Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Second Edition

by Ahmed Rashid

  Islam also sanctions rebellion against an unjust ruler, whether Muslim or not and jihad is the mobilizing mechanism to achieve change. Thus the life of the Prophet Mohammed has become the jihadi model of impeccable Muslim behaviour and political change as the Prophet himself rebelled, with deep religious and moral anger, against the corrupt Arab society he was living in. The Taliban were thus acting in the spirit of the Prophet's jihad when they attacked the rapacious warlords around them. Yet jihad does not sanction the killing of fellow Muslims on the basis of ethnicity or sect and it is this, the Taliban interpretation of jihad, which appalls the non-Pashtuns. While the Taliban claim they are fighting a jihad against corrupt, evil Muslims, the ethnic minorities see them as using Islam as a cover to exterminate non-Pashtuns.

  The Taliban interpretation of Islam, jihad and social transformation was an anomaly in Afghanistan because the movement's rise echoed none of the leading Islamicist trends that had emerged through the anti-Soviet war. The Taliban were neither radical Islamicists inspired by the Ikhwan, nor mystical Sufis, nor traditionalists. They fitted nowhere in the Islamic spectrum of ideas and movements that had emerged in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1994. It could be said that the degeneration and collapse of legitimacy of all three trends (radical Islamicism, Sufism and traditionalism) into a naked, rapacious power struggle created the ideological vacuum which the Taliban were to fill. The Taliban represented nobody but themselves and they recognized no Islam except their own. But they did have an ideological base – an extreme form of Deobandism, which was being preached by Pakistani Islamic parties in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. The Deobandis, a branch of Sunni Hanafi Islam has had a history in Afghanistan, but the Taliban's interpretation of the creed has no parallel anywhere in the Muslim world.

  The Deobandis arose in British India, not as a reactionary but a forward-looking movement that would reform and unite Muslim society as it struggled to live within the confines of a colonial state ruled by non-Muslims. Its main ideologues were Mohammed Qasim Nanautawi (1833– 77) and Rashid Ahmed Gangohi (1829–1905), who founded the first madrassa in Deoband near New Dehli. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 was a watershed for Indian Muslims, who had led the anti-British revolt and had been severely defeated. In the aftermath of the Mutiny several philosophical and religious trends emerged amongst Indian Muslims in a bid to revive their standing. They ranged from the Deobandis to pro-Western reformers who set up colleges such as the Aligarh Muslim University based on the British model which would teach Islam and the liberal arts and sciences, so Muslim youth could catch up with their British rulers and compete with the growing Hindu elite.

  All these reformers saw education as the key to creating a new, modern Muslim. The Deobandis aimed to train a new generation of learned Muslims who would revive Islamic values based on intellectual learning, spiritual experience, Sharia law and Tariqah or the path. By teaching their students how to interprate Sharia, they aimed to harmonize the classical Sharia texts with current realities. The Deobandis took a restrictive view of the role of women, opposed all forms of hierarchy in the Muslim community and rejected the Shia – but the Taliban were to take these beliefs to an extreme which the original Deobandis would never have recognized. The Deobandis set up madrassas all over India and Afghan students, themselves searching for a better understanding of how Islam could cope with colonialism, arrived to study. By 1879 there were 12 Deobandi madrassas across India and Afghan students were plentiful, although they were described as ‘rowdy and quick tempered’.10 By 1967 when Deoband celebrated its first centenary, there were 9,000 Deobandi madrassas across South Asia.

  In the early twentieth century, the Afghan government sought cooperation with Deoband to expand its own attempt to build modern, state controlled madrassas. Ulema from the Deoband madrassa visited Kabul in 1933 for King Zahir Shah's coronation and said that Deoband would, ‘prepare such ulema in the changed circumstances of the period that they may co-operate fully with the aim and purpose of the free governments in the world of Islam and prove sincere workers for the state’.11 A few Deobandi madrassas were established by the Afghan state, but they were not hugely popular even in the Pashtun belt.

  Deobandi madrassas developed much faster in Pakistan after its creation in 1947. The Deobandis set up the JUI, a purely religious movement to propagate their beliefs and mobilize the community of believers. In 1962 its leader in the North West Frontier Province NWFP, Maulana Ghulam Ghaus Hazarvi turned the JUI into a political party, as a result of which it quickly split into several factions. Maulana Mufti Mehmood, a dynamic leader, took over the Pashtun faction of the JUI in the NWFP and remoulded it in a populist form. Mufti Mehmood's JUI played a leading role in the 1970 elections mobilizing support against military rule. He propagated a 22-point Islamic agenda, which included a progressive social programme and a strong anti-American, anti-imperialist stance. The JUI campaign was marked by a bitter feud with the Jamaat-e-Islami and the rift between the two largest Islamic parties persists to this day.12

  The history of the JUI in Pakistan is not relevant here, but the Deobandi creed was to become the primary religious and ideological influence on the Taliban. During the 1980s Pakistan's Afghan policy was conducted with the help of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Hikmetyar's Hizb-e-Islami, who were also the main rivals of the JUI inside Pakistan. The ISI's connection with the Jamaat-e-Islami was an important policy instrument in the distribution of aid to the Mujaheddin. The JUI, which was now run by Mufti Mehmood's son, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was given no political role and the small pro-Deobandi Afghan Mujaheddin groups were largely ignored.

  However, the JUI used this period to set up hundreds of madrassas along the Pashtun belt in the NWFP and Baluchistan where it offered young Pakistanis and Afghan refugees the chance of a free education, food, shelter and military training. These madrassas were to train a new generation of Afghans for the post-Soviet period. Even though the Deobandis received no political support, the military regime of President Zia ul Haq funded madrassas of all sectarian persuasions. In 1971 there were only 900 madrassas in Pakistan, but by the end of the Zia era in 1988 there were 8,000 madrassas and 25,000 unregistered ones, educating over half a million students. As Pakistan's state-run educational system steadily collapsed, these madrassas became the only avenue for boys from poor families to receive the semblance of an education.13

  Most of these madrassas were in rural areas and Afghan refugee camps and were run by semi-educated mullahs who were far removed from the original reformist agenda of the Deobandi school. Their interpretation of Sharia was heavily influenced by Pashtunwali, the tribal code of the Pashtuns, while funds from Saudi Arabia to madrassas and parties which were sympathetic to the Wahabbi creed, as the Deobandis were, helped these madrassas turn out young militants who were deeply cynical of those who had fought the jihad against the Soviets. After the 1992 capture of Kabul by the Mujaheddin, the ISI continued to ignore the JUI's growing influence over the southern Pashtuns. The JUI was politically isolated at home, remaining in opposition to the first Benazir Bhutto government (1988–90) and the first Nawaz Sharif government (1990–93).

  However in the 1993 elections the JUI allied itself with the winning Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led by Benazir Bhutto, thus becoming a part of the ruling coalition.14 The JUI's access to the corridors of power for the first time allowed it to establish close links with the army, the ISI and the Interior Ministry under retired General Naseerullah Babar. Babar was in search of a new Pashtun group which could revive Pashtun fortunes in Afghanistan and give access to Pakistani trade with Central Asia through southern Afghanistan and the JUI offered him that opportunity. The JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman was made Chairman of the National Assembly's Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, a position that enabled him to have influence on foreign policy for the first time. He was to use his position to visit Washington and European capitals to lobby for the Taliban and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to enlist their financial support.

  W
ith no centralized hierarchy nor the ability of any locally renowned or learned mullah to start a madrassa, the Deobandi tradition resulted in dozens of breakaway, extremist factions emerging out of the mainstream JUI. The most important breakaway faction of the JUI is led by Maulana Samiul Haq, a religious and political leader who has been a Member of the National Assembly and a Senator and whose madrassa became a major training ground for the Taliban leadership. In 1999 at least eight Taliban cabinet ministers in Kabul were graduates of Haq's Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania and dozens more graduates served as Taliban governors in the provinces, military commanders, judges and bureaucrats.15 Younis Khalis and Mohammed Nabi Mohammedi, leaders of the traditional Mujaheddin parties, both studied at Haqqania.

  Haqqania is in Akhora Khatak, in the NWFP. It is a sprawling collection of buildings on the main Islamabad-Peshawar highway. It has a boarding school for 1,500 students, a high school for 1,000 day students and 12 affiliated smaller madrassas. It was started in 1947 by Samiul Haq's father Maulana Abdul Haq who was a student and teacher at Deoband. Haqqania offers an eight-year Master of Arts course in Islamic studies and a PhD after an additional two years of study. Funded by public donations it charges its students nothing.

  In February 1999, the madrassa had a staggering 15,000 applicants for some 400 new places making it the most popular madrassa in northern Pakistan. Samiul Haq, a jovial but pious man with a tremendous sense of humour and a flowing red hennaed beard told me that his madrassa has always kept some 400 places for Afghan students. Since 1991 60 students are accepted from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan who tend to belong to the Islamic opposition in these countries and enter Pakistan without passports or visas.

  Haq is still bitter about how he was ignored by the ISI for so long. ‘The ISI always supported Hikmetyar and Qazi Hussain Ahmed [leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami] while we were ignored, even though 80 per cent of the commanders fighting the Russians in the Pashtun areas had studied at Haqqania,’ he told me as we sat on a rough carpet in his office surrounded by bearded students holding application forms for the class of ’99.16‘Hikmetyar had 5 per cent of the popular support but 90 per cent of the military aid from the ISI. We were never recognized but, with the arrival of the Taliban, the support of the people of Afghanistan fell into our lap,’ he added with a big laugh.

  ‘Before 1994 I did not know Mullah Omar because he had not studied in Pakistan, but those around him were all Haqqania students and came to see me frequently to discuss what to do. I advised them not to set up a party because the ISI was still trying to play one Mujaheddin party against the other in order to keep them divided. I told them to start a student movement. When the Taliban movement began I told the ISI, “let the students take over Afghanistan,” ’ Haq said. Samiul Haq has deep respect for Mullah Omar. ‘I met Omar for the first time when I went to Kandahar in 1996 and I was proud that he was chosen as Amirul Momineen. He has no money, tribe or pedigree but he is revered above all others and so Allah chose him to be their leader. According to Islam the man who can bring peace can be elected the Amir. When the Islamic revolution comes to Pakistan it will not be led by the old defunct leaders like me, but by a similiar unknown man who will arise from the masses.’

  Samiul Haq is in constant touch with Omar, helps him deal with international relations and offers advice on important Sharia decisions. He is also the principle organizer for recruiting Pakistani students to fight for the Taliban. After the Taliban defeat in Mazar in 1997 he received a telephone call from Omar asking for help. Haq shut down his madrassa and sent his entire student body to fight alongside the Taliban. And after the battle for Mazar in 1988, Haq organized a meeting between Taliban leaders and 12 madrassas in the NWFP to organize reinforcements for the Taliban army. All the madrassas agreed to shut down for one month and send 8,000 students to Afghanistan. The help the Taliban receive from Pakistan's Deobandi madrassas is an important level of support they can rely upon, quite apart from the government and the intelligence agencies.

  Another JUI faction runs the Jamiat-ul Uloomi Islamiyyah in Binori town, a surburb of Karachi. It was established by the late Maulvi Mohammed Yousuf Binori and has 8,000 students including hundreds of Afghans. Several Taliban ministers have studied there. It also operates with the help of donations from Muslims in 45 countries. ‘The funding we get is a blessing from Allah,’ said Mufti Jamil, a teacher. ‘We are proud that we teach the Taliban and we always pray for their success as they have managed to implement strict Islamic laws,’ he added.17 Binori sent 600 students to join the Taliban in 1997. In November 1997 students from Binori went on a rampage in Karachi after three of their teachers were assasinated. They fought the police and smashed vehicles, video shops and beat up photographers. It was the first time that Pakistan's largest and most cosmopolitan city had experienced Taliban-style unrest.

  Another extreme splinter faction of the JUI is the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the most virulent anti-Shia group in Pakistan which is supported by the Taliban. When the government launched a crackdown against the SSP in 1998 after hundreds of Shia had been massacred by the SSP, their leaders fled to Kabul where they were offered sanctuary. Hundreds of SSP militants have trained at the Khost training camp run by the Taliban and Bin Laden, which the US hit with cruise missiles in 1998 and thousands of SSP members have fought alongside the Taliban.

  The JUI were to benefit immensely from their Taliban proteges. For the first time, the JUI developed international prestige and influence as a major patron of Islamic radicalism. Pakistani governments and the ISI could no longer ignore the party, nor could Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states. Camps inside Afghanistan which were used for military training and refuge for non-Afghan Mujaheddin, and which had earlier been run by Hikmetyar, were taken over by the Taliban and handed over to JUI groups such as the SSP. In 1996 the Tailiban handed over Camp Badr near Khost on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to the Harkat-ul-Ansar led by Fazlur Rehman Khalil. This was another JUI splinter group, known for its extreme militancy which had sent members to fight in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya and Bosnia.18 The camp was attacked by US cruise missile two years later.

  The links between the Taliban and some of the extreme Pakistani Deobandi groups are solid because of the common ground they share. Several Deobandi leaders from both sides of the border originate from the Durrani Pashtun tribes based around Kandahar and Chaman in Pakistan. The Deobandi tradition is opposed to tribal and feudal structures, from which stems the Taliban's mistrust of the tribal structure and the clan chiefs and whom the Taliban have eliminated from any leadership role. Both are united in their vehement opposition to the Shia sect and Iran. Now, Pakistani Deobandis want a Taliban-style Islamic revolution in Pakistan.

  The Taliban have clearly debased the Deobandi tradition of learning and reform, with their ridigity, accepting no concept of doubt except as sin and considering debate as little more than heresy. But in doing so they have advanced a new, radical and, to the governments of the region extremely threatening, model for any forthcoming Islamic revolution. Hikmetyar and Masud are not opposed to modernism. In contrast, the Taliban are vehemently opposed to modernism and have no desire to understand or adopt modern ideas of progress or economic development.

  The Taliban are poorly tutored in Islamic and Afghan history, knowledge of the Sharia and the Koran and the political and theoretical developments in the Muslim world during the twentieth century. While Islamic radicalism in the twentieth century has a long history of scholarly writing and debate, the Taliban have no such historical perspective or tradition. There is no Taliban Islamic manifesto or scholarly analysis of Islamic or Afghan history. Their exposure to the radical Islamic debate around the world is minimal, their sense of their own history is even less. This has created an obscurantism which allows no room for debate even with fellow Muslims.

  The Taliban's new model for a purist Islamic revolution has created immense repercussions, in Pakistan and to a more limited extent in the Central Asian Republics. Paki
stan, an already fragile state beset by an identity crisis, an economic meltdown, ethnic and sectarian divisions and a rapacious ruling elite that has been unable to provide good governance, now faces the spectre of a new Islamic wave, led not by the older, more mature and accommodating Islamic parties but by neo-Taliban groups.

  By 1998, Pakistani Taliban groups were banning TV and videos in towns along the Pashtun belt, imposing Sharia punishments such as stoning and amputation in defiance of the legal system, killing Pakistani Shia and forcing people, particularly women to adapt to the Taliban dress code and way of life. Pakistan's support for the Taliban is thus coming back to haunt the country itself, even as Pakistani leaders appear to be oblivious of the challenge and continue to support the Taliban. In Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, neo-Taliban militants are being hunted by the police in the Ferghana valley, which borders both countries.

  The Taliban and their supporters present the Muslim world and the West with a new style of Islamic extremism, which rejects all accommodation with Muslim moderation and the West. The Taliban's refusal to compromise with the UN humanitarian agencies or foreign donor countries or to compromise their principles in exchange for international recognition and their rejection of all Muslim ruling elites as corrupt, has inflamed the debate in the Muslim world and inspired a younger generation of Islamic militants. The Taliban have given Islamic fundamentalism a new face and a new identity for the next millenium – one that refuses to accept any compromise or political system except their own.

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  SECRET SOCIETY: THE

  TALIBAN'S POLITICAL AND

  MILITARY ORGANIZATION