ABSTRACT In this article we reflect on our efforts to study the prosecution of moral crimes in Afghanistan. In the process of collating information about men and women imprisoned for moral crimes such as adultery, we found evidence that pointed to large-scale incarceration of men for the uncodified crime of elopement. After establishing this fact through a careful review of official data, the article considers two interrelated themes. First, we argue that government attempts to conceal its extralegal practices cannot be reduced to the question of a corrupt bureaucracy or weak governance. Rather, they reflect a fundamental tension between a modern state’s interest in projecting the rule of (codified) law and societal expectations arising from both Islamic and customary law. Second, we suggest that officials seek to address this conceptual tension between the different bodies of law through a complex process involving both accommodation and concealment. In day-to-day judicial practice, ‘assimilation’ refers to attempts to rely on sharia provisions to accommodate customary practices which have no counterpart in statutory law. ‘Dissimulation’ refers to bureaucratic actions aimed at concealing the actual practices which make such extralegal accommodations possible.

中文翻译：

---

法律改革还是历史抹杀？阿富汗道德犯罪的政治

摘要 在本文中，我们反思了我们在研究阿富汗道德犯罪起诉方面所做的努力。在整理因通奸等道德犯罪而入狱的男女信息的过程中，我们发现了证据表明男性因私奔罪未成文而被大规模监禁。通过仔细审查官方数据确定这一事实后，本文考虑了两个相互关联的主题。首先，我们认为政府试图隐瞒其法外行为不能归结为腐败的官僚机构或治理不善的问题。相反，它们反映了现代国家在制定（编纂）法律规则方面的兴趣与伊斯兰法和习惯法产生的社会期望之间的根本张力。第二，我们建议官员们寻求通过一个涉及包容和隐瞒的复杂过程来解决不同法律体系之间的这种概念上的紧张关系。在日常司法实践中，“同化”是指试图依靠伊斯兰教法条款来适应在成文法中没有对应的习惯做法。“掩饰”是指旨在掩盖使这种法外便利成为可能的实际做法的官僚行为。