Pushtun tribalism vs. radical Islam

[GunsOfPatriot]

I would not attack for that because the phenomenon you would have mentioned would have certainly existed, even if not in the area that you cited. In the case of the article about Utter Pradesh, the phenomenon that you claim existed, i.e. disgusting rulings and verdicts ordered and carried out by Pakhtoons along the lines of what was spoken of in the article, such a phenomenon does not exist among Pakhtoons, hence my harsh criticism.

What you have done is slandered Pakhtoons by claiming that such a ruling or verdict was ever issued by a Pakhtoon jirga (i.e. "council"). Slander at its most extreme, no doubt guided by some sort of preconceived biases or prejudices for there is nothing in the article that would make one believe that it was a Pashtoon tribal council that called for that verdict. Not a thing. Why the jump to the conclusion that it was a Pashtoon/Pakhtoon council that issued and then carried out the verdict?

Sunni_Student... Very good points.

Question, it is not a matter of attacking I don't get why you are trying to turn this into a fist fight. You slandered Pakhtoons based on a phenomenon that does not exist among them.

How did you people come to a topic on 'pakhtoon wali'? In Afghanistan and Pakistan there are many tribes that follow customs that might contradict the quran and the sunnah. How do you bring the Pakhtoons in the spot light.

Also the beginning of this thread, all that stuff written is over exaggerated information without any factual evidence.

In every nation there are good people and bad people, some people commit crimes against humanity and they pay for their sins. This does not mean that the whole nation is to blame, so even if such an incident had taken place that does not justify your claims.

[Sunni_Student786]

Actually I agree that the pashtuns have many good traits-alhamdulillah.


WHat i am interested in is what actually happened in afghanistan?
Nobody really seems to know..
Were the Taliban infiltrated by wahhabis?Or were they following hanafi ulema?
What on earth happened there?

What happened in Afghanistan is a complex question with a complex answer. What I will seek to do here is shed some light on the issue of as to what happened in Afghanistan insofar as the Taliban, Wahhabis, Hanafi Ulema, and the local geo-polital situation is concerned.

The Taliban

The Taliban began as a popular movement in Afghanistan that had widespread, grass roots support in the Pashtoon heartland of Afghanistan. The spiritual homeland of the Taliban was the famed city of Kandahar and, hence, the VAST majority of the Taliban's rank and file were not only Pashtoons, but Pashtoons from Kandahar and its outlying regions. This is not to say that only Pashtoons or Kandahari Pashtoons were part of the Taliban leadership or its rank and file, but that that vast majority fell into those categories.

The culture of the Pashtoons in Kandahar differed a bit from that of other Pashtoons which sometimes caused for a culture clash between the Taliban and other Pashtoons, not to mention non-Pashtoons. Furthermore, the bulk of the Taliban leadership were "Ghilzai" Pashtoons, whereas the majority of its rank and file were "Durrani" Pashtoons (most Pashtoon/Pakhtoon tribes are either considered to be subtribes of the Ghilzai or Durrani confederations). Thus, the seeds for sowing ethnic and tribal discord among the movement were already sown right from the birth of the movement.

Wahhabi-connection

Nearly all of the Taliban's leadership were veterans of the Afghan-Soviet War and, roughly, 20% of its rank and file were also veterans of the same war. The rest of the bulk of the Taliban's members were Afghan refugees who had grown up in refugee camps and studied at Madaaris in the Tribal Territories, NWFP, and Balochistan Province of "Pakistan". These Madrassahs, as I'm sure most are now aware, were funded, with few exceptions, by Saudi dollars. With Saudi money usually comes the exporting of Saudi, hence, Wahhabi, ideology. These madaaris, however, 95% of the time, never taught, nor presented themselves as teachers of, "Orthodox" Wahhabi/Salafi ideology. They taught Hanafi fiqh and traditional Islamic sciences, albeit with some "Wahhabi" tendencies and attitudes. Most of these madrassahs were either run by graduates of Darululoom Deoband or affiliated schools.

The reason for this was because "Deobandi Hanafism" is the variety that is the least "objectionable" to "moderate" Salafis/Wahhabis. By "moderate Salafi/Wahhabi" what I mean are those scholars or people who do not call themselves "Salafis" or "Wahhabis", but who still hold Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab and his teachings in high regard and who share many of the same views that set Wahhabis apart from most Muslims (e.g. concept of Bidah, apprehension towards Tassawuf, etc.).

"Deobandi Hanafism" was less objectionable to the "moderate" Salafis/Wahhabis because many Deobandi positions and stances which are at a variance with the bulk of traditional Hanafi scholarship, bear striking resemblances to similar Wahhabi/Salafi position, stances, methodologies, etc. Consider the similarities between their positions on the Mawlid, building over Graves, heavy emphasis on hadith text in formulating and selecting rulings to follow, extreme admiration for the person and works of Ibn Taimiyyah, etc. For this reason, these Madaaris, which catered to Pakhtoons who are known for their martial nature and, thus, would make prime candidates to carry on Jihad, were chosen to receive Saudi funds, so long as they preached a "Salafised" version of Islam. These "Salafised" Hanafi Afghan refugee children, then went on to form the bulk of the rank and file of the Taliban, although NOT its leadership.

As of the year 2000, the ideological make up the Taliban's rank and file was as follows, 35% "Orthodox Hanafi" (15% of whom were also refugee children who studied in more traditional madaaris), 60% Salafised/Deobandi Hanafis, and 3-5% Ahlul Hadith or hardcore Salafi types. It's leadership was almost entirely "Orthodox Hanafi", be it the Deobandi or more "Ottoman-style" Hanafism.

Around the year 1994, Osama bin Laden and other Arab Hanbalis/Salafis interested in waging Jihad, entered Afghanistan, even before the rule of the Taliban. They had been in Afghanistan during the Soviet war, but had left soon thereafter. They now came back and sought a base of operations in the lawless country. When the Taliban swept into power, they did not know what to do with their "guests", since they could not expel them, as this went against Pakhtoonwali, something that was ingrained in them at birth, not to mention against the injunctions of Islam to give refuge to a Muslim who seeks it.

How did this all lead to where Afghanistan is now?

As time went on, Osama bin Laden and company began to give some money to the Taliban for development of the country and coordinated marriages between members of the Taliban's leadership and Al Qaeda's; both were done with the intention of solidifying the bonds of "friendship" between the two entities.

When the United States issued an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden to them or expel him or else face the consequences, three primary reasons prevented them from doing so:

1) Islam, i.e. the injunction wherein one is not to deny refuge to a Muslim brother when he seeks it from the Kufaar.

2) Pakhtoonwali, which has at its core the concept of refuge and asylum to all who seek it.

3) Familial ties with the leadership of Al-Qaeda.

For these reasons, the Taliban did not hand over Al-Qaeda members to the United States.

When the sabre-rattling of the United States grew louder, some among the Taliban who knew that a war with the U.S. would spell doom for Afghanistan and its inhabitants, for a period of about a day and a half, members of the movement claimed that Osama bin Laden had left Afghanistan but that they did not know where he was and, as such, they could not be punished for not handing him over, as he was not in their jurisdiction. When the United States scoffed at the idea that the Taliban did not know where he was and their saber rattling grew louder, the Taliban stopped trying to buy time before the impending invasion and the Pakhtoon character of the movement and its members came to the surface when, in classic Kandahari/Durrani-Pashtoon fashion, the leader of the movement said "The United States does not have the courage to invade Afghanistan".

At this point, many other people flocked to the movement, not necessarily due to a desire to perform Jihad, but out of a sense of Afghan/Pakhtoon nationalism, which was a phenomenon that even spread out to the Tribal Territories and NWFP of "Pakistan", which are areas dominated by Pakhtoons (i.e. ethnic Afghans). Many Pashtoons from NWFP and the Tribal Territories flocked to Afghanistan to fight the American, some due to a sense of ethnic solidarity with their Pakhtoon brethren in Afghanistan, some out of a desire to do Jihad.

The rest is history.

I hope that the above has helped to clarify at least some questions that you may have had bro.

[tazkiyyah]

Okay.That sounds a more realistic picture.

The picture i have heard from deobandi ulema around england
has been a much more romanticised picture of an ideal islamic state etc ec

[abdushakur]

Sunni_Student786, why do you place inverted commas around the word 'Pakistan' in your post?





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ps. In the absence of the PM facility, i have emailed you at the address you provided when you registered with SF. To date, i have not received a reply from you. Please can you reply. There is something that i need to discuss.

Many thanks.

[Sunni_Student786]

....The picture i have heard from deobandi ulema around england
has been a much more romanticised picture of an ideal islamic state etc ec

The state was about as close to an ideal Islamic state as we have seen in modern times, but yes, it was still far from it.

Among the primary reasons for this, in my opinion, had to do with the huge difference in world view between most of the type of Pashtoons who made up the movement, and the more liberal, westernized inhabitants of Kabul. If anything, the area where there was any significant friction between local inhabitants and the Taliban, was Kabul. Much of this was also due to racism of the highest degree, as well as an aversion, in Kabul, against the "Mullah" class. The idea of a "bunch" of "Mullahs", not to mention Kandahari ones, running Afghanistan was just repulsive to them.

What also worked against the Taliban was the extreme lack of "tact" that was exhibited by many members of its rank and file, who resembled the Saudi "Muttawwa" in many ways. Some people blame that on the rural, Pashtoon culture in which many of the Taliban have grown up, and I cannot say that I disagree with that possibility.

One thing that I don't think many understand is that there was a disconnect between the Taliban leadership and its foot soldiers, at times. That this disconnect had been there for quite some time became quite evident when the movement splintered into three groups shortly after they were disloged from power. Each of these group, roughly, represented one of the three ideological strains that were to be found amongst their rank and file.

I do honestly believe that if the U.S. had no invaded Afghanistan, in 10-15 years time the movement would have continued to learn from its mistakes and continued towards the development of a true Islamic state. Unfortunatley, we will never know with certainty what would have happened had the tragic events of 9/11 not unfolded.

[Sunni_Student786]

Sunni_Student786, why do you place inverted commas around the word 'Pakistan' in your post?





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ps. In the absence of the PM facility, i have emailed you at the address you provided when you registered with SF. To date, i have not received a reply from you. Please can you reply. There is something that i need to discuss.

Many thanks.

Brother,

I placed inverted "commas" around the name "Pakistan" for a number of reasons, but chiefly because I think that

1) Pakistan is an unnatural state.

2) Pakistan's very existence, at least insofar as some of its territorial possessions are concered (e.g. the Tribal Territories, NWFP, Balochistan, etc.), is of dubious legality.

3) The state (i.e. government) of "Pakistan", which is actually an acronym for those who don't know, has been anything but "Paak" (urdu/persian: Clean), in any sense of the word, since its inception.

With regard to the email you have sent, I will check now for it brother.

Wa'salaam.

[abdushakur]

Brother,

I placed inverted "commas" around the name "Pakistan" for a number of reasons, but chiefly because I think that

1) Pakistan is an unnatural state.

2) Pakistan's very existence, at least insofar as some of its territorial possessions are concered (e.g. the Tribal Territories, NWFP, Balochistan, etc.), is of dubious legality.

3) The state (i.e. government) of "Pakistan", which is actually an acronym for those who don't know, has been anything but "Paak" (urdu/persian: Clean), in any sense of the word, since its inception.

With regard to the email you have sent, I will check now for it brother.

Wa'salaam.

How is Pakistan an "unnatural state"?
What other states around the world would you also apply these criteria to to define them as "unnatural" too?

Do you recognise Pakistan as a viable state and as a homeland/base for the muslims of the subcontinent as envisaged by a group of the pre-partition ulama of bharat?

[Sunni_Student786]

How is Pakistan an "unnatural state"?
What other states around the world would you also apply these criteria to to define them as "unnatural" too?

Do you recognise Pakistan as a viable state and as a homeland/base for the muslims of the subcontinent as envisaged by a group of the pre-partition ulama of bharat?

Brother, unfortunately, I do not have much time to answer you questions in depth at this moment, but to answer one of your questions at least generally,

Yes, I do recognize the POTENTIAL that Pakistan had/has as a viable state and/or homeland/base for the Muslims of the Subcontinent as envisaged by a group of pre-partition Ulema of Bharat.

[questions]

I would not attack for that because the phenomenon you would have mentioned would have certainly existed, even if not in the area that you cited.

Africa is a more massive land than Pakistan. If you won't attack because the cited area is in Africa, then you shouldn't attack if the other area is Pakistan, because the "phenomenon" I mentioned does infact occur in some areas of Pakistan - with a link to one such incident.

I am not saying that you shouldn't correct me. I am saying that you are too harsh.

Do you recognise Pakistan as a viable state and as a homeland/base for the muslims of the subcontinent as envisaged by a group of the pre-partition ulama of bharat?

Why not ALL muslims?

[Sunni_Student786]

..... then you shouldn't attack if the other area is Pakistan, because the "phenomenon" I mentioned does infact occur in some areas of Pakistan - with a link to one such incident.

Not among Pakhtoons, unless the phenomenon that you are making reference to is unislamic rulings or customs being a matter of de facto law in certain areas.

Council or Tribally approved rape has not, nor ever will be, connected with Pakhtoonwali, insha'allah.

And again, why did you claim, implicitly, or make seem as though you were saying, that this was a Pakhtoon jirga (i.e. council) that issued this verdict or that Pakhtoons were involved. Why? What in the article made you think it was Pashtoons who were involved in the incident? What?

And mistakenly naming an area is one thing, indicting a people, their values, societal structure, etc. is quite another.

This is the last time that I am going to clarify my comments.