Islam in Afghanistan

Afghan Muslims (مسلمانان افغان)

Total population
38,200,000[1] (2022 est.)
Regions with significant populations
Throughout Afghanistan
Religions
Predominantly Sunni Islam, Minority : Quranic Arabic[2] Common Dari (Persian), Pashto, Uzbek, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi

Islam by country
World percentage of Muslims by country
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Islam in Afghanistan began to be practiced after the Arab

After the

Kabul Shahi

kings.

History

Friday Mosque of Herat is one of the oldest mosques in Afghanistan

.

During the 7th century, the

, where they stationed a large portion of their army before advancing toward northern Afghanistan.

Many of the inhabitants of northern Afghanistan accepted Islam through Umayyad missionary efforts, particularly under the reign of

During the reign of

was made in the 9th century. Since then, Islam has dominated the country's religious landscape. Islamic leaders have entered the political sphere at various times of crisis but rarely exercised secular authority for long.

The remnants of a

After the Mongol invasion and destruction, the

.

Conquest by Abdur Rahman Khan

Shrine of the Cloak and the tomb of Ahmad Shah Durrani

.

The first systematic employment of Islam as an instrument of state-building was initiated by King Abdur Rahman Khan (1880–1901) during his drive toward centralization. He decreed that all laws must comply with Islamic law and thus elevated the Shariah over customary laws embodied in the Pashtunwali. The ulama were enlisted to legitimize and sanction his state efforts as well as his central authority. This enhanced the religious community on the one hand, but as they were increasingly inducted into the bureaucracy as servants of the state, the religious leadership was ultimately weakened. Many economic privileges enjoyed by religious personalities and institutions were restructured within the framework of the state; the propagation of learning, once the sole prerogative of the ulama, was closely supervised; and the Amir became the supreme arbiter of justice.

Hazrat Ali Mazar in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif

Abdur Rahman Khan's successors continued and expanded his policies as they increased the momentum of secularization. Islam remained central to interactions, but the religious establishment remained essentially non-political, functioning as a moral rather than a political influence. Nevertheless, Islam asserted itself in times of national crisis. Moreover, when the religious leadership considered themselves severely threatened, charismatic religious personalities periodically employed Islam to rally disparate groups in opposition to the state. They rose up on several occasions against King

Amanullah Shah

(1919–1929), for example, in protest against reforms they believed to be western intrusions inimical to Islam.

Subsequent rulers, mindful of traditional attitudes antithetical to secularization, were careful to underline the compatibility of Islam with modernization. Even so, and despite its pivotal position within the society, which continued to draw no distinction between religion and state, the role of religion in state affairs continued to decline.

Lashkar Gah

, in the south of the country

The 1931

Islamist

Movement into a national revolt; Islam moved from its passive stance on the periphery to play an active role.

Politicized Islam in Afghanistan represents a break from Afghan traditions. The Islamist Movement originated in 1958 among faculties of Kabul University, particularly in the Faculty of Islamic Law, which had been founded in 1952 with the stated purpose of raising the quality of religious teaching to accommodate modern science and technology. The founders were largely professors influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a party formed in the 1930s that was dedicated to Islamic revivalism and social, economic, and political equity. Their objective is to come to terms with the modern world through the development of a political ideology based on Islam. The Afghan leaders, while indebted to many of these concepts, did not forge strong ties to similar movements in other countries.

The liberalization of government attitudes following the passage of the 1964 Constitution ushered in a period of intense activism among students at Kabul University. Professors and their students set up the Muslim Youth Organization (Sazmani Jawanani Musulman) in the mid-1960s at the same time that the leftists were also forming many parties. Initially

rebels in the 1980s.

Radicalization and NATO presence

The 1979 Soviet invasion in support of a communist government triggered a major intervention of religion into Afghan political conflict, and Islam united the multiethnic political opposition. With the takeover of government by the PDPA in April 1978, Islam had already become central to uniting the opposition against the communist ideology of the new rulers. As a politico-religious system, Islam is well-suited to the needs of a diverse, unorganized, often mutually antagonistic citizenry wishing to forge a united front against a common enemy, and war permitted various groups within the mujahideen to put into effect competing concepts of organization.

The Soviet invasion and the Iranian Revolution not only led national uprisings but also the importation of foreign radical Muslims to Afghanistan. The mujahideen leaders were charismatic figures with dyadic ties to followers. In many cases military and political leaders replaced the tribal leadership; at times the religious leadership was strengthened; often the religious combined with the political leadership. Followers selected their local leaders on the basis of personal choice and precedence among regions, sects, ethnic groups or tribes, but the major leaders rose to prominence through their ties to outsiders who controlled the resources of money and arms.

With the support of foreign aid, the mujahideen were ultimately successful in their jihad to drive out the Soviet forces, but not in their attempts to construct a political alternative to govern Afghanistan after their victory. Throughout the war, the mujahideen were never fully able to replace traditional structures with a modern political system based on Islam. Most mujahideen commanders either used traditional patterns of power, becoming the new khans, or sought to adapt modern political structures to the traditional society. In time the prominent leaders accumulated wealth and power and, in contrast to the past, wealth became a determining factor in the delineation of power at all levels.

With the departure of foreign troops and the long sought demise of Kabul's leftist government, The

increased alarmingly; nowhere were the highways safe. The mujahideen had forfeited the trust they once enjoyed.

In the fall of 1994 a group called the

and longtime supporter of the mujahideen.

Headquartered in

against the current NATO-backed Afghan government. Peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government was ongoing as of 2013.

Islam in Afghan society

For Afghans, Islam represents a potentially unifying symbolic system which offsets the divisiveness that frequently rises from the existence of a deep pride in tribal loyalties and an abounding sense of personal and family honor found in multitribal and multiethnic societies such as Afghanistan.

Islam is a central, pervasive influence throughout Afghan society; religious observances punctuate the rhythm of each day and season. In addition to a central

]

Because Islam is a totalitarian way of life and functions as a comprehensive code of social behavior regulating all human relationships, individual and family status depends on the proper observance of the society's value system based on concepts defined in Islam. These are characterized by honesty, frugality, generosity, virtuousness, piousness, fairness, truthfulness, tolerance and respect for others. To uphold family honor, elders also control the behavior of their children according to these same Islamic prescriptions. At times, even competitive relations between tribal or ethnic groups are expressed in terms claiming religious superiority. In short, Islam structures day-to-day interactions of all members of the community.

Gardens of Babur

in Kabul

The religious establishment has several levels. Any Muslim can lead informal groups in prayer.

, they must ensure that their communities are knowledgeable in the fundamentals of Islamic ritual and behavior. This qualifies them to arbitrate disputes over religious interpretation. Often they function as paid teachers responsible for religious education classes held in mosques where children learn basic moral values and correct ritual practices. Their role has additional social aspects for they officiate on the occasion of life crisis rituals associated with births, marriages and deaths.

But rural mullahs are not part of an institutionalized hierarchy of clergy. Most are part-time mullahs working also as farmers or craftsmen. Some are barely literate, or only slightly more educated than the people they serve. Often, but by no means always, they are men of minimal wealth and, because they depend for their livelihood on the community that appoints them, they have little authority even within their own social boundaries. They are often treated with scant respect and are the butt of a vast body of jokes making fun of their arrogance and ignorance. Yet their role as religious arbiters forces them to take positions on issues that have political ramifications and since mullahs often disagree with one another, pitting one community against the other, they are frequently perceived as disruptive elements within their communities.

Veneration of saints and shrines is opposed by some Islamic groups, particularly those ascribing to the

. Nevertheless, Afghanistan's landscape is liberally strewn with shrines honoring saints of all descriptions. Many of Afghanistan's oldest villages and towns grew up around shrines of considerable antiquity. Some are used as sanctuaries by fugitives.

Shrines vary in form from simple mounds of earth or stones marked by pennants to lavishly ornamented complexes surrounding a central domed tomb. These large establishments are controlled by prominent religious and secular leaders. Shrines may mark the final resting place of a fallen hero (shahid), a venerated religious teacher, a renowned Sufi poet, or relics, such as a hair of

and the first Imam of Shi'a Islam believed to be buried at the nation's most elaborate shrine located in the heart of Mazari Sharif, the Exalted Shrine. Ali is revered throughout Afghanistan for his role as an intermediary in the face of tyranny.

Festive annual fairs celebrated at shrines attract thousands of pilgrims and bring together all sections of communities. Pilgrims also visit shrines to seek the intercession of the saint for special favors, be it a cure for illness or the birth of a son. Women are particularly devoted to activities associated with shrines. These visits may be short or last several days and many pilgrims carry away specially blessed curative and protective

) to ward off the evil eye, assure loving relationships between husbands and wives and many other forms of solace. Like saint veneration, such practices are generally not encouraged in Islam according to classical understanding of the Holy Qu'ran and Hadiths (prophetic sayings of the Rabi)

Shia Islam in Afghanistan

Abul Fazl Mosque in Kabul during construction in 2008, the largest Shia mosque in Afghanistan^[13]

Roughly 10% of the

group, who are originally from eastern Iran.

Politically aware Shia students formed the Afghan

activities. They were aided by Shi'a Iran and fought against the Soviet-backed Afghan government as well as other mujahideen groups.

During the political maneuvering leading up to the establishment of the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1992, the Shi'a groups unsuccessfully negotiated for more equitable, consequential political and social roles.

Ismailism

The

During the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan Sayed Jafar Naderi was the Ismaili commandar, called the 'Warlord of Kayan' in a documentary by Journeyman Pictures. ^{[17] [18]}

Following the fall of Taliban in 2001, Ismailis established a political party called the

Sufi influences

Three Sufi orders are prominent: the

in the sixteenth century.

Another famous

came to power and remains missing to this day.

The

and Chehst-i-Sharif, is very strong locally and maintains madrasas with fine libraries. Traditionally the Cheshtiya have kept aloof from politics, although they were effectively active during the resistance within their own organizations and in their own areas.

Herat and its environs has the largest number and greatest diversity of Sufi branches, many of which are connected with local tombs of pir (ziarat). Other Sufi groups are found all across the north, with important centers in

, descendants of Mohammad, who are especially venerated among the Shi'a.

Afghanistan is unique in that there is little hostility between the

Sufi

orders. A number of Sufi leaders are considered as ulama, and many ulama closely associate with Sufi brotherhoods. The general populace accords Sufis respect for their learning and for possessing karamat, the psychic spiritual power conferred upon them by God that enables pirs to perform acts of generosity and bestow blessings (barakat). Sufism therefore is an effective popular force. In addition, since Sufi leaders distance themselves from the mundane, they are at times turned to as more disinterested mediators in tribal disputes in preference to mullahs who are reputed to escalate minor secular issues into volatile confrontations couched in Islamic rhetoric.

Despite the Afghan Sufis' stable position in Afghan society, Sufi leaders were among those executed following the

See also

• Islam by country
• Islam in South Asia
• Education in Afghanistan
• List of mosques in Afghanistan
• Religion in Afghanistan
• Women in Islam

References

External links

• Afghanistan at Flags of the World