This is because idols as religious symbols should point to a higher truth. But when people cannot move beyond the symbols and become attached to them as truth, idolatry results. Despite these religious injunctions, I would argue that the decision by the Taleban leadership to demolish the Bamiyan Buddha statues was unwise politically and misguided spiritually because of their failure to understand the new idolatry, the impact of their actions on Muslims elsewhere, and the spiritual challenges facing Muslims today. In the century that saw the birth of Prophet Muhammad, the Syrian Monophysite Bishop Jacob of Saroug described a scene when Satan was lamenting its collapse of authority as a result of the recent disappearance of paganism. Devil's insight is an apt characterisation of the present age when everything can be bought and sold, from forests to islands in the oceans to the bodies and souls of daughters and sons, and dignity and honour.
Money becomes a new god in a world where the love of money replaces the spiritual quest.
If the Devil is right in pointing out that it is not gold per se that is a greater idol but the love of gold, then the issue of idolatry has very little to do with things concrete but has the world to do with attachment. If such is the case, in addition to gold or wealth, attachment to one's own power and righteousness could also be considered idolatry. In this sense, Mullah Omar might have misunderstood the conditions of the age in relation to the Koranic injunctions. To understand the Taleban decision on the Bamiyan Buddha images, it is important to situate Afghanistan in a map of the Muslim world where Islam as a comprehensive social system clashes with secularism. The present Afghanistan is a country born out of decades of war where people fought for their freedom to lead their lives free of the shadow of superpowers.