Taliban follow strict Islamic creed that doesn’t change with the times, scholars say 

 The return of the Taliban, a word meaning “students,” to control in Afghanistan marks the return of a top-down set of strict beliefs unlikely to evolve with the times, scholars who have studied the group say.

The Taliban say they follow the tradition-bound Salafi school of Sunni Islam that hews to the teachings of the first three generations of Muslim believers, beginning with the Prophet Muhammad’s generation. The teachings of these “pious predecessors,” as Salafists call them, form the basis for what their adherents follow today, including a rejection of religious innovations in Islam since the eighth century. The Sunni/Salafi Islamic school “is one of the strictest interpretations of the Islamic tradition,” where the “literal meaning is adhered to. And any input by intuitive reason is doubted or rejected,” said Abdulaziz Sachedina, the chair in Islamic studies at the International Institute of Islamic Thought at George Mason University in Fairfax…. (Excerpts from the Washington Times)