Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Pakistan Institute of International Affairs Pakistan Horizon
Pakistan Institute of International Affairs Pakistan Horizon
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The Taliban: Transformation from Pashtun Nationalism
to Religious Nationalism
Rashid Ahmed
Introduction
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84 PAKISTAN HORIZON
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THE TALIBAN 85
and continuanc
of ethnicity
consciousness
conflict. In si
ethnic group w
The lack of credible information about the Afghan conflict post- 1992 has
led many scholars to suppose that the rise of the Taliban was basically
the reassertion of the Pashtuns for power. In my estimation, the Taliban
may be biologically Pashtuns; yet their group feeling was not based on
their kin group's ethnicity. Sinno argues in this context that, 'initially,
the Taliban integrated highly trained former members of the communist
Khalqi faction in their troops for their military capabilities. This faction
was Pashtun nationalist. But the Taliban discarded them by 1998, when
they realized that the Khalqis had ethnically politicized their men'.10
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86 PAKISTAN HORIZON
But if the Taliban were Pashtun nationalists, then what was the
underlying principle of 'asabia'15 among them? One argues that the group
feeling among the Taliban was because of the similarity of their
institutional background. Apart from this, suppose one takes the Taliban
as Pashtun nationalists, then one wonder: were the Taliban held together
by socio-biological motivation? As Van den Berghe argues:
If this is the case, then why did the Taliban fight against
'Hekmatyar'17 or any of the Pashtuns who resisted them, when all
Pashtuns believe that they are related? To be more precise, Mullah
Omar,18 the leader of the Taliban is a 'Hotak'19 'Ghilzai'20 Pashtun, and
Hekmatyar is a 'Kharoti'21 Ghilzai. As indicated by Haroon Rashid, "both
the Kharotis and Hotaks have originated from the same source named
Turan.'22
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THE TALIBAN 87
Turan
i i * i i 1 i
Hotak Tokhi Nassar Kharoti
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88 PAKISTAN HORIZON
In the same background, Ahmed Rashid argues that in the year 200
more than one-third of the 15,000 strong Taliban force that capture
Taloqan was made up of non- Afghans. 28 The above-mentioned allian
also refute the argument of the ethnolinguists, such as Jean Laponce
that, 'same language speakers cooperate with each other due to the
affinity link'.29
26 Clifford Geertz, 'Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States
Clifford Geertz (ed.), Old Societies and New States , quoted in Joireman, op.c
pp. 13-14.
27 In a news release issued in November 2001, The People's Republic of China
claimed that al-Qaeda and the Taliban gave ETIM 300,000 US dollars between
October 2000 and November 2001. Later, the Chinese government further
claimed that ETIM had also received training from al-Qaeda. J. Todd Reed,
Diana Raschke, The ETIM : China's Islamic Militants and the Global Terrorist
Threat , (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2010), p. 70; IMU established its
headquarters in Afghanistan in 1998. Guido Steinberg, German Jihad: On the
Internationalization of Islamist Terrorism , (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2013), p. 186.
28 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban , Militant Islam , Oil and Fundamentalism in Central
Asia (London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2001), pp. 74-75, p. 80.
29 Jean Laponce, 'The Governance of Minority Languages: Principles and
Exceptions' , paper presented at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, 31 March -
2 April 2005).
30 Murshed, op.cit., p. 278.
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THE TALIBAN 89
Taliban spokes
reporters in an
Our culture h
particularly in Kabul. In the villages the culture has not changed
much... The Taliban are trying to purify our culture. We are trying to re-
establish a purist Islamic culture and tradition.32
On the other hand, one question how the Taliban who emerged in the
refugee camps of Pakistan and in the madrassas of southern Afghanistan
could claim to bring back the village culture of Afghanistan, about which
they were ignorant. Roy reacts to this reservation by arguing that
Afghanistan had a vibrant network of rural madrassas, which were not
dependent on urban support. The Taliban did not come, after all, from
nowhere. There were hundreds of small madrassas located in the
countryside, mainly in the southern Pashtun belt (from Gh
Kandahar) and in the north-west. Teachers and students at these
madrassas were not accepted in the State Faculty of Theology, founded
1951, whose students came from approved religious schools in the
provincial towns. During the wars, these madrassas turned into military
bases, kept their own hierarchies, and usually joined the Harkat-i-
Enqilab, the conservative party of rural mullahs and traditional ulema.34
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90 PAKISTAN HORIZON
35 Neamatollah Nojumi, The Rise and Fall of the Taliban' in Robert D. Crews a
Amin Tarzi (ed.), op. cit., p. 106.
36 Ahmed Rashid, op.cit., p.90.
37 Gilles Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending Afghanistan : 1979 to the Present
(London: Hurst and Co., 2000), p. 275.
38 Mohammed Osman Tariq Elias, The Resurgence of the Taliban in Kabul: Log
and Wardak,' in Antonio Giustozzi, Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from
the Afghan Field (London: Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd., 2009), p. 48.
39 Rubin gives an important oversight about the role of the US in influencing th
minds of these madrassa student through the provisions of books taught in
these institutions. In the early 1980s, the US provided textbooks to the schools
and madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan under an US AID grant to the
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THE TALIBAN 91
':i^r ,>; f:
This brings the author in conformity with the argument of Brass that,
'individuals interpret ethnicity which suits their own agenda, and which
has very little to do with groups antipathies; however, elites interpret the
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92 PAKISTAN HORIZON
communal agenda i
to pursue their own
Rais sheds light on another possibility. The author contends that the
Taliban wanted to create an entirely new state according to their
interpretation of Islam, which has become ingrained in Pashtun Islamic
practices. In doing so, they focused on the centralization of the political
order, which they tried to implement through a dreaded security
machine.45 Esposito argues that the Wahhabi influence on the Taliban
ideology was on the whole cultivated and reinforced through madrassas
and seminaries, mostly set up in Pakistan after the Soviet-Afghan War.46
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THE TALIBAN 93
Predominantly
Afghan war we
Rubin believes
who believed in
As Rais, Esposito, and Tarzi argue, the beliefs of the Taliban were
on Wahhabism. What is Wahabbism, and was it the religion of the
Taliban? Bas argues that the Wahhabi teachings are often referred to as
'fanatical discourse' and Wahhabism itself has been termed 'the most
retrograde expression of Islam and one of the most radical Islamic
movements.'51
47 Barry Rubin (ed.), Guide to Islamist Movements, (New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc.,
2010), p. 173.
48 Abdul Kader H. Sinno, Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), p. 227.
49 Amin Tarzi, Neo Taliban, in Crews and Tarzi (ed.), op.cit., pp. 304-305.
50 Christopher Candiland, 'Religious Education and Violence in Pakistan', in
Charles H. Kennedy and Cynthia A. Botteron (ed.), Pakistan 2005 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 231-232.
51 Natana J. DelLong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global
Jihad (London: I. B.Tauris, 2004), p. 3.
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94 PAKISTAN HORIZON
resulting in a very
militant extremists. The absence of the militarism, extremism, and
literalism typically associated with Wahhabism raises serious questions
whether an extremist like Osama bin Laden was truly 'representative' of
Wahhabi beliefs.52
One supposes that while initially the Taliban's religious ideology was
based on the Deobandi school of thought, as Osama bin Laden entered
the scene in 1996, he started influencing their faith. According to Bas,
Osama bin Laden's declaration of permanent global Jihad against
unbelievers was not Wahhabi in origin. Its roots lie in the teachings of
Ibn Taymiyya, and Sayyid Qutb, rather than in the teachings of Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab. Although al-Wahhab has occasionally been cited by Osama
bin Laden, but the writings of Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), and Sayyid
Qutb (1903-1966) figure far more prominently in bin Laden's world view
and ideology. Like Ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb, Osama bin Laden was
strongly influenced by a context of turbulence.55 Indeed, Osama bin
Laden cited Ibn Taymmiyah, along with al-Wahhab, to justify the kind of
52 Ibid., pp.4-5.
53 Fawaz A. Gerges, The Rise and Fall ofAl-Qaeda (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2011), p. 53.
54 Sayed Saleem Shahzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban : Beyond Bin Laden
and 9/11 (London: Pluto Press, 2011), p. 79.
55 Bas, op. cit., p. 266.
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THE TALIBAN 95
The most important religious duty after belief itself is to ward off and
fight the enemy aggressor. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah, may Allah
have mercy upon him, said: to drive off the enemy aggressor who destroys
both religion and the world - there is no religious duty more important
than this, apart from belief itself.57
56 Mary R. Habeck, Knowing the Enemy : Jihadist Ideology and War on Terror
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 17-18
57 Morabia, A, quoted in Richard Bonney, Jihad: From Quran to bin Laden (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 122.
58 Ibid.
59 Shahzad, op.cit., pp. 147-148.
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96 PAKISTAN HORIZON
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THE TALIBAN 97
slaughtered in
found in Bam
believe that th
killed approxim
Though the conflict between the Hazara and the Taliban can be
termed as sectarian or revenge of the massacre of the Taliban at Mazar-i-
Sharif in May 1997, the Taliban did not have cordial relations with the
Uzbeks of the north, who were also Hanafi Sunnis. Murshed reports that
in May 1997, while the Taliban leaders, Mullah Razaq and Ghous, were
locked in argument with 'Malik Pehlawan',66 the time of midday prayers
approached. Former counsel general of Pakistan Ayaz Wazir was present
there for mediation between the parties. Wazir narrates that there was so
much hatred between the Uzbeks and the Taliban that, while being
Sunni Muslims, both the groups offered midday prayers separately,
which was against the teachings of Islam.67 This behaviour shows that,
besides the Shia Hazara, the Taliban would treat anybody from another
group as an infidel.
Afghan history shows that there was no ancient hatred between the
Pashtun and the non-Pashtun, especially between the Pashtuns and the
Hazaras. However, the love-hate relationship between them fluctuated
according to the policies of the 'Pashtun rulers'68 before 1992. The
relations between the Hazara and the Pashtuns were strained during
Amir Abdul Rehman's reign (1880-1901); nevertheless, the Hazara
supported Amir Amanullah Khan (1919-1929, Amir Abdul Rehman's
grandson), against the revolt of Habibullah Kalkani (a Tajik) in 1929.69
Likewise, during his decade of democracy, King Zahir Shah appointed a
Tajik, Dr. Muhammad Yusuf as his first prime minister, and Abdul
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98 PAKISTAN HORIZON
Sattar Sirat, an Uz
Rashid Dostum, an
during the rule of
Sultan Ali Keshtmand, a Hazara, became first vice president of
Afghanistan in 1990 during Najibullah's government.71
Besides financial support, al Qaeda also provided the Taliban its Arab
fighters against the Northern Alliance. The inclusion of Arabs changed
the dynamics of the conflict between the Northern Alliance and the
Taliban, which made Mullah Mohammed Omar personally indebted to
Osama bin Laden. This was the time for ài Qaeda to take advantage of
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THE TALIBAN 99
the situation
policies of the
formulating st
al Qaeda gained immediate access to the camps of the Chechen,
Pakistani, Uzbek, and even Chinese liberation movements. In the
process, al Qaeda changed the nature of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan,
and turned it into a 'national security state', creating war hysteria
throughout the country. This involved actions like blowing up the
Bamiyan Buddhas and other activities that isolated the Taliban from the
world community.75
Conclusion
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100 PAKISTAN HORIZON
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