Mawlawi Mohammad Afzal (born – 2012) was a

Panjpir Panjpir (Urduپنج پیر) is a town and Union council of Swabi District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan that is surrounded by Shahmansoor, Kaddi, Thand Kohi, Bam Khel, Dara and Ismailabad.Panj peer means five Sufi Sanits. Distric ...

i-educated Afghan clergyman of the Kam tribe from Barg-i-Matal,

Nuristan Province Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Dari: ; Kamkata-vari: ), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, wi ...

. He studied in

Deoband Deoband is a town and a municipality in Saharanpur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, about 150 km from Delhi. Darul Uloom Deoband, an Islamic seminary and one of the largest Islamic Institution of India is located there. Etymo ...

, and later at Akora, Pakistan, before teaching at a madrassa in Karachi, and then in his native village of Badmuk. Following the

Saur Revolution The Saur Revolution or Sowr Revolution ( ps, د ثور انقلاب; prs, إنقلاب ثور), also known as the April Revolution or the April Coup, was staged on 27–28 April 1978 (, ) by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) ...

of 1978 in Afghanistan, Afzal established a

Salafist The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generati ...

mini-state in northern Nuristan, known as the

Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan The Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan ( fa, دولت انقلابی اسلامی افغانستان) was a small Salafist Islamic state located in the north of Bashgal Valley, Nuristan Province. It was founded by Mawlawi Afzal during the n ...

, with consulates in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Though Nuristan was generally a mujahideen area, Afzal was among those leaders who were at least temporarily co-opted by the DRA communist government. In the 1980s, Afzal was among those Nuristani leaders who, after initially supporting him, expelled the southern Nuristan military leader Sarwar Nuristani, suspecting him of supporting the Communist government. With the arrival of the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

in the mid 1990s, Afzal aligned himself with that movement, and received their support.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Afzal, Mawlawi 1920s births 2012 deaths Afghan Islamists Afghan Salafis People from Nuristan Province

See also

References