عزیزان
علاقمند به "ما همه افغان نیستیم"؛ میتوانید این اثر ارزشمند از تاریخ
نگار شهیر کشور مان "غلام محمد محمدی" را که فروش آن از سوی دولت منع قرار
داده شده است، از نشانی های ذیل بدست آرید:
Afghanistan: Identity Vacuum and West’s Disinformation
A Review of Afghanistan’s Social Media Discussions
In the current climate of political stalemate and ongoing conflict the users of social and online media both inside and outside Afghanistan increasingly becoming active and engaging in maintaining discussions on daily and hot topics around country’s political, security and related phenomenon. A qualitative brief review can overtly indicate an interesting outlooks along the regional, linguistic and ethno-cultural zones; which usually shows a clear contrast with the other in respect of commonly held believes and preferences. The most striking pattern is two main fronts of thoughts and believes which crudely correlates with the current security and political spontaneous zonification reality on the ground. Noticeably on level of fierceness of grass-root anti-Taliban activism, level of Taliban influence and control and local population preferences on engagement of international forces; as well as the views on government’s honesty in regards to the western engagement, commitment to democratic process and treatment of Taliban.
An observer even from outside can easily work out the background reasons behind this striking contrast, not least get overtly and repeatedly mentioned by participants in social medias: the lingo-cultural and ethnic differences. The inhabitants from the South and Eastern regions bordering Pakistan, who are Pashtu speakers and known as Pashtuns more officially and Afghan unofficially as a distinct ethnic and cultural group, tend to be less critical of Taliban and their supporters in Pakistan and more critical of NATO and the indigenous Anti-Taliban political front. This trend is exactly opposite with media users from North-east, North, West and Central zones in relation to Taliban and NATO. The users from latter zones are usually Perso-Turkic in their roots but mainly Persian/Farsi speakers and mixed urban educated and non-tribal population.
As far as an open discussion is concerned about such regional differences, it is almost like an unannounced forbidden theme to talk in government circles and media as well as international media. Similarly these differences are least talked about and explored by international specialist on Afghanistan or international think tanks. Studying inter-regional dynamics and roots of these differences is fascinating and sounds as basic requirement in better understanding of the country’s and its population’s cultural and political history which so far has not been done in details and largely influenced by systematic ethno-political biases the Afghanistan successive governments managed to lead into studies even carried out apparently by foreign scientists, a frequent theme raised by media users.
King Babur, whose love of and rise from Kabul chose the city as his capital and land of eternal rest, regarded the city as the birthplace of an influential Khorasani empire in Central Asia and Indian subcontinent in 16th century. This empire and its vast legacy, known by the West and Indians as the Mughols, is probably a good example symbolizing the current beneath the surface tension and dilemma of national ego and unifying image vacuity the inhabitants of Afghanistan find themselves to cope with since late 19th- early 20th century, a theme increasingly being discussed in online and social media sites in Afghanistan.
There is a general agreement amongst country’s urban educated originating from vast Perso-Turkic population that such vacuum is increasingly the background for ethnic tensions with a potential to polarize further the current conflict along the ethnic lines as an awaiting reality. It is feared that such reality will threaten country’s integrity with more loss of lives while some regard this as an opportunity to detach more peaceful regions of theirs from war ravaged South and East even though partition as an option has never been demanded in principle by the so-called Mellyat Haie Mahroom or deprived ethnic groups political representatives so far.
Continuing on Babur Shah story, according to Western and Indian perspectives the relationship of Babur to Khorasan (also spelled Khurasan), which historically approximates to the land called Afghanistan and her population, the Khorasanis, barely goes beyond his love of and grave in Kabul. Therefore, outside Afghanistan the common concept taken hold i.e. that the emperor, who originated in Central Asian Farghana Valley, was culturally Persianized attributed mostly to today’s Iran including his army and generals despite them being natives of Kabulistan and Badakhshan, and Babur Shah founded an Indian empire in the Subcontinent.
This assertion is directly in conflict with popular view of Afghanistanis, both with the educated including historians and common literate man, not so much with the individuals from Pashtun background for ethno-nationalistic reasons. Most regard Babur Shah and his administration achievements as their pride and a manifestation of Khorasanis/Afghanistan’s population capability in need of recognition and respect. Often stated as if such capability is not sabotaged and better managed can help the masses to rediscover their much awaited and needed strengths in rebuilding and defending the country against Taliban’s armed campaign. It is widely believed that under Karzai’s decade leadership his close co-tribal aides, who managed to keep the real key power positions in roughly in a co-ethnic control, have been either less keen or actively against the recognition achievement of non-Pashtun Khorasani ethnicities. Some fear and argue that such denial is halting the potential opportunities and realistic strengths these groups can offer in resolving the current stalemate in defending the land against the infiltration of religious warriors from Pakistan.
Examining the historic account corroborate the claim Afghanistani Perso-Turkic population make i.e. after defeated by competing royal cousins and uncle in Transoxania Babur Shah crossed Amu Darya the Amu River with few bodyguards and settled in Badakhshan in Northern Khorasan (today’s Afghanistan) where he rose a local army made up of local Tajiks/Eastern Persians, including his prominent battlefield general for invasion of India Bairam Khan too was a native of Badakhshan. He managed to invade Kabul in 1504; Kabulistan and Khorasan community proved itself as a flourishing ground for Babur’s glory and expansion of his rule beyond Khorasani regions. In his memoires Baburnama he repeatedly calls and regards himself, his people and government as Khorasani (name given to inhabitants of Eastern Persia/ Iran before the name Afghanistan was adopted in late 19th early 20th century). His love of Kabul and Khorasan was a probable reason that he was reluctant to move his capital or be buried in neither the ever beautiful turquoise city of Samarkand, the target of his early military campaign, nor the heavenly Delhi but Kabul and Khorasan.
Other talked-about historic figures connected to the current identity battle are the ones with a global reach and legacy who remains traceable to the land of their nativity in current day Afghanistan is the influential Mawlana Jalaluddin Balkhi Rumi The Prophet of Love Dr Soroush whose Mathnavi The Book of Love was topped as best poet seller in USA over 1990s, UNESCO celebrated 800th anniversary of his birth and named 2007 as The Year of Rumi. As a native of Balkh in Northern Khorasan/Afghanistan there was sporadic and limited effort led by province’s government office to revive Rumi’s cause for Peace, Forgiveness, and Love for Humanity. Rumi’s massage as a potential booster of peace spirit, again most probably due to ethno-nationalistic reasons, has not attracted a deserved and much needed attention by war ravaged country’s leadership of central government in Kabul even on Rumi’s year. It was limited to hosting a conference where country’s president unlike Iranian President fell short of attending.
Similarly Avicenna of Balkh perhaps the most famous Muslim ancient physician and philosopher with outstanding scientific work placing his work at reference text book of science and medicine for European universities for about 4 centuries between 12th-16th, which had a fortune of being translated and published for 17 times only in Europe.
For varieties of reasons latter and similar figures from the land are not celebrated and sought after inside Afghanistan but claimed by Afghanistan neighbours mostly Iran for shared language etc.
Generally there is a sense of frustration that the country’s heritage is being allowed to be hijacked and claimed by neighbours and the land’s historic cultural wealth as a backbone of current existence is being sold out for ethno-political motives to facilitate the rise of a single ethnic identity and imposing their identity as a national one on others who makes as much as two thirds of country population inheriting the strong Persian Iranic civilization and language of Khorasan.
Current government not only does not facilitate an open and frank attitude to take on board and recognise such frustrations and clarify the issues, it rather complicates the problem e.g. by removing ethno-linguistic profiling of a national census data collection to protect the perception of Pashtun majority imposed by hegemonial governments in early 20th century.
This linguistic and inter-ethnic tension and rivalry has roots in more recent history of Afghanistan in late 19th and early 20th century while country was led to adapt its current name while the land find itself increasingly squeezed between powerful Ango-Russian empires eroding Khorasanis political and cultural influence specially in the Subcontinent including a ban of their Dari/Persian as official language and replacing it with English and Hindi as new official languages of British India. The latter although in one sense was a renaming of Urdu, the language of ruling Muslims in the subcontinent, in turn extracted mostly from Khorasani Persian language with Hindi components, still remains a widely spoken language in the subcontinent. Some scholars in Afghanistan B Sakhawarz view curbing of Persian as a conspiracy of colonial powers to limit and subsequently replace Khorasani Persian influence outside its natural base, most from territories to be added to new European colonial rule and influence zone. With the arrival of European influence and modernity into Afghanistan the new Afghan rulers.
Ahmad Shah Massoud in the 1980s
 |
| Ahmad Shah Massoud Shaikh Musa |
Saudi Academic Recounts Experiences from Afghan war
Al-Hayat
03/20/2006
Text of part one of three of interview with Musa al-Qarni, Saudi
academic and former "shari'ah theoretician" for Usamah Bin-Ladin, by
Jamil al-Dhiyabi in Riyadh, date not given, published by London-based
newspaper Al-Hayat on 8 March
Many people think that the
"Afghan experience and its mujahidin" is gone forever and that it has
left no mark on our present time. However, Saudi academic Musa al-Qarni,
who once led the incitement to jihad in Saudi Arabia and travelled to
Afghanistan in the early days of "jihad" against the Russians, believes
otherwise.
Al-Qarni is an exciting character, not only because
of the events he narrates about the "jihad" leaders, both dead and
alive, and his testimonies about yesterday's "mujahidin" and today's
"terrorists", but is also exciting because he has a calm personality
that has enabled him to pass through contradictory stages and then with
great cleverness to leave every one of his experiences behind him.
He was the friend of all factions. Among the takfiris [those who brand
other Muslims, including their own governments, as infidels] he
advocated respect for the Islamic governments. He defended those whom
the mujahidin branded as "apostates", such as Ahmad Shah Masud. Indeed
he was a personal friend of Usamah Bin-Ladin but an opponent of the
Taleban regime. Al-Qarni is a fantastic character that lived in harmony
both with the zeal of "jihad" and the quiet life of academia.
Al-Hayat met Al-Qarni and now publishes his interview in the following pages:
[Al-Dhiyabi] Tell us how you travelled to Pakistan, then Afghanistan and worked alongside the mujahidin in the 1980s.
[Al-Qarni] An academic course was being held in Peshawar, Pakistan. I
was a lecturer in those days and I asked the university president to
allow me to join the group that was attending the course in Peshawar. I
also informed him that if I went there, I would try to learn about the
mujahidin's conditions. I attended the course but found time to visit
the battlefronts to learn about the life of the mujahidin. I made the
acquaintance of Shaykh Abdallah Azzam and Shaykh Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. In
those days Shaykh Sayyaf operated a university called the University of
Call and Jihad in an area close to Peshawar that had been named the
Village of Migration. It had been specifically established to house
refugees from Afghanistan but most of the Arabs who had come to Pakistan
with their families also lived there.
At that time Shaykh
Sayyaf had been elected as president of the so-called Ittihad-e Islami,
the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan. This group was
formed after Muslim ulema and preachers made efforts to unite various
mujahidin factions in one body, so they formed Ittihad-e Islami and
elected Sayyaf as leader because he had studied at Al-Azhar and spoke
Arabic well.
This encouraged the Arabs to go and settle there.
Their destination was where Sayyaf resided because first of all he was
the president of Ittihad-e Islami and this gave him legitimacy in their
eyes and he was also proficient in Arabic. For this reason he had a
guest house in the village. Indeed I was a guest there for a long time.
This was the beginning.
Afterwards I wanted to stay with the
mujahidin longer. Consultations were held on how I could spend a long
time with the mujahidin. Since Shaykh Sayyaf had a university for call
and jihad, he told me: I will petition to let you become a lecturer at
my university.
He made an application to the state to allow him
to invite lecturers to teach at the university. The application was
referred to Medina's Islamic University, which responded by dispatching
to him five instructors to teach at the University of Call and Jihad,
and I was one of them. This went on for two years. Actually I played a
role that was different from the four other lecturers whose tasks were
confined to teaching.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Who were your colleagues at the University of Call and Jihad?
[Al-Qarni] They were Dr Hamdan Rajih al-Sharif, who is a retired
professor now; Dr Ibrahim al-Murshid, who now teaches in Al-Qasim;
Shaykh Rashid al-Ruhayli, a retired Islamic University professor who is
over 80 now; and Professor Dakhilallah al-Ruhayli who continues to teach
at the Islamic University. I was the fifth. As I said before, their
role was confined to teaching at the university but my role, by virtue
of my acquaintance with Shaykh Sayyaf and the mujahidin, combined
teaching at the university with visits to the front to advocate the
faith and give lessons in religion and Islamic shari'ah to the young
mujahidin and also to take part in some operations.
[Al-Dhiyabi] What form did the advocacy of the faith take in those days?
[Al-Qarni] Many Arab young men who had joined the jihad lacked a proper
Islamic education. Indeed a large percentage of them had lived a
dissolute life before. Some did not become upstanding human beings until
they decided to join the jihad. They became honest persons and
immediately left to join the jihad. I know some young mujahidin who were
later killed in the fighting - I wish God may count them as martyrs -
who had led dishonest lives before and indeed some had been really
dissolute. But they were attracted to jihad.
This fact actually
helped me in my work as advocate of the faith because I realized that
many of those dissolute young men had something good inside them but
never found the proper environment that would nurture them so they fell
into an immoral mode of living. When they first came to us, some of them
did not even know the rules of prayer or ritual cleansing prior to
performing prayers. They had only come to fight. My field of expertise
was shari'ah-related and I taught the rules of physical purity before
performing prayers and the rules of worship. I instructed them in the
rules governing jihad, invasion, war spoils and combat and when they
should fight and when they should refrain from fighting. So they
attended courses in these matters. At the same time they attended
military courses and received instructions from military experts.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Did you yourself attend military courses? What did these courses focus on?
[Al-Qarni] They focused primarily on developing the quality of
endurance. As you know, Afghanistan has a mountainous terrain that has
no paved roads for vehicles. So the trainees had to learn to tolerate
hardship, to climb mountains and walk for 10-12 hours a day while
carrying their personal effects, weapons and food for the trip. It was
important to develop their power of endurance.
Secondly they
were trained in the use of personal firearms. They were in a war. They
had to carry their personal weapon, a Kalashnikov rifle, and know how to
use it and how to use a pistol as well. Of course military training
differed from one fighter to another according to personal aptitude and
the role each was expected to play. Some confined themselves to learning
how to use a Kalashnikov. Some trainees wanted to learn personal combat
but others wanted to learn how to use antiaircraft guns and antitank
guns. Others wanted to learn how to use mines, how to manufacture them
and how to dismantle them, etc. The military courses differed in these
details according to the type of trainee. Most combatants received
training only in the use of personal firearms, Kalashnikovs and pistols.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Did anyone receive training in suicide operations?
[Al-Qarni] No, there were no suicide operations at the time. The young
men used to attack tanks and fighter aircraft with their personal
weapons. The battle was open. The Russian bases with their tanks and
planes were there. You had your weapons and you could go and fight them
face to face.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Is it true that the university where
you and your four colleagues worked turned into a station for the relay
of intelligence data? Was the Village of Migration also a channel for
intelligence operations?
[Al-Qarni] It is necessary to have
intelligence work. This is a normal state of affairs. It was not
possible for the combatants taking part in the jihad in Afghanistan not
to be backed by an intelligence apparatus. It is simply impossible to
operate without intelligence in any country, including Pakistan and the
United States. Even the enemies, the Russians, had an intelligence
apparatus and sometimes they had moles in the ranks of the Afghan
mujahidin. It is normal. However, we never saw any of the intelligence
work. The intelligence personnel did not interact directly with the
mujahidin. They worked directly with the politicians.
[Al-Dhiyabi] The mujahidin killed a group of people who used to work
with them, I mean they executed them saying that they discovered that
they had been providing information to other parties.
[Al-Qarni] This took place in the later stages. In the early stages, the
jihad was out in the open. Public operations do not provide an
opportunity for concealment. I will give you an example. Sometimes
certain countries would send intelligence operatives and indeed some of
them might have been sympathetic to the communists. Indeed we know that
some Arab countries were sympathetic to Russia. These countries used to
send intelligence personnel. What happened to those people? At first
they were received as guests and then invited to join the mujahidin in
combat. What would such a person do? He would be forced to become a
combatant or if he was an intelligence agent, he would remain in the
rear among the migrants and civilians. He could not go to the front
because he would either be killed in combat or have his cover blown.
These people did not want to die especially when faced with the enemy.
When you confront the enemy, you must be prepared to die.
[Al-Dhiyabi] How many stages did the Afghan jihad go through in the 1980s?
[Al-Qarni] I would say the first stage lasted from the beginning of
jihad until the collapse of Kabul's communist regime and the mujahidin's
capture of the city. The second stage was the stage of internal
conflict among the mujahidin factions, the infighting. During this
period, we isolated ourselves from them. After the mujahidin entered
Kabul, I returned to Saudi Arabia and refused to participate in any
actions after that.
[Al-Dhiyabi] When exactly did you return?
[Al-Qarni] The problem is that I do not remember dates well.
[Al-Dhiyabi] In the early 1990s?
[Al-Qarni] Approximately.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Prior to the Taleban era?
[Al-Qarni] Yes, before the Taleban. When Ahmad Shah Masud entered Kabul
and Najibullah's regime fell, I left. I believe this happened in the
1990s. I and many other brothers who had gone to the jihad in
Afghanistan returned home.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Did Usamah Bin-Ladin return with you?
[Al-Qarni] He returned to the country, but went back to Afghanistan later.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Do you remember the date?
[Al-Qarni] Frankly, I cannot remember dates at all.
[Al-Dhiyabi] I have heard that the mujahidin used to refuse to memorize Western calendar dates.
[Al-Qarni] No, I am not like that. First of all most of those who
joined the Afghan jihad were not known by their real names but used
aliases such as Abu-this and Abu-that. I used my real name everywhere I
moved in Pakistan.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Was Bin-Ladin's moniker Abu-Abdallah then, the same as today?
[Al-Qarni] Yes, Bin-Ladin was always called Abu-Abdallah from the time
he went there until today. He is well known. Everyone knows Bin-Ladin.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Sulayman Abu-Ghayth was with you in those days. Do you know him personally?
[Al-Qarni] I do not know him.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Did you know Abu-Sulayman al-Makki, that is Khalid al-Harbi?
[Al-Qarni] Yes, we were acquainted with him at that time. He was one of the first mujahidin. He later went to Chechnya.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Let us talk more about your stay there.
[Al-Qarni] I stayed there for the first two years. Then the two years
of my appointment as lecturer on loan ended. I had earned a sabbatical
year by that time from my original university. I took that year because I
wanted to return to Pakistan on another appointment on loan. Our
original university decided that two years were enough and terminated
the loan programme. However, I spent my sabbatical there. This means
that I spent three years in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Later on I
returned to Afghanistan for another two years, which means I spent a
total of five years there.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Who took care of your family during those years?
[Al-Qarni] I still had my salary from the university and my wife's
brothers lived close to her. Every six months I would go back and spend
two weeks with my family. This happened during the school year. During
the summer vacation I would take my family to stay with me there. I had a
house in the Village of Migration. I built a house there. I stayed
there for three consecutive years but I continued to visit that
university in later years during the summer vacations.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Is that university still operating?
[Al-Qarni] No, it is closed now.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Did you encourage extremism in those days?
[Al-Qarni] It was not called an extremist attitude at that time.
Fighting the communists was the prevailing idea. Today it is called
extremism. In those days it was called jihad. A Saudi architect was the
one who founded the college of architecture at that university. He was a
well-known brother who played a significant role in supporting jihad.
He was a professor at King Sa'ud University and had an architect's
office in Medina. His name was Dr Ahmad Farid Mustafa.
[Al-Dhiyabi] How did the university operate?
[Al-Qarni] Part of the curriculum of the Call and Jihad University was
to instruct and train students in jihad. They were sent into
Afghanistan. It was a two-hour walk between the Village of Migration and
the Afghan border from the direction of Jalalabad. During the
Thursday-Friday weekend groups of university students would go to the
front and help the mujahidin.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Who used to train them, intelligence personnel?
[Al-Qarni] No, they had instructors. The Arab camps had Arab
instructors, some of whom were retired military officers with good
experience. The Afghans had their own instructors. The Pakistani army
also provided material and moral support.
[Al-Dhiyabi] At that stage Bin-Ladin operated under Abdallah Azzam's command, right?
[Al-Qarni] Yes.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Did Bin-Ladin express his opinion on military matters?
[Al-Qarni] He certainly did and his views were respected but he could
not dictate his views. They had something that operated like a council
and it was this body that debated the mujahidin's affairs.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Describe the relations between Ahmad Shah Masud on the one hand and Abdallah Azzam and Bin-Ladin on the other.
[Al-Qarni] Shaykh Abdallah Azzam believed that no-one among the
mujahidin had Masud's stature. He used to call him the hero of the
north. I remember that I once asked him about his opinion of this man.
Now the Arabs did not like Ahmad Shah Masud - this is something that
needs to become known. The Arabs hated him for several reasons. First of
all most of them were influenced by Hekmatyar and lived as his guests
in his camps. It was well known throughout the jihad years that
Hekmatyar was Masud's greatest enemy. The Arabs were influenced by this
enmity and became hostile to Masud on these grounds. Indeed some Arabs
hated Masud more than Hekmatyar himself.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Am I to understand that Hekmatyar welcomed the Arabs as his guests and incited them against Masud?
[Al-Qarni] Yes, this is a point that should become known. Masud lived
in northern Afghanistan, nearer to the Russian positions. He was not
close to Pakistan. It took people 20 days to reach Masud's positions
from the Pakistani border. As a result Masud did not have an office in
Peshawar, nor an information representative. He was stationed in the
north directly on the combat lines with the Russians. In contrast,
Hekmatyar and Sayyaf had camps and operated on fronts that were very
close to Pakistan in the Pashtun region. Most of the Arabs who came to
Pakistan and Afghanistan were on the side of Hekmatyar and Sayyaf. You
could say that 95 per cent of the Arabs who joined the jihad divided
themselves between Hekmatyar and Sayyaf. A small percentage joined Yunus
Khalis and Jaluleddin Haqqani.
Very few Arabs joined Ahmad
Shah Masud. There few of them and we knew every one. This was the first
factor that made the Arabs hate Masud, namely, Hekmatyar's enmity
towards him.
The second reason why the Arabs hated Masud, may
he rest in peace, was that he was a methodical, strategic thinker.
Combat is an organized affair, not a chaotic operation. The Arabs, many
of them or actually most of them who came to carry out jihad, were not
fond of military discipline. They were disorganized. Some came and
stayed for one week only. They would join an operation, fire their
weapons, storm a position and then return. Some stayed for a month or
two and so on. For this reason the fronts on which Sayyaf and Hekmatyar
operated were wide open places where people came and went.
[Al-Dhiyabi] Are you telling me that Hekmatyar's and Sayyaf's guest houses were like open coffee shops?
[Al-Qarni] I mean that they did not impose a strict regimen or force
the mujahidin who joined them to stay for a particular period. This is
what I mean. Masud was the opposite. He did not accept anyone who came
unless he was prepared to stay on and operate under his command. He did
not allow anyone to go and carry out operations except when he expressly
ordered him to do so. The Arabs operating on the fronts of Hekmatyar
and Sayyaf were independent. They could carry out their own operations.
They did whatever they wanted without supervision. There was no-one to
hold them accountable.
A group of Arabs joined Masud in the
early days of jihad. They went there with the same mindset with which
they dealt with Sayyaf and Hekmatyar. After they joined Masud, they
planned and carried out an operation all by themselves without his
knowledge. They attacked Muslim, not Russian, convoys. When Masud
learned of this, he put them in jail and they were only released after a
lot of pleading and intercession by certain quarters. So those who were
imprisoned by Masud returned to Hekmatyar in Peshawar and they had
developed an unbelievable level of hostility towards Masud because he
had jailed them and disapproved of their behaviour.
Shaykh
Abdallah Azzam visited Masud after a lot of negative talk was heard
about him in Peshawar. Some accused Masud of being an agent of the West.
They said this because his father had been a general in the Afghan army
and the children of generals were sent to Western schools. Because he
had studied in such schools, they accused him of being an agent of the
West. This was one thing. He was also accused of immoral actions. Some
people actually levelled accusations of immorality against him. The
Arabs spread a lot of negative propaganda about him in Peshawar. This
reached the point where they were discussing whether it was proper or
not from an Islamic viewpoint to support him with money.
[Al-Dhiyabi] It has been said that Masud is a Shi'i.
[Al-Qarni] No, he is Sunni. I remember that when there was too much
talk about him in Peshawar, a session was held to try him in absentia.
Two people acted as his defence and 21 acted as his accusers. The two
who defended him were Algerian nationals: Abdallah Uns, who now lives in
Britain and is Shaykh Abdallah Azzam's son-in-law, and a man called
Qari Abdelrahim. They had lived with Masud and knew him well. On the
other side 21 people including Algerians, Egyptians and Yemenis acted as
accusers. There were no Saudis among them. They accused Masud of
offences amounting to apostasy. The trial was held and among those
present were Abdallah Azzam, Shaykh Abd-al-Majid al-Zindani and Usamah
Bin-Ladin.
[Al-Dhiyabi] How long did the trial last?
[Al-Qarni] It lasted a whole week. Of course they asked me to give
testimony but I refused to get involved. Nevertheless I followed what
was happening. I received my information from Shaykh Abdallah Azzam,
Shaykh Al-Zindani, Bin-Ladin, Abdallah Uns and Qari Abdelrahim. A
curious thing was that a brother of Qari Abdelrahim, who was called Qari
Said, was one of Masud's bitterest enemies. I ask God to forgive Qari
and have mercy on his soul. After he returned to Algeria from
Afghanistan, he joined the armed groups there and was killed. The 21
accusers failed to prove Masud's guilt on any of the charges they
levelled against him. When the presiding committee announced its
verdict, its members declared that they would not say anything either in
praise or vilification of Masud.
[Al-Dhiyabi] What do you think of this verdict?
[Al-Qarni] I think it was unfair. You should either prove a person's
guilt or exonerate him but the committee ruled this way because Usamah
Bin-Ladin and Shaykh Abd-al-Majid al-Zindani were more inclined to
support Hekmatyar than Masud. Additionally they did not want to go
against the wishes of the Arabs who were in Peshawar, saying to
themselves: All the Arabs in the city are against Masud, so how could we
praise him?
The only exception was Shaykh Abdallah Azzam, may
he rest in peace. He said: As for me, I will praise Masud until I go to
my Maker, God Almighty. He left that trial session and began
implementing a plan to praise Masud. He wrote a book about him called
"The Titans of the North". He could not get it printed, however, because
almost all of Peshawar was semi-owned by Hekmatyar and Sayyaf. Masud
had no influence there. So the book was not printed.
I once
asked Shaykh Abdallah Azzam, may he rest in peace: Shaykh Abdallah, do
you still believe that Masud is the hero of Afghanistan?
Azzam replied: Indeed he is the hero of Islam.
After this I told myself that I should pay a visit to Masud and get to
know him from up close. Brother Abdallah Uns used to talk to me about
Masud. I used to see his jihad as a different form of jihad. The
mujahidin in southern Afghanistan conducted a form of guerrilla warfare.
This means you cannot destroy your enemy but you can continue fighting
forever. It was a form of hit-and-run warfare without a clear strategy.
This is why Sayyaf, Hekmatyar, Haqqani, Yunus Khalis and all the other
factions in Peshawar could not capture any of the major cities. They
lived in the mountains, valleys and small villages, conducting a
hit-and-run form of combat. They would carry out an attack, seize war
spoils, but then the communists would come and expel them from the
positions they had occupied, and so on. Masud, on the other hand,
conducted a form of regular warfare. He had a regular army and a clear
strategy.
Biography:
- Dr Musa Bin-Muhammad Bin-Yahya al-Qarni
- Born in 1954 (1374 of the Hegira) in the town of Bish in the Jazan province
- Married with six sons and six daughters
- Obtained a doctoral degree in the principles of Islamic jurisprudence from Umm al-Qura University
- Former associate professor of Islamic jurisprudence at the Islamic University
- Former dean of students' affairs at the Islamic University
- Former head of the Department of Islamic jurisprudence at the Islamic University
- Former member of the Religious Scholarship Committee at the Islamic University
- Former president of the Islamic University in Peshawar
- Founding member of the Global Islamic Relief Organization
- Former member of the board of directors of the Global Islamic Relief Organization
- Founding member of the Global Islamic Education Organization
- Now retired, he works as a lawyer and shari'ah counsellor.
Sources:
-London Al-Hayat
Three Afghan fascists, one encyclopaedia
Mohammad M. Naseh
13 June 2012
Afghanistan's recently-revised encyclopaedia reveals
shocking figures on ethnic composition for the country. Published by the
"Academy of Science", formerly known as the "Pashto Tolana",
the “Encyclopaedia of Aryana” has outrageously put the Pashtoons at 62.73% and
Tajiks at 12.38%.
Although the head of Afghanistan’s Statistics
Office has dismissed the figures as “unofficial” and “unacceptable”, the fact
that it has gone to the print and contains President Karzai’s signature has
caused an outcry in the troubled country.
The encyclopaedia also includes highly exaggerated number
of Pashtoon “scholars”, personalities and makes false references, such as
"Afghan Samanid rulers" and "ancient Afghanistan", by downplaying
the land's historic and respected name "Khorasan" which even Pashtoon
rulers revered and described their territory until late 19th century. Other falsifications
include claims that the word “Parthia” or “Persia” has evolved from Pashtana,
Pakhtana and Paktiana.
The fact is that the name "Afghanistan"
was first used by the British to the current territory. Before 19th century,
"Afghanistan" was referred to the far south-east areas such as greater
Paktia regions and the Pashtoon areas which are now part of Pakistan. The controversial
word "Afghan" referred to the very people but later imposed on the
entire population of today's Afghanistan.
Since the early days of Islam, "Khorasan"
contained eastern Iran, all of today's Afghanistan & parts of Central Asia.
Khorasan is the birthplace of renowned Persian scholars, philosophers and polymaths,
such as Rumi, Khayyam, Avicenna, Al-Biruni, Farabi, Ferdausi, Zakariya Razi
(Rhazes), etc. An increasingly number of areas or institutions are being named
in Afghanistan after little-known Pashtoon personalities with total disregard
to Khorasan’s great Persian heritage and its world class scholars.
Who has tampered with the encylopaedia?
Habibullh Rafi, a known Pashtoon nationalist, has
been serving as head of the Encyclopaedia section of the Academy of Science
since 2006 when another Pashtoon nationalist/conservative leader, Abdul Karim
Kurram, became the minister of information and culture. Both are from the Sayed
Abad district of Wardak. The highly controversial Khurram is currently serving
as President Karzai's chief of office.
What are the sources of encyclopaedia’s ethnic make-up?
The figures are fabrication by Pashtun
super-nationalist Nabi Misdaq, who was head of the Pashto radio service of the BBC
until mid 1990s. The supremacist was thrown out of the BBC for using his
position and the corporation to incite ethnic tensions in Afghanistan. In a
letter to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel in 2010, Misdaq and a
number of other well-known Pashtoonist ideologues quoted these ethnic figures
to claim that the Pashtuns were victims of "injustices" in
Afghanistan!
Misdaq, Sayed Jan Karwani, Farooq Azam and Ustad
Nigargar met Taliban leaders in Kandahar in 1997. At a conference in London on
return from Kandahar, Misdaq, head of the so-called “fact-finding mission”,
praised the Taliban as the “true sons” Afghanistan. He also claimed that the
Taliban governor of Kandahar Mullah Hassan had kissed their clean-shaved faces
as a proof that they were not enforcing compulsory beard on men.
Are there other culprits?
Yes. Nabi Misdaq bases his
invented ethnic composition, which also appears in his book (Afghanistan:
Political Frailty and External Interference), on a so-called research by a non-existent “WAK Foundation in Norway”.
This WAK seems to be his ghost venture with Hassan Wolasmal, former leader of
the Pashtoon nationalist Afghan Millat Party (or Afghan Social Democrat Party).
Wolasmal spent 10 months in prison in Norway in late1990 for raping a disabled Norwegian boy, but released after his lawyers argued that he was mentally unfit. The story was published on major Norwegian papers, with one headline reading “62-year old Afghan pedophile imprisoned for rape”. The story was also published on the Farsi Omid Weekly in the USA after verified by the Norwegian embassy in the United States.
Wolasmal lived in Norway from 1986 to 2002
with his two wives (one under the guise of being his sister). He left
for Afghanistan sometime after the release and now appears on TVs as a
political commentator from time to time. In an interview with the Norwegian
paper Dagbladet.no, in Kabul on 30 June 2006, about a hunger strike by Hazara
refugees over uncertainty about their asylum cases, Wolosmal unethically claimed
that the striking Hazaras were not in danger in Afghanistan. He, instead, argued
that the Pashtoon refugees deserved asylum in Norway, not others.
At a time when Afghanistan needs unity more than
anything else, Karzai, who was supposed to conduct a transparent national
census with accordance to the Bonn Agreement, has signed the encyclopaedia to
the dismay of the majority of the population. He and his Pashtoon predecessors have
largely avoided conducting a census in Afghanistan fearing that the myth and fallacy
of Pashtoon “majority” could be exposed.
What is the ethnic composition?
Until 2001, most international agencies, such the
UN, US government, Library of US Congress, CIAFactbook, etc put the Pashtoons
at 38% (see US link below). The figures were based on the general census
conducted by communist Pashtoon President Noor Mohammad Taraki in June 1979. Population
figures for all districts & provinces were later published in the “Atlas of
Afghanistan” which was compiled by the UNDP, Afghanistan's Central Statistics
Office and Polish experts on the basis of the census. Most non-Pashtoons
dispute this 38% because it includes a large and arbitrary figure for Pashtoon
nomads in order to inflate over all Pashtoon population.
After the US occupation of Afghanistan, the
CIAFactbook (now WorldFactbook), revised its figures for Afghanistan by putting
the Pashtoons at 42%, Tajiks 27% and in contrast sharply downsized the Hazaras
to 9% from 19%. This was largely seen as a move to justify giving a large share
of political power and resources to the ethnic group in Afghanistan.
http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbr00/video/cbr_ctd/cbr_ctd_50.html#People
[CIAFactbook – 2001]
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html
[CIAFactbook – 2012]
http://pashtu.irib.ir/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26558%3A2011-05-25-04-35-20&catid=104%3A--&Itemid=72 [Rafi’s
interview with Iran’s Pashto Radio]
European Campaign for Human Rights in Afghanistan
Abdul Ali Faiq on the folly of negotiations with the Taliban & the
implications of abandoning Afghanistan. A sovereign and democratic
Afghanistan - accept no substitutes. Watch here
The Body of Resistance Poet Returns Home after Decades
Relatives
and friends of Ustad Khalilullah Khalili, a well-respected author and poet,
finally transferred the poet’s body to Kabul from Pakistan where he was buried
in 1987, ending a refugee life following Russian invasion at home.
The relatives feared the Taliban threat after some famous
Sufi graves were blown up by insurgent groups. Ustad Khalili, a mammoth
supporter of Mujahedeen, escaped to Pakistan alongside thousands of
other Afghan families as soon as the Communist parties took power. He then
praised the freedom fighters with enormous poems and articles honoring their
bravery in the fight against the Red Army and continued to be an outstanding
devotee for them. His patriotic poems were often secretly sent inside
Afghanistan and distributed among Mujahedeen.
Yesterday, May 27, Afghan lawmakers, students, activists
and high-ranking officials gathered to rebury his body in a certified ceremony
inside the Kabul University campus. Ustad Khalili’s body came home almost 25
years after his tragic death. Among the government officials attending the
ceremony were Minister of Higher Education Obaidullah Obaid, Minister of
Information and Culture Makhdom Rahin, Education Minister Farooq Wardak, and
the poet son, Afghan Ambassador to Spain Massoud Khalili. Speakers appreciated
the decision to have the poet rest in his own country and called it a victory
for the nation.
Ustad Khalili was born in 1907 in Kabul, Afghanistan. He
travelled to Europe and North America but declined to live in the West. He
returned home and begun his literary work. He served as the governor of Balkh
province during the region of Habibullah Kalakani . Mr. Khalili is known as the
founder of resistance poetry in Afghanistan which also impressed many Persian-speaking
poets in Iran and Tajikistan by his inspiring original style of writing poetry.
Mr. Khalili, a creative writer, generated over the course
of his career a diverse selection ranging from poetry to fiction to history to
biography. He published 35 volumes of poetry, including his celebrated works Ashk
wa Khon ‘Tears And Blood’,
composed during the Soviet occupation, and Ayyar az Khorasan ‘Hero of
Khorasan’ and with a collection of his quatrains,.
Afghanistan Study Group
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