Roughly 400 students at the the Tasnim Nasrat Islamic Sciences Educational Centre in Kabul range in age from about three to 60 – and 90% of them are female. They study the Quran, Islamic jurisprudence, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, and Arabic – the language of the Quran. Three years ago, the country’s Taliban government banned girls from secondary schools and universities. Afghanistan is the only country in the world to bar girls from education beyond primary school. Now, the only way girls can continue some kind of education is through religious schools, known as madrassas. Last September, Deputy Minister of Education Karamatullah Akhundzada said at least 1 million students had enrolled in madrassas over the past year alone, bringing the total to over 3 million.
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