Taliban's origins: Deoband, U.P., 1867

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 31. The ruling Taliban in Afghanistan is unique in the sense that it is not the product of a national movement like its predeccesor, the Mujahiddin, which waged a war against the Soviet Union and its Afghan puppets.

The Taliban is a force created by the Pakistanis with the twin purposes of containing Iran and diluting, and eventually weakening, Russian influence in its former Muslim-majority republics. The implicit aim is to preserve Pakistan's influence over Afghanistan as the Taliban is dependent on Pakistan for logistics and military training and on the UAE for funds.

The Taliban's ideological underpinning can be traced to the dusty country town of Deoband in central Uttar Pradesh where a seminary was set up by Muhammed Quasim Nanotavi in 1867 to counter the British educational model. The purpose was to train religious clerics in Islam, purged of its many practices that have crept in due to deviant cross-cultural influences. Its biases against the Shias came in useful for the Pakistanis to use the Taliban against Shia-dominated Iran.

The Deobandis are also opposed to the second, and more dominant, Bareilvy school which has adherents in large numbers in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Deobandi school would like to reverse the trends that set in during the post- Prophet period which saw the spread through conquest and missionary work. As Islam spread to other countries in different continents, it also adopted some of the practices in different nations and cultures such as Ziarat (praying at the Dargahs of holy men).

`All Umma is one'

According to the Taliban's version of the Deobandi school of jurisprudence, the adoption of local practices led to dilution of the laws laid down by the Prophet. It considers all `Umma' (community) to be one and therefore a Muslim in Pakistan or Afghanistan is no different from a Muslim in India. That is where the transborder feeling develops. It also accepts that a true Muslim should establish the rule of Allah in Muslim-majority areas and defend the community (Umma) where it is in a minority. The Taliban also subscribes to the waging of a holy war to establish pristine Islam.

The Taliban subscribes to a sect of Deobandi school which broke away after Kamal Ataturk propounded the concept of secular Islam by abolishing the Friday namaz in Turkey. Called the Jamiat-e- Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), it feels the incorporation of local traditions and national identity is dangerous because it dilutes Islam.

After partition, the Indian wing called Jamiat-ul- Ulema-e-Hind (JUI) acquired a pro-Congress tint while the theology of pan- Islamisation was propagated by the JUI at a low ebb in Pakistan. In the current hijack crisis, it has been solidly on the side of the Indian Government. In a statement, it has described the keeping of hostages as an anti-Islamic act and said the hijacking has nothing to do with Jehad or the Islamic concept of justice.

The breakaway sect had its moment during the days of Benazir Bhutto Government in 1993 when she used it to politically counter the stranglehold of the Jamiat-e-Islami which had aligned with her rival, Mr. Nawaz Sharif. The JEI got a fresh lease of life specially in Pakistan's Pushtun-dominated areas bordering Afghanistan. The Pakistan Government not only ousted the Jamiat-e-Islami and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's men from the madarsas but also roped in the Frontier Rifles, then led by Nasrullah Babar, to provide training to these students.

The JEI mullahs exhorted their Taliban (students) to cleanse Islam from cross-cultural influences by waging war against all those trying to dilute Islam. Since the Durrand line separating Pakistan and Afghanistan is an artificial divide among the Pushtun ethnic community, the JEI began running madarsas in parts of Afghanistan as well. The Taliban was told its task was not just to cleanse Islam of cross-cultural influences and establish the rule of Allah but also to wage war against Russia and India, specially the former for attempting to extend influence in bordering Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and its support to warlords in the non-Pushtun northern Afghanistan who have consistently opposed the Taliban.

The Taliban's efforts received a shot in the arm due to their ideological affinity with another radical sect, the Wahabis, the dominant sect in Saudi Arabia. While there are many differences between the Wahabis (Ahle-Hadiz) and the JUI's version of the Deobandi school of jurisprudence, they are both averse to praying at Dargahs and to observing Muharram. Due to this, affinity funds began pouring in from the Gulf country which helped it consolidate the opportunity provided by Ms. Benazir Bhutto to tutor and feed the huge Afghan refugee population in Pakistan.

Recently, however, the Taliban's proximity with the UAE has waned due to the presence of Osama bin Laden in Taliban- controlled Afghanistan. However, the Taliban has got over the resource problem due to its stranglehold over the Kandhar-based ``truck mafia'' which transports opium from the Golden Crescent. Kandahar is also useful for receiving logistical support from the ISI which has a base in the nearby Pakistani city of Quetta.

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