The Surprising Origin Of Taliban Ideology

[Belsnickel]

The Surprising Origin Of Taliban Ideology. Hint: It's Not A Muslim-Majority Country

I got to listen to this on my drive to work, this morning, and it was an interesting listen. The formation of different sects of religions is a fascinating topic.

The tl;dr version is that the Taliban follow a bastardized version of Deobandi Islam, which was born when the British took over India, kicking out the Muslim rulers. The founders sought to bring back "the glory of Islam." However, while it is a conservative branch of Islam, it isn't violent like the Taliban practice it and has existed quite peacefully in India for 150 years without much of a fuss. The more unsavory bits seem to come from the Saudi influence of Wahhabism.

[Dill]

(09-08-2021, 07:30 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: The Surprising Origin Of Taliban Ideology. Hint: It's Not A Muslim-Majority Country

I got to listen to this on my drive to work, this morning, and it was an interesting listen. The formation of different sects of religions is a fascinating topic.

The tl;dr version is that the Taliban follow a bastardized version of Deobandi Islam, which was born when the British took over India, kicking out the Muslim rulers. The founders sought to bring back "the glory of Islam." However, while it is a conservative branch of Islam, it isn't violent like the Taliban practice it and has existed quite peacefully in India for 150 years without much of a fuss. The more unsavory bits seem to come from the Saudi influence of Wahhabism.

Yes, I mentioned th Deobandi connection a couple years ago.
http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-ISIS-Defeated?pid=670884&highlight=deoband#pid670884

My argument back then, as now, was that we ought not to be paying so much attention to Islamic "ideologies" that we forget invasion and displacement are the primary motivators of Taliban support. Were Afghans miraculously converted to Christianity by 2008, there still would have been an active insurgency against the ISAF and corrupt Afghan government.

The NPR article you link to is pretty good, and I like that it brings out the situation of the Deobandi in present-day, authoritarian-tending India under Mohdi. Having forgotten the aftermath of 1947, radical Hindu organizations would like to see the Darul Uloom school in Deoband shut down. Fear of that is likely what moves school representatives to deny any but the most tenuous historical connections to Taliban in A-stand and P-stan. 

The article also notes that India's 200 million Muslims are not radicalized, though there should be concern that rising Hindu nationalism will change that.

And it reminds us that the Deobandi school emerged in opposition to British colonial control, which would render its perspective attractive to Afghans and Pashtu in Pakistan fighting the Soviets and then the Americans and British (again!). They might have added that in the 19th century, it was also dialoguing with Hindu and Sikh scholars, and even drew some support from Hindus, in ecumenical spirit. That is not characteristic of it current Afghan-Pakistan forms (Wahabist influence there). 

I think Deobandi interpretations of Islam will not seem much different from Wahabism on points important to Westerners. They don't think women should drive or run businesses, they ban music, they think the Ummah comes before the nation, and so believers are obligated to protect Muslims under attack in other countries.  Deobandis are Salafist, preaching purification of non-Islamic accretions and return to the lifestyle of the orginial group around the Prophet. As with the majority of Salafists, this is conceived as separation from government and politics, a "return" to the Prophet enacted in one's family and business life--not in literal war against infidels. In 2008 they called an international conference which issued a Fatwa against all forms of Islamic terrorism as un-Islamic.  https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/deoband-first-a-fatwa-against-terror/articleshow/3089161.cms

Under pressure from Hindu nationalists, they followed this with a declaration that India was not an anti-Muslim state (i.e., not a legitimate target of Jihad). 

What really matters, in my view, or should matter for US policy analysts, are 1) what Deobandi connections mean for the linkage between Taliban in A-stan with Taliban in P-stan, and the linkage of both with the Pakistan miitary and ISI, how they enable such linkages.* And 2) what such linkages mean (and have meant) for Pakistan's schizophrenic foreign policy--e.g., providing the US targeting intel in A-stan even as their own agents were supplying insurgents with supplies and weapons. And they should not start such analyses with assumptions about what Islam or Deobandi or Wahabism are, but with the actual political practice of various groups on the ground, driven more by tribal custom (Pashtunwali), political/economic necessity, and Afghan/Pakistani history than by religious teachings from India and Saudi Arabia. At least as important are the supposed "Islamic" laws and practices which they reject, and why they do.

(I don't think Deobandi Islam plays a dominant role in Muslim politics in India. This is definitely NOT the case in Pakistan, especially in the Tribal areas.)

*E.g., in the 90s, the ISI was supporting secular nationalistic groups in Kashmir. Then they shifted to Islamic nationalist groups; then to internationalist Jihadists by 1999, because they thought such groups better insured their (twisted) conception of national security. They shifted to a similar tack in P-stan's tribal areas and with A-stan's Taliban.  (following Ahmed Rashid's account of this in Descent into Chaos, 2008.)