In Afghanistan, musicians defy music ban to keep traditions alive

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — There was a time when music would fill many of Kabul’s streets, wafting out of cafes and restaurants, seeping out of homes in the warren of alleys that make up the Afghan capital’s music district.

Those days are long gone.

Since 2022, playing or listening to music has been officially banned throughout Afghanistan. The Taliban who seized power in 2021 have prohibited anything but religious music — unaccompanied vocal chanting — with the ban enforced by the feared morality police of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

“Music is forbidden in Islam,” said ministry spokesperson Saif ul Islam Khyber, adding that it “serves as a means of joy to Satan,” and that it “often leads to various other vices.” No one, he said, "is permitted to listen to music or to record songs and musical compositions.”

Many musicians and performers fled the country after the takeover. Those who remained sent their instruments abroad or hid them to save them from being smashed by authorities.

The music shops in Kucha-e-Kharabat, the neighborhood in Kabul's old city where many musicians lived, now sell other wares, from food and groceries to clothes and household goods. Anything except musical instruments.

Across Afghanistan, musicians lost their livelihoods overnight.

Yet for many, music is in their blood. It has flowed through their families for generations, and the thought of never playing again is unbearable. Every so often, some pull out their instruments and play in secret. A knock at the door could mean danger. Still, they play.

In a small home tucked down a narrow street, a musician pulls out three hand-carved wooden rubabs, a traditional plucked lute-like instrument that is an integral part of Afghan musical culture. Picking one up, he cradles it in his lap for a moment before beginning to play.

The resonant, warm sound of the rubab fills the tiny room.

“As long as I am alive, I will continue to play,” he says. “Perhaps I will do so in secret, but I will not allow (the rubab) to be silent. This is our culture, the traditions of Afghanistan which must not be silent; they must be revived and I will fight for that.”

In another part of Kabul, a singer echoes the rubab player’s determination.

“For now, music may not be performed openly, but no one can ever erase it from our hearts,” the singer said. “Whether in secret or in our dreams, we will continue to sing and play our music.”

Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of arrest.

Before the takeover, the singer had performed at concerts and celebrations. He, too, has hidden his instruments: a rubab, a harmonium, a flute, a tabla — traditional Afghan hand drums — and a keyboard.

“The day I brought my musical instruments home and covered them with a tarp felt as if I had been buried alive beneath that very covering, as if I were dead,” he said. “Music gave me life; it brought me fame and recognition. Without music, an artist is like a soulless corpse.”

Sometimes, he stands before his hidden instruments and weeps. “I beg my instruments for forgiveness, explaining that I can no longer play them.”

The rubab player taught music at a school and also owned a traditional musical instrument shop. The son and grandson of musicians, the shop and music were his family business.

But after the takeover, he packed up as many of the instruments as he could and sent them abroad. Others, he hid. The music shop shut down.

Losing the business was a heavy blow. Not just financially, but also emotionally, especially for his father. A short while later, his father died of a heart attack. The musician believes the loss of the shop was something he never recovered from.

Between teaching and the shop, the musician made a very comfortable living, earning about 10,000 afghanis ($150) a day, he said. Now, he barely makes 100 afghanis ($1.50) as a manual laborer. With a wife and children to feed, he’s now desperately poor.

For his part, the singer spent two years unemployed before friends helped him start a small business.

When the music ban was first imposed, a few underground performances continued. Both the singer and the rubab player performed at some.

But now, it’s just too dangerous.

“The situation was becoming increasingly difficult day by day, and government agents were actively searching for individuals like me to arrest them,” the singer said. He hasn’t performed at a secret gathering for four years now. “The risk is simply too high, and I do not want to end up in prison. I have young children.”

The rubab player said a gathering he had performed at was raided by the vice and virtue police after one of those attending took photos and sent them to the authorities. Many participants were arrested, but he managed to slip away. He hasn’t performed at a secret gathering since.

The rubab player learned how to play from his father — an art form handed down through the generations.

Despite the dangers, he says he will start teaching his eldest son.

“It’s a legacy from my father, and I want this heritage to continue,” he said. “From my grandfather to my father, from my father to me, and from me to my son, and so on. This tradition must continue.”

For the singer, music is so enmeshed in Afghan culture and identity that he believes it can never truly be silenced.

“No one can ever truly separate music from Afghan society," he said. "They are as inseparable as the fingernail from the flesh.”