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Dynamic interplay between religion and armed conflict in Afghanistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2011

Ken Guest
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Abstract

In approaching this subject the most important thing to understand is how Afghans perceive things to be. On to this must be grafted factors about their environment, beliefs, and character that most affect their response. The physical characteristics of their environment are easy to define and describe, but their character, relationship to Islam, and how the two combine and affect their mode of warfare is more complex – a knot of truly Gordian proportions. However, if the past is accurately factored into the present, this enables contextual understanding, which is the key to unlocking the puzzle.

Type
Socio-political and Humanitarian Environment
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 92 , Issue 880: Conflict in Afghanistan I , December 2010 , pp. 877 - 897
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2011

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References

1 Sykes, Percy, A History of Afghanistan, Macmillan & Co. Ltd, London, 1940, Vol. 1, p. 2Google Scholar.

2 Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, London, 1815, p. 149.

3 John W. Kaye, The War in Afghanistan, 3rd edition, 3 vols, William H. Allen, London, 1874, Vol. 1, p. 11.

4 The Soviet invasion began in December 1979 and ended in February 1989.

5 Richard Tapper (ed.), The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan, Croom Helm, London, 1983, p. 9.

6 M. Elphinstone, above note 2, p. 148.

7 Ibid., p. 149.

8 H.C. Wylly, The Borderland: The Country of the Pathans, Safdar Mehdi, Karachi, 1998 (originally published 1912), p. 5.

9 Denzil Charles Jelf Ibbetson (1847–1908), ethnographer and British colonial civil servant in India; Superintendent of Census in 1881 and author of the well-received The Panjab Census Report, 1881; later (1898) Chief Commissioner of the Punjab and Lieut. Governor of the Punjab 1905–1908. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India (KCSI) in 1903.

10 As quoted in H. C. Wylly, above note 8, pp. 6–7.

11 Ibid., p. 8.

12 J. W. Kaye, above note 3, Vol. 1, p. 11.

13 H. C. Wylly, above note 8, p. 10.

14 Edward E. Oliver, Across the Border or Pathan and Biluch, Chapman & Hall Ltd., London, 1890, p. 224.

15 Public Data, available at: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:AFG&dl=en&hl=en&q=afghan+life+expectancy (last visited 26 November 2010).

16 Index Mundi, available at: http://www.indexmundi.com/afghanistan/life_expectancy_at_birth.html (last visited 26 November 2010). Data for Afghanistan is notoriously fluid and therefore hard to pin down. It should be noted that age expectancy data leans heavily on assessments based on surveys targeting urban dwellers rather than the more representative rural population, who can expect a shorter life span.

17 The Oxus civilization was all but lost to history until the Russian excavations in the 1970s.

18 The meteoric rise established a western border that included Meshad (modern-day Iran) and the fertile Punjab plains to the east. Durrani assumed the glittering title of Durr-i-Durran (Pearl of Pearls), but after his death in 1772 Afghanistan went into decline, never to recover.

19 The other three being the Malkite, Shafiite, and Hanbalite.

20 Of these, the most notable is Azhdar, close to the site where the two giant Bamiyan Buddhas once stood.

21 Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988, p. 10.

22 Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–1690) was, as his name implies, Khan of the Khattak tribe, a renowned warrior and a poet who authored over 45,000 poems. See C. Biddulph, Afghan Poetry of the Seventeenth Century: Being Selections from the Poems of Khushal Khan Khattak, Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1890.

23 Henry George Raverty, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghan: From the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, Williams and Norgate, London, 1867, p. 213.

24 Ibid., p. 187.

25 An early name for the people of Rohilkand, ‘the land of the Rohillas’, now known as the Suleiman Mountains and inhabited by the Yusufzais tribes.

26 Translated in C. Biddulph, Afghan Poetry, available at: http://www.afghan-network.net/biographies/khattak.html(last visited 15 January 2011).

27 Bo Huldt and Erland Jansoson (eds), The Tragedy of Afghanistan: The Social, Cultural and Political Impact of the Soviet Invasion, Croom Helm (in co-operation with the Swedish Institute of International Affairs), London, 1988, p. 12.

28 ‘Do not kill the wounded, do not pursue anyone retreating and whoever throws down his weapon will be spared’. Hadith, al-Zuhri, from Imam ‘Ali ibn al-Hussein, as quoted in Imam Muhammad Shirazi, War, Peace and Non-violence: An Islamic Perspective, London, 2003, p. 45, available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4084892/Imam-Muhammad-Shirazi-War-Peace-and-NonViolence-an-Islamic-Perspective (last visited 26 November 2010).

29 ‘When ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded).’ Qur'an, 47:4, 1934 translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, reissued in 2000 by Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, p. 434.

30 In ad 632, the year of the Prophet Muhammad's death, Abu-Bakr (the first Caliph) assumed leadership responsibility and gave instructions to Usama bin Zayd, the eighteen-year-old leader of the punitive expedition to harass the Syrian border. This included the order ‘do not cut down fruit-bearing trees’. Maliks Muwatta, Book 021, Hadith Number 010, as quoted by Sami Zaatari, The Prophet Muhammad Said Don't Kill Women and Children, available at: http://muslim-responses.com/No_killing_women_and_children_/No_killing_women_children_ (last visited 26 November 2010).

31 Theodore Leighton Pennell, Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier: A Record of Sixteen Years' Close Intercourse with the Natives of the Indian Marches, 2nd edition, Seeley and Co. Ltd., London, 1909, p. 17.

32 The term ‘Muhammadan’ is considered offensive by some Muslims because they feel it suggests worship of Muhammad rather than Allah (God). It is retained here in quotation because, being drawn from testimony of that time, it serves to convey some of the confusion inherent in how Islam was interpreted by outside observers during the nineteenth century.

33 E. E. Oliver, above note 14, p. 184.

34 Tirah, originally within Afghan borders, is now in Pakistan, owing to the historical erosion of those borders.

35 H. C. Wylly, above note 8, p. 10.

36 The Third Anglo-Afghan War, 1919, was fought for different reasons.

37 Under Pakistan management, the covert pipeline funnelled funds and arms to seven political parties, not six, but not all could be taken seriously.

38 An estimated 3.3 million were exiled in Pakistan and almost two million in Iran. For the more educated and wealthy this was mostly the first step to more distant exile in North America, Europe, Australia, etc. Very few of the educated elite remained to fight against the Soviets, leaving the fighting and dying to the least wealthy portion of the population.

39 Wahhabism gets its name from the teachings of the eighteenth-century scholar “Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, who hailed from what is now Saudi Arabia and preached a very austere interpretation of Islam, which he claimed was more in tune with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

40 ‘Lastly, the great uncertainty of all data in War is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not unfrequently – like the effect of a fog or moonshine – gives to things exaggerated dimensions and an unnatural appearance’. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Project Gutenberg, Chapter II, Section 24, available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm (last visited 26 November 2010).

41 M. Elphinstone, above note 2, p. 174.