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The Taliban has banned a lot of things ... but chess?
(www.npr.org)
religion is poison
The Taliban are ultra-reactionary religious conservatives. In other words, scum.
Anything that looks like a good time, they ban. Though they still rape boys for fun, since that's just Pashtu culture.
Queen is the most powerful piece on the board and they don't like that?
Last time this came up, I learned that the piece we in the west call queen (you guys in English anyway, in German its Dame (meaning Lady)) is actually called Vesir/Consultant in that region. I think Wikipedia has a list per language, quite interesting.
Wazir (Vesir in some languages) is a king's advisor. Consultant doesn't really fit. The role's more like a medieval chancellor.
That’s easy to fix… new rules where the king and queen swap roles. Although that would mean protecting a woman above the men so maybe not.
The woman barely has freedom of movement except once in her life and only by chauffeur.
The woman is never actually captured. The game ends when her capture is imminent.
The goal of the game is to kidnap someone else's wife.
Seems Taliban-friendly!
Actually, a piece that only moves or moves differently in the presence of another sounds like it could be interesting.
Castling
Lol, that's a good point.
They could just use random names that conform to their beliefs.
Only infidels think more than one move ahead!
All while raping 12 year old girls are totally fine.
And boys.
Some of those queens have awfully provocative curves. /s
The given reason is that it enables gambling. Presumably they'll also be banning the other sports and games that are mentioned in the article, including those deeply beloved of whoever it is setting these rules.
If not, we can safely assume that the ban is probably because it's something that might get the ordinary folk thinking for themselves, and that won't do. Can't be having the proles thinking for themselves, let alone practising an approximation of military strategy.
Alternatively, the top brass can't get their heads around chess and they're jealous that other people can, so therefore they ban it. (For this one, I cite myself. I'm so bad at chess that I can lose any game from a winning position by playing the moves I genuinely think are best, so I'm kind of jealous of anyone without this amazing anti-power. That doesn't necessarily mean I'd ban it, but if I was running a country, maybe that'd go to my head and I would.)
And let's not forget that it encourages thought, which terrifies religious conservatives.
they are not known for their intelligence
I could see chess being a problem for the Taliban a couple of different ways...
First, as in the article, gambling.
"Buh, buh, chess isn't gambling!" Tell that to any number of street chess hustlers in the US, and there are LOTS of them.
https://www.chess.com/blog/Rodgy/i-flew-to-new-york-to-play-hustlers
Second, graven images. The Taliban takes that seriously, to the point of blowing up Buddha statues.
In stricter Muslim countries, the chess pieces are more abstract-looking. That's not really the issue.
The real issue is that they hate anything that makes life enjoyable.
It's global and egalitarian, so it's banned.
butt chess?
They've been cracking down on it.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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