Political Islam in Afghanistan: Origins and Ideology

Abstract

Any political, especially religious movement or ideology, should have its historical predecessors, whose views and ideas would somehow affect them. Understanding the origins and sources contributes to a more realistic and objective view of modern phenomena, especially in such traditional countries as Afghanistan, where tradition indelibly leaves its mark on everything. The purpose of the article is to attempt to give a comprehensive and chronological description of the ideas and ideologies that formed the basis for the emergence of Islamist political parties in Afghanistan. The materials used are the works of domestic and foreign orientalists, including Afghan ones, as well as sources in the national languages of Afghanistan. The research is based on the method of consistent description of the source and its characteristics to demonstrate its connection with the modern phenomenon of political Islam. The paper presents a list of alleged ideological sources and precursors of political Islam in Afghanistan in the mid-20th century. Their historical and ideological characteristics are given. The main representatives and supporters of certain ideas, their social status and attitude to other movements and ideologies are described. Political Islam in Afghanistan did not arise as something exclusively external, but had under it, in addition to the external form and external borrowings (the ideology of “deobandism”, “Muslim Brotherhood”), also internal sources peculiar to Afghan society in the form of tribal chiefdom, which became a kind of general organizational beginning of any political and religious movement. The complexity of Islamism in Afghanistan lies in its mixed structure, which is especially evident at the moment, in the ideology and practice of the Taliban Movement, which, on the one hand, is based on the provisions of «deobandism», pan-Islamism, to a lesser extent the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, but on the other hand, it completely contradicts them, which is purely due to tribal traditional features of the social structure and worldview of the backbone of the movement.