The return of Taliban rule to Afghanistan will mean a return to sharia law, the group's interpretation of Islamic religious law, a senior Taliban commander declared on Wednesday after the Islamist militant group swept the country, ousting the U.S.-backed government.
The takeover has sparked fear and speculation about the future of Afghanistan.
"There will be no democratic system at all," Taliban commander Waheedullah Hashimi said in an interview with Reuters. "We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is sharia law and that is it."
Here are some of the basics.
What is sharia law?
In Arabic, sharia derives from a word meaning the way, or "the clear, well-trodden path to water." In practice, it is understood, interpreted and applied differently around the world, according to divergent traditions, cultural contexts and the role of Islam in government.
A body of religious rules to guide the day-to-day lives of Muslims, including prayer and fasting, it is based mainly on the Koran, Islam's holy book, as well as the words and teachings of the prophet Muhammad.
Leaders, clerics and practitioners take a diverse array of approaches to the traditions and precedents.
This could include a role for sharia in criminal law - a stringent code of punishment applied in very few countries - or Islamic personal law that governs issues like marriage, inheritance and child custody, which is more common across the Muslim world.
How has the Taliban previously applied its interpretation of
sharia in Afghanistan?
When the Taliban last controlled the country, from 1996 to 2001, the militants enforced a harsh interpretation of sharia law. Women were forced to wear burqas - the head-to-toe, face-covering garment - and could face beatings if they ventured outside on their own without a male guardian.
Schools for girls were shut. People who violated the Taliban's rules could be publicly executed, whipped or stoned.
Some parts of Afghanistan have remained under or returned to Taliban rule over the past two decades. In those areas, the group continued to impose strict rule, amid some modest signs of reform.
What does the Taliban say
about sharia?
The history of the Taliban's extremist rule means many remain fearful, despite some attempts to strike a conciliatory tone.
Hashimi, the commander, told Reuters that the rights of Afghan women would lie in the hands of a council of Islamic scholars. He outlined a system that bears striking similarities to the Taliban's previous rule.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters earlier this week that the Taliban would respect women's rights within the norms of Islamic law, but he did not elaborate. He also offered a vague pledge to uphold press freedoms, conditioning that on journalists not working "against national values."
Abdulaziz Sachedina, a religion and politics professor at George Mason University who specializes in Islamic studies, said he thinks it will take time and effort for the Taliban to implement policies related to sharia law.
"It's easy to say, 'We'll implement sharia.' But it's not easy to implement," he said.
Sachedina said sharia law doesn't offer codified systems for the modern nation-state, such as commercial laws and administrative laws. "There isn't anything in sharia that says, this is the way you run the state," he said. "Sharia law is far from the modern nation-state as we know it today."
Why is sharia controversial
in the U.S. and elsewhere?
Some Western public figures have vilified sharia law, pointing to the implementation of physical punishments.
Among conservative politicians and commentators in the United States, fear of legally enforceable sharia law taking hold in the country is widespread, although it plays no role whatsoever in the U.S. legal system. Eleven states have taken proactive steps, enacting laws that would prevent sharia from playing a role in U.S. courts. Sharia is used by individuals and communities of Muslims.
Sharia law has come up in legal challenges across the United States in recent decades because some fear it could override U.S. law. Most legal and religious freedom experts say concerns about sharia law being used in the United States are a misreading of legal realities. They say sharia law is for religious groups to govern their internal workings but would not trump U.S. laws.
Islamic rules governing women's clothing have been a source of heated debate in some countries, especially interpretations calling on women to wear full burqa coverings. French law regulates Islamic face coverings in public spaces, and other European countries have enacted similar policies.
Interpretations vary across the Muslim world and often within counties. Unlike the Islamic State or leaders in Saudi Arabia, the Taliban identifies as a group of traditional Sunni Muslims who follow the Hanafi school of law, one of the four traditional Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence.