Kabul to allow the transplants in a country devastated by decades of war.

While Pakistan treats the sick, Kabul punishes them. Those in the region and beyond who keep lecturing Islamabad while legitimising the Taliban must now answer a simple question: what kind of government blinds its own people and calls it faith?

SAT Commentary

SAT Commentaries, a collection of insightful social media threads on current events and social issues, featuring diverse perspectives from various authors.