The Taliban is about to hold a so-called council of mullahs who are scheduled to gather in Kabul to endorse the group’s leadership decisions, ostensibly to legitimize its actions. This is a kind of simulation of Hamid Karzai’s proposed Loya Jirga with the membership of mullahs where the people are absent and the decisions for their future are being taken behind the closed doors by some mullahs who are basically either forced to attend this meeting or are the Taliban’s like minded individuals with black portfolio

The most important question now is why the concept of the social contract is not taken into account, which in today’s world is considered the basis of the legitimacy of political systems. Prior to the concept of the social contract, the pope and the church apparatus in medieval Europe considered themselves as sole the representatives of God on earth, and kings gained legitimacy for their rule by colluding with the church or paying tribute to its leaders. The crises and catastrophes caused by the priests’ ignorance of the public interest led scientists and philosophers to seek a reasonable way to establish a legitimate and acceptable political system. The product of these theoretical endeavors was the emergence of the theory of social contract, which after the Renaissance, by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others, became well known and their theories became a universal standard for the legitimacy of systems.

According to the theory of social contract, the individual, as a basic unit in society, has absolute equality and equal rights with others, and the philosophy of the emergence of the state is to regulate the relations of individuals and prevent the encroachment of some of them on the privacy of others. In fact, individuals delegate part of their rights to the government in order to represent them for the sack of public interests. In other words, the government is the ombudsman who  derives his authority from the client, and has the right to exercise sovereignty until he is removed by the client. In this theory, the public realm is separated from the private realm, and the administration of the public realm depends on the agreement of all stakeholders which is the result of that law. The system derived from the social contract is both popular, legal and just, because it is not the monopoly of a particular individual or group, but serves the public interests, and therefore is strong enough to survive against challenges. A number of contemporary scholars have compared the theory of social contract with the experience of the beginning of Islam, especially the treaty of Medina, which was signed between the Prophet of Islam and its citizens, and found it to be compatible with the purposes of Sharia. Some of them have come to the conclusion that the word “Caliph”, in the political terminology of Muslims, means succession by the people, not by God; That is, the government is the advocate of the people, not an authority independent of them.

The structure of the Taliban system, however, shows that they consider the Catholic popes in the Middle Ages as their role models and, by ignoring the people in the process of governance, have resorted to reproducing their own version of the ecclesiastical system. The meeting of the mullahs of this group is an imitation of the gathering of Catholic bishops and cardinals in the Middle Ages, which shows both their ignorance of modern political philosophies and their disbelief in the position of the people. Those who serve this church structure participate in the removal of the people and the violation of their right to self-determination. This act is like a church coup against the people and changing their role from the client to the oppressed and ruling subjects, which takes the society back to the Middle Ages in terms of governance.

1. The Taliban Ideology

One characteristic that distinguishes the Taliban from other Muslim extremist groups is the ambiguity of the group’s theoretical foundations. The Taliban was primarily designed for militant purposes, and as such, it has made no effort to clarify its theoretical base to distinguish its ideology from other extremist groups such as Al- Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, and others.

However, what we know about the group’s ideological underpinning is a mixture of tribal values and ‘Deobandism,’ a highly conservative Muslim school of thought in the Indian sub-continent. The Deobandi thought had a politically passive role before Pakistan seceded from India and one of the chief characteristics of the Indian Deobandi school was the avoidance of modernity and its manifestations and crawling in the lock of traditions. It had no violent agenda, but when Pakistan was founded, religion became a fundamental element of the country’s identity (Husain Haqqani, 2005). The Pakistani version of Deobandism gradually mutated, shifting from a defensive to an offensive ideology. This happened due to the Deobandi school’s intellectual proximity to other fundamentalist groups such as Salafism and strategic partnership with power apparatus, namely the army and the intelligence in the newly established Pakistani state. The mix of these two factors transformed the Deobandi movement in Pakistan into a powerful religious extremist actor in Pakistan and beyond.

When the ‘Jihad’ or fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan started in the 1980s, the Pakistani Deobandi groups supported some of the Afghan Mujahideen factions such as the Harakat-i- Inqilab-i- Islami – a Jihadi group led by Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi. The Taliban’sfounder Mullah Mohammad Omar belonged to the same group. During those years, Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan provided religious, educational opportunities for thousands of poor Afghans in refugee camps in Pakistan, and used this opportunity to promote the Deobandi version of militant Islamism that eventually resulted in the formation of the Taliban group in the 1990s.

The political circumstances in which the Taliban emerged were also significant for their ideological evolution. The Taliban emerged in the context of the civil war in Afghanistan, following the collapse of the Soviet-backed Afghan government in 1992 and the Mujahideen groups’ failure to agree on a new political arrangement. However, because the Mujahideen were Muslim Afghans who had fought against the Soviet invasion, the Taliban needed religious justifications to enter a war against those groups. The legitimacy of the group’s war with other Islamist groups was questionable according to traditional instructions of Islam and the Afghan society.

To justify their militant campaign, the Taliban adopted a new ideological orientation that was based on Jihadist Salafism. The Salafi ideology propagated by groups such as Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden divided the Muslims into ‘good Muslims’ and ‘bad Muslims.’ This distinction allowed the ‘good Muslims’ to wage war on the ‘bad Muslims.’ It provided an ideological ground for the Taliban’s justification of their war against other Muslim groups in Afghanistan and transformed the group’s ideology by making it part of the transnational Salafi Jihadist groups such as Al-Qaeda.

Hence, theoretically, the Taliban is a combination of Pakistani Deobandism and jihadi Salafism based on ‘Takfiri’ orientation in Salafi Islam, which divides the Muslims into the ‘right Muslims and the apostates. This has since formed the ideological essence of the Taliban movement, providing them a strategic common ground with other groups, including the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), with which the Taliban have little ideological difference. Their principal difference remains political, and it concerns questions of leadership and tactics.

The Taliban, therefore, is an ultraconservative group that maintains an extremely hostile view towards modernity and modern governance. In the past two decades, the Taliban rejected democracy, calling it a “Western” product, and considered the former Afghan government’s strategic alliance with the United States and NATO against Islamic principles and as a type of betrayal of Islam. They also rejected concepts such as human rights, freedom of expression, women’s political and social participation, art, and music. From the Taliban’s viewpoint, a significant part of Afghan society embracing democratic values were apostates. This strict stance brought them closer to ISIS, al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, and Boko Haram and made them essentially a ‘Takfiri’ group.

Calling their opponents apostates was a way of prescribing and justifying the war on the government and killing those who opposed the Taliban. The Taliban used that ideology to justify the killing of tens of thousands of Afghan government forces, employees and employees of foreign institutions, and thousands of foreign troops in Afghanistan.   Their Salafi orientation attracted support from various international ‘Takfiri’ groups from Kashmir to Central Asia, fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.

From insurgency to government: key challenges

Now that the Taliban is back in power in Afghanistan, a key question concerns whether the group’s ideological orientation will allow them to act as a modern government.

How is the Taliban ideology affecting their governance practices, and what are some of the fundamental challenges they face as they are transitioning, if at all, from a militant jihadi group to becoming a government? The following are some of the primary challenges that the group is facing where their ideological commitments can put limitations on their performance:

1. Alliance with non-Muslim countries

The first challenge the Taliban faces is justifying their relations with other countries, especially non-Muslim countries, for which they condemned the former Afghan government. Afghanistan is a country that economically depends on the help of other countries and remains highly vulnerable in terms of security. It needs to build strong relations with other countries to overcome its problems. However, establishing ties with world powers which are primarily non-Muslim countries, is problematic for the Taliban, at least in two ways:

1. There are factions within the Taliban who strictly believe in their ideological principles and oppose relationships with non-Muslim countries, particularly with Western The Taliban leadership fears that the hardcore members of the group could consider joining other extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS- K) if the Taliban establish ties with the Western countries. In the eyes of the more extremist members of the group, the normalization of relations with Western states could portray the Taliban as an opportunistic group that does not believe in their claims and uses religious slogans only to mobilize forces.
2. Balancing relationships with various powers such as China, Russia, the United States, and Europe poses a challenge for the While this is not unique to the Taliban, because the former government faced a similar challenge, for the Taliban, it is a matter of finding a religious justification for working with big powers. For example, the Taliban maintain close relations with China and Russia, both regarded as Western adversaries. However, both are non-Muslim states. Taliban’s relations with China have been particularly criticized by other jihadi groups such as the IS-K, given China’s mistreatment of Muslims in that country. Besides geopolitical challenges, the Taliban’s relationship with the outside players poses an ideological challenge. Which external power is a more justifiable international partner for the group is an ideological question that the group is grappling with. Disagreements on this might lead to ideological rifts within the group as it tries to figure out its ideas on international relations.

2. Compliance with international conventions

 The Taliban did not recognize international conventions in the first period of their rule in the1990s, which led to severe political isolation. This time around, they face the same challenge. If the Taliban does not adhere to international conventions, it will be difficult for the international community to lift the sanctions on the group. This will undermine the group’s ability to govern Afghanistan because, without lifting these sanctions, the group cannot provide even basic public services.

The Taliban has made it clear that they will not recognize international treaties and conventions that Afghanistan became a party to under the former republic. This problem is rooted in deep conflicts between some elements of the international conventions and the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam by the Taliban. Values such as gender equality, freedom of belief, LGBTQ rights, non-Muslim citizens’ rights, etc., are not compatible with the Taliban’s ideology. In addition, the Taliban does not recognize the principles of human rights and freedoms and are not willing to compromise on their beliefs fearing a backlash from their followers. If the Taliban adheres to international conventions and follows through with implementation, it will have to recognize values such as women’s rights, civil and political rights, freedom of thought, and expression that make up the principles of democratic governance. This would fly in the face of the Taliban’s ideology and count as an endorsement of the very democratic system the group has been fighting for the last two decades.

The recognition of the international conventions by the Taliban will widen the ideological divisions in the group, which will threaten its organizational cohesion. They also fear that recognition of the international conventions would open up the public space for democratic participation and the activation of other political groups to compete with the Taliban. The Taliban lacks any experience or skills in managing democratic debates and activism in the public sphere and the group’s recognition of the international conventions will undermine their totalitarian control.

3. Cross-border links with extremist groups

The Taliban maintains strong links with extremist groups in the region, particularly in Pakistan. We cannot analyze the Taliban independently of the politics of religious radicalization that have been pursued by the Pakistani army and intelligence since the time of General Zia-ul-Haq. Zia-ul-Haq came to power in 1978 and developed a strategy based on creating and sponsoring fundamentalist Islamic groups against India and Afghanistan. He encouraged Arab countries to support Islamic schools in Pakistan and planted the seed of violent extremism from which the Taliban would emerge in the 1990s. The Taliban is an integral part of those cross-border networks of extremist groups created and sponsored by the Pakistani military establishment. It maintains an organic relationship with other extremist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Pakistan, and Al-Qaeda more internationally.

However, now that the Taliban is in charge of the government in Afghanistan, they face the challenge of redefining its relationship with extremist groups in the region.  Should it cut ties with these groups to live up to its promises to the United States in the Doha Agreement, and if so, what will be the impact? If the Taliban cut ties with these groups, would they turn against the Taliban and undermine the group’s government in Afghanistan? These are some questions that the Taliban is facing.

The relationship between the Taliban and other extremist groups is strategic as it is ideological. Besides receiving material support from those groups, the Taliban can use this relationship as a bargaining chip in their relations with the region. If the group maintains its relationship with some of these extremist groups, it will extend its influence beyond the borders of Afghanistan. The group then can use this card in some regional geopolitical games. However, at this moment, it remains to be a risky choice for the Taliban because doing so will keep them in alliance with terrorist groups, which is unacceptable for great powers. The activities of these groups will seriously harm their interests.

A key strategic concern for the Taliban is if the group will cut ties with extremist groups, particularly those based in Pakistan. This will affect their relationship with the Pakistan army, the Taliban’s biggest supporter. Abandoning its ideological allies will hurt the Taliban’s legitimacy and credibility among extremist groups outside Afghanistan and some of its troops. It is possible that violent Deobandi groups would use this to justify and mobilize an insurgency against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

4. National interests and the interests of the Ummah

The concept of ‘Ummah’ means community, and Islamic Ummah includes all Muslims worldwide, but there are different views about belonging to the Ummah and its duties. While many Muslims believe it is a moral concept that connects all human beings together without specific legal obligations, the fundamentalist Muslims, such as the Taliban, AQ, and ISIL, believe that the concept is more specific and exceptional, entailing moral responsibilities equal to any other religious obligations in Islam. They consider any negligence on the duties toward the Ummah as a sinful act. Given the centrality of the concept of Ummah for extremist groups such as the Taliban, balancing between national interests and the interests of the Ummah – the global Muslim community – constitutes a major governance challenge for the Taliban.

As a government, the Taliban will need to act based on the national interest of Afghanistan. Still, as a Muslim fundamentalist group, they will have to prioritize the interest of the Ummah, which sometimes can be in conflict. A prominent example here is the signing of the Camp David peace agreement, which extremist Muslim groups perceived as a betrayal of Islam and Islamic instructions. The signing of the Camp David peace agreement cost the Egyptian President Anwar al Sadat’s life at the hands of the extremist groups. Like any other Islamic ideological group, the Taliban have also committed to protect and act based on the interests of the Muslim Ummah. During their years of militancy, they used the endangerment of the interests of the Islamic Ummah as a pretext for their militancy and ‘Jihad’ against the Afghan government.

Now that the group sits at the helm, they face the challenge of choosing between the national interest and the interest of the Ummah, and it is not a straightforward decision for the group. While the people of Afghanistan expect them to base their policies on Afghanistan’s national interests and strive for the happiness and prosperity of their people, their ideological commitments emphasize the interests of the Ummah. If they consider the national interests of Afghanistan, it will require them to cut ties with all fundamentalist and extremist groups in the region and the world. This would mean that the group will need to stop caring, for example, about the situation of the Uyghur Muslims in China, the Muslims in Palestine, Mali, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Libya, and other places around the world.

Doing so will lead to a loss of trust in the Taliban among other Islamic fundamentalist groups and organizations whose ideological and material support has been instrumental in the Taliban’s success. Losing their trust will sharpen the propaganda tactics of Taliban’s rivals, including the IS-K, and may splinter the Taliban forces.

However, if the Taliban continues to adhere to ideological slogans and stay committed to the interest of the Ummah, it will keep the Taliban as an integral part of the transnational Jihadi networks. This will continue to present the Taliban as a threat and source of concern for many countries near and far. The Taliban might state that they will prioritize Afghanistan’snational interest, arguing that they will not interfere in the affairs of other countries. However, their ideological commitment is different. In theory, the group follows a rule, called “Khoda’a”(the trick), which is narrated by the prophet Mohammad, stating that “the war is the trick”(Sahih al Bukhari). All extremist Islamic groups believe in it. The Khoda’a principle allows the group to breach their promises as a tactical choice. The Taliban have used this frequently and consistently, including in their negotiations and dealings with the international community.

5. Educational system

The Taliban’s views on education remain a cause for concern. The group is essentially alien to and pessimistic about modern education. This pessimism is rooted in their Deobandi thinking. According to Deobandi thoughts, the genuine and valuable sciences are classical religious knowledge, whose curriculum was designed by Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703-1762). Born in Delhi in 1703, Dehlawi was a prominent Islamic scholar and the Godfather of orthodox Sunni Muslims, especially to the Deobandi groups in India. The Deobandi Schools implemented his curriculum throughout the Indian subcontinent for two centuries. Modern knowledge is inherently of little value to Deobandism because it is not religious knowledge. Deobandis regard modern knowledge as suspicious in part because of its non-Muslim origins. They consider modern science, such as physics and biology, weakening students’ religious beliefs by offering different views on the origins of life that contradict religious views.

During the first period of their rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban first closed almost all modern schools, particularly girls’ schools, and promoted Deobandi-style religious schools. However, with the popular support for modern education, the group needed to adapt their policy slightly by considering the local dynamics. As a result, the Taliban closed regular schools altogether in provinces and areas where the people were more traditional and less sensitive to closing down schools. They increased the number of religious schools instead. However, in a few large cities where the level of public literacy was higher and the closure of schools led to public discontent, they kept the modern schools, except for girls’ schools, open but multiplied religious education hours and reduced the number of modern subjects.

This time around, the Taliban’s policy on education shows no significant progress. While they have allowed the schools and private universities to operate in the country, they banned girls from attending schools in most parts of the country. There has been a gradual return to school for girls in some provinces, but the Taliban’s policy has kept changing. For example, girls’ schools in Herat province were closed down after they briefly opened due to local advocacy. This shows that the Taliban’s policy on education remains largely confused. The existing confusion indicates that the Taliban is battling an ideological conflict within themselves, whether to allow modern education or ban it altogether.

The reality that the Taliban faces is that as persecution of schools and university teachers increases, the brain drain will also intensify, leading to a crisis in skilled human resources in Afghanistan. This will affect the group too, because the Taliban themselves offer no technical know-how to run a country and improve the livelihood of Afghans. Their religious education is irrelevant to modern governance and development.

Given the public opinion, the choice to ban modern education is practically impossible for the group this time around. As a result, the Taliban may seek to redesign the educational programs by increasing learning hours for religious subjects and strictly controlling modern science subjects. It is also possible that the group may consider adopting the Iranian experience after the Islamic revolution, where the regime closed down educational institutions for a year during which they revamped the entire system to reflect the regime’s ideology. The Taliban is learning from the experience and views of other fundamentalist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb-ut-Tahrir who promote the idea of the Cultural Revolution in educational institutions, aiming at ‘Islamization of Knowledge’ (Taha J. al Alwani, 1995).

Conclusion

Contrary to the propaganda spread by the Taliban supporters abroad, the Taliban is not an indigenous movement that has an already established, practiced, and coherent ideology. Although it has recruited most of its troops from among the rural communities in certain parts of Afghanistan, as a group, it remains a product of Pakistani-sponsored extremist networks that were primarily designed for militant purposes. Therefore, the group does not offer a coherent theological and theoretical argument, and its understanding of Islam reflects a mixture of tribal values and narrow interpretation of Islam based on the Pakistani version of the Deobandi school of thought.

As a fundamentalist group, the Taliban face many challenges in running Afghanistan as a modern state. Their key challenge is how to reconcile between their extremist ideology that is based primarily on hostility towards modernity, and the need to live in and govern a society with modern needs. This will shape the future course of any development under the Taliban, and there is little certainty about the group’s choices. Inherent in their Deobandi ideology, the Taliban’s views and policies on some key priorities concerning the future development of Afghanistan remain essentially conflicting, offering little opportunity for positive development in the months or years to come.

The group has a limited understanding of what is needed to govern a diverse society like Afghanistan with massive development needs. Their ideology is not representative of Afghanistan’s religious history and traditions and is not responsive to the needs of the people of Afghanistan. When a movement or organization is designed to serve people, its philosophy reflects the needs of those people, too. In contrast, the Taliban have, from the beginning, paid little interest in seeking public legitimacy and have used force to impose their ideas upon the people of Afghanistan. They have consistently rejected the interests and inclusion of other ethnic groups in their government, and chosen to govern Afghanistan by force.

As the group is trying to shift from an insurgency to a government, its ability to adapt and respond to the expectation of the Afghan population and international community is circumscribed by its ideological commitments. But if it wants to rule Afghanistan, they need to be accepted by the people of Afghanistan. Achieving such acceptance is not possible unless the Taliban moves away from its extremist ideology and reconciles with modern needs. This will require a revision in the fundamental ideological beliefs of the group and will have to recognize the diversity of people in Afghanistan, including the diverse interpretation of Islam.

This paper was made possible by the support of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and published on the Heart of Asia Society website

The term “Al-Jihad Al-Alami” refers to International Jihadism, a movement initiated by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden, and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam in Peshawar in the last century. They were influenced by Sayyid Qutb and the al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn (Muslim Brotherhood) and chose political Islam as their path. Zawahiri eventually left the Muslim Brotherhood, while bin Laden distanced himself from the path under his influence. Azzam, however, remained a member of the community and added new concepts to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology. In addition, the three had a tendency towards Salafi ideology, so they worked to combine the principles of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists to create Salafi jihadism, which later developed into International jihadism. This was rooted in three literary schools of thought: The Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi, and jihadism derived from Sayyid Qutb’s literary. Ironically, the project of Islamic fundamentalism was chosen by the United States and its allied governments as a tool to support the West in the Cold War. However, after completing their mission, all three were killed by the same people who had chosen them for the game. Azzam was killed by a mine explosion, bin Laden was shot by American soldiers, and Zawahiri was killed by a missile.

Zawahiri played a major part in promoting international jihadism. Despite not being as educated as Azam or as charismatic as bin Laden, he was adept at organizing clandestine activities and anti-security measures. This enabled him to overcome the difficult situation he was in, particularly due to the murder of Anwar Sadat (which resulted in him being imprisoned). Consequently, he became the leader of the Al Qaeda group and laid the groundwork for international jihadism. Zawahiri broke away from the Muslim Brotherhood organization in his youth. Years later, he compared and contrasted the two ideologies (his and the Muslim Brotherhood organization) in a book, titled Sixty Years of Failed Efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood. Like other fundamentalists, Zawahiri agreed with the Muslim Brotherhood’s grand strategy, which would ultimately lead to the establishment of the caliphate system. However, he disagreed with its tactics.

In his letter to bin Laden about the Taliban, Zawahiri argued that the Muslim Brotherhood is more interested in politics and gaining power than religion, and that their chosen path and actions are not in line with Islamic values. He expressed his concerns about traitors, spies, and hypocrites (the Taliban) who may agree to sign a peace deal with America in order to gain power, disregarding the sacrifices of thousands of fighters. He then urged Al Qaeda to prepare a strategy for such a situation.

The conflict between Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood is not only about prioritizing politics and power, but also about the strategy of jihadism. The Muslim Brotherhood has always encouraged jihad in the form of armed war, and this concept was further developed by Hassan al Banna, Abul A’la al Maududi, and Sayyid Qutb in their treatises, which were later compiled into the book Maʿālim fī aṭ Ṭarīq (Landmarks On the Way). This book became the classic manifesto of jihadists, and was adopted by Islamic political groups such as Pakistan’s Jama’at-e-Islami and some Afghan Mujahedeen. This treatise was an implication of the West’s goal to fight against communism in Islamic countries, and it reinterpreted the definition of jihad during the Islamic golden age, which was associated with inner growth and spiritual development, rather than war. As a result, jihad was redefined as a war against infidels and Muslims, if necessary.

The Sunnah community of Islam holds that there are five pillars of the faith, excluding jihad. These five pillars are divided into one ideological pillar and four devotional pillars. However, international jihadism does not accept this view. Instead, it is based on the ideology of Ibn Taymiyyah, who argued that jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam, and that the other five pillars depend on it. International jihadism believes that the only way to re-establish a caliphate similar to the one in the medieval age is to bring all Muslims worldwide under one roof, which cannot be achieved in one or two generations. Therefore, many generations must work together towards this goal, and jihad should be spread among elites, scouts, and the general public. This is also mentioned in Zawahiri’s letter, and further details can be found in Abdullah Azzam’s book.

The Muslim Brotherhood believes that jihad is important, and they focus on recruiting, training, networking, and infiltrating civil society under the guise of charity and humanitarian work, educational institutions, and even politics. They believe that if these steps are taken carefully, they can gain power without resorting to war. Khairat el-Shater, the deputy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the presidency of Morsi, warned the Egyptian army that they would use their strategic force to turn Egypt into hell. However, when they attempted to do this, only ten thousand people out of the hundred million population of Egypt showed up, and the Egyptian army was able to stop them.

International jihadism views the Brotherhood’s theory as simplistic and its experience as unsuccessful, believing that power cannot be achieved through peaceful means because modern Muslims are not like those in the early Islamic era and do not prioritize religious values like jihadists. Instead, they are secularists and will not support the jihadists when they need it. This approach only leads to imprisonment and defeat, as the Brotherhood has experienced multiple times. Therefore, Zawahiri suggests that instead of focusing on political activities, charity organizations, and other covert operations, these groups should focus on jihad and teach Muslims that they have a duty to their religion and must join the jihad.

Jihad is both a tactic and a strategy, as evidenced by the international movement of jihadism. As a tactic, it creates a sense of urgency and presents Muslims with a difficult choice, while also instilling fear in the enemy and preventing open opposition. As a strategy, jihad is not limited to one region or period in history, and its effects can be seen in many countries, leading to a direct conflict with Israel and the West and the eventual fall of Israel. This would result in all Islamic countries uniting and engaging in an international jihad against the world’s superpowers, leading to a global conquest.

When required, the Muslim Brotherhood agrees with Al Qaeda in non-Muslim countries and in countries at war with western civilization. Hassan al Banna has emphasized this. However, there is a dispute about which way will lead to the goal sooner. Sayyid Qutb believed that people’s struggles and commitment to jihad are a university and there is no need for long-term schooling. Zawahiri blames and criticizes the Brotherhood for this, insisting that a century of recruitment and education has not achieved any result and they are still in the same place as they were a century ago. He also implies that with their entrance into politics and society, several leaders play political games differently, which is reflected in their presence in different countries. These leaders become secular, collect money, fall for desires and luxury, and marriages, and eventually commit financial corruption.

From an international jihadism perspective, jihad is a school that educates and develops the character of Muslims to help them reach an Islamic caliphate. It also sets a mission for future generations to continue jihad until they conquer the world. Regarding the Taliban, it has been noted that while some members may not be trustworthy, the majority will remain loyal. Thus, with the help of Al Qaeda, the international jihadism strategy will be successful.

Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi was one of the most influential religious figures in the last half-century of Muslim countries, He has written more than a hundred volumes of books in various intellectual fields, participated in the establishment of various religious and research institutions, and had an active presence in the media and public arenas. What multiplied his fame was, on the one hand, his inherent abilities, which, in addition to his rich knowledge of jurisprudence, were visible in his fluent speech and writing, and on the other hand, external factors, the most important of which was the support and promotion of the branches of the Society of the Muslim Brothers organization around the world and then the Al Jazeera TV, which had been the platform of publishing his thoughts for many years. In terms of the scope of his fields of work, he was an encyclopedic scientist who dealt with various topics and issues, but in terms of the depth of specialization, most of his works were superficial, and only a limited part of his writings, which are mainly jurisprudence, are considered important and valuable in their fields. In this article, I would like to review three basic axes in Qaradawi’s career.

1- Jurisprudence and Ethics

The most brilliant part of Qaradawi’s career is the field of jurisprudence. In this context, he had an unparalleled understanding of the great jurisprudential heritage of Muslims and could choose the most appropriate ones for today’s world among the jurisprudential views of the past. His method in the field of jurisprudence was based on rationality, simplicity, and connection with the realities and needs of the people. In this context, he acted methodically based on the rules of jurisprudence and “ijtihad”, without showing any bias in favor of a particular jurisprudence. He freed jurisprudence from the old and classical language and presented it in today’s eloquent language. In addition, in explaining jurisprudential issues, he tried to take into account their moral aspect and did not deal with issues in a purely legal manner. Although he was not very familiar with theoretical mysticism, his knowledge of practical Sufism was acceptable and he tried to present jurisprudence with the flavor of Sufism, and this gave his work a special charm. Although he did not discover a new jurisprudential system and did not create a new method in ijtihad, it can be said that he used and actualized all the potential capabilities of traditional jurisprudence to become modern. From this point of view, he was head and neck above all those who practiced jurisprudence in the Shia and Sunni world in the last century. In the field of the principles of jurisprudence, in the branch called the objectives of the Shari’ah, which has an important potential in the creation of Islamic jurisprudence today, even though he was familiar with the classic topics of this field, he could not add anything new to it, and could not get it out of its classic outlooks. Despite all this, Qaradawi was an outstanding and full-fledged jurist and in this field had no equal in our time. This part of his legacy is a valuable treasure that is very effective for improving the type of religion in Islamic societies, especially against the rigid jurisprudential outlooks.

2- Dialectic and Philosophy

jurisprudence and ethics are of course the superstructure and its foundation is dialectic and philosophy; philosophy is the mother of all knowledge, and dialectical theology is like a bridge that connects reason with narration, or religion with wisdom. Qaradawi had limited knowledge of dialectical theology, it was to the extent of the differences that occurred between the Ash’ari and the Mu’tazila sects several hundred years ago. He took small steps in the field of theological issues, from writing about the proof of God’s existence to the description of his names and attributes, but because he was not familiar with philosophy, he did not do anything new and original in this field and only repeated the words of the ancients. In addition, he took a pessimistic stance against the new theological debates that are required by contemporary knowledge and rationality, and he criticized those who had opened new doors for understanding the Qur’an with the help of modern linguistic knowledge, or the theological debates relying on new scientific data, these debates were brought in by people such as Mohammad Erkun, Nasr Hamed Abu Zaid, and others. He attacked them severely. In this context, he became a staunch defender of the traditional ideas of the past and, like the old jurists and philosophers, he tried to remove the modern thinkers from the discussions with titles such as secular and atheist. He did not agree to talk with thinkers familiar with modern philosophical and social sciences and only took part in controversial debates that serve to stimulate the emotions of the common people, and as a result, the lives of writers were endangered and even a number of them such as Farag Foda, Najib Mahfouz, and others like them became the victims. His approach in this field, like other fundamentalist groups, was based on eliminating the “other” and not dialoguing with him/her. Even in the books he wrote criticizing secularism and liberalism, he did not pursue scientific-academic work to open a dialogue with intellectuals, instead, by taking a propaganda-polemical method, he chose to mobilize the emotional and uneducated youth against the political rivals of the fundamentalists. He devoted as much effort to the approximation and convergence of the backward-looking religious groups, both Salafi and non-Salafi, as he spent the same amount of energy on distancing himself from liberal and modern Muslims, and his approach in this regard was to separate no to unite. By promoting misleading and inverted concepts of competing ideas, he became one of the founders of a way of thinking that disabled and paralyzed the minds of several generations of active Muslim youth from understanding the reality of the matter, and until now the field of understanding between different spectrums of Muslim societies is either limited or even blocked. He, who was always critical of political tyranny in the Islamic world, adopted an authoritarian-takfiri approach in dealing with other-minded Muslims who looked at issues with a modern perspective, and by accusing them of intellectual and cultural apostasy, he made them more dangerous than the enemies of Islam. Pay close attention to this paragraph from his writing in the book Fiqh al-Jihad: “Here, I should not forget to mention a type of apostasy that does not show its face like open apostasy, because it is too clever to throw its disbelief openly and, in the sun, rather, it puts it in different envelopes and gives way to minds [and souls], just like diseases find their way to bodies… This is indeed an intellectual apostasy whose effects appear in front of us every day, from newspapers that are distributed everywhere, books that are distributed, magazines that are sold, speeches that are published, programs that are watched, serials that go on TV screens, customs that are promoted and laws that are implemented. In my opinion, this hidden apostasy is more dangerous than naked apostasy…” (Fiqh al-Jihad, 2010: 209) Calling intellectual opponents apostates is a way to suppress and eliminate them, which is what “Takfiris” do.

3- Politics and Daily Challenges:

In the context of politics and daily challenges, Qaradawi’s position was more controversial. He, who was a member of the Society of the Muslim Brothers organization in his youth, and because of which, he was imprisoned for some time, could not get rid of the psychological effects of it, until the end of his life. His position was always strict and hostile towards several governments that were strict with the Muslim Brothers organization, and he always had a soft and friendly position towards other governments such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states, and he did not criticize them at all. It was because of this position that the more radical groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS considered him as one of the court scholars because he took advantage of the material and spiritual benefits of these governments and had arranged a luxurious life for himself and his children. It was said that he does not have any enmity with the rich governments that benefit him and only attacks the governments that he does not benefit from.

The most challenging part of Qaradawi’s political career was his stance during the Arab Spring. There, he, like those he called court scholars, openly aligned himself with the line taken by the Qatari government, publicly encouraging people to revolt against governments that Qatar disliked, speaking live on Al-Jazeera TV, and encouraging people for killing Gaddafi. He also had a harsh stance toward Syria and Egypt. He turned a political dispute, which was behind large oil and gas projects, into a religious issue. According to the critics, he was the most important figure of jurisprudence who, along with other factors, caused chaos in the Middle East and created a situation where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions were displaced, and in the end, no benefit came to the oppressed and afflicted people. Despite Qaradawi’s extensive involvement in politics and political situations, he did not know anything about it, and his positions on various occasions, including the Arab Spring, clearly displayed his parochialism, which was due to his ignorance of the nature of international politics. These controversial positions of Qaradawi, as much as they increase the number of his supporters, also make the line between his critics and opponents long and longer. A number of his critics considered him to be among the “jurisprudents of sedition” and considered him to be the cause of unrest, bloodshed, and destruction of countries.

His position in Afghanistan is a part of his political career. He used to come to Peshawar during the years of Jihad and, in addition to meeting with Mujahideen leaders, he gave lectures in educational institutions for Afghan immigrants. When his students and intellectual followers in Kabul turned to party and organizational wars, it was not seen that he felt responsible for these actions. Indeed, he did not have a direct role in these events, but as one of the great ideologists of these groups, he had a moral responsibility to see “where is the problem?” and it was necessary to deeply revise the approach of such groups. For such a task, moral advice is not enough, but the critical and pathological analysis is necessary, but he did not do it. In addition, Qaradawi always had a soft position towards the Taliban group, whose stories of killings spread all over the world every day, and no one remained unaware of the many innocent drops of blood that were shed on their hands. It seems that he considered himself related to them in some way and did not like to criticize them, even if they lead a country to destruction. During the time of Mullah Omar, He came to Kandahar to intercede and prevent the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha, but he did not take any action for the intercession of the oppressed and tortured people, and even after his return, he did not mention any words about the deprivation, suffering and bitter calamity that the people were suffering. It seems that he did not care about the suffering of the Afghan people.

َAdditionally, Some of his critics pointed out that he established the practice of suicide attacks with his fatwas in the 1990s when Islamic groups resorted to this method in Palestine. He was the first or at least the most famous jurist who theorized suicide operations under the name of martyrdom operations. Although he later said in interviews that the fatwa was specific to the conditions of Palestine and not to other territories, no such stipulation was raised when the fatwa was issued and legitimized the suicide operation. Many fundamentalist and terrorist groups in different countries spread and published his fatwa and considered it an effective method for Jihad against the enemies. His fatwa was one of the factors that spread this subversive phenomenon.

If we look at the issue in the big picture of civilization and compare our situation with the developments after the renaissance in the West, what led to a deep transformation in those lands and freed them from the straits of the Middle Ages, At least in the intellectual field, the main factor was that priests and church leaders were removed from leading the transformations, and great thinkers such as Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Stuart Mill, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and others were free from the stereotyped thinking frameworks and conquered new intellectual horizons where great human concerns were at the center of it. They introduced precious categories such as rationality, law, tolerance, ethics, epistemology, historicism, world peace, empirical knowledge, and such issues, which are aimed at the basic needs of all humanity, not a specific Ummah or a nation, into the basic discourse of contemporary civilization. The developments after the renaissance undoubtedly depended on many economic, political, industrial, and other factors, but without considering the intellectual dimension, it would not be possible for them to be on this path. This has not happened in our countries and still, the most influential figures are the mullahs who look at the world through the lens of jurisprudence and are unaware of the important knowledge of today’s world. They cannot deal with the needs and concerns of the world, focused on the major problems of humanity, and all their concerns are just for the part of the Muslims, who are on the same side as their parties and groups, not the unlucky masses who suffer from all kinds of poverty, deprivation, and oppression. Therefore, their works have no value or attraction for people belonging to other cultures and civilizations, unlike the aforementioned thinkers, whose ideas cross all borders and are taken seriously in different cultures and civilizations.

I, who have read most of Qaradawi’s works in my youth and benefited from his jurisprudential views, do not present these criticisms to discount and diminish his scientific status but rather, I consider it necessary to deal critically with the work and intellectual legacy of the elders so that their faces are not depicted without mistakes, and the culture of idolatry and sanctification does not gain more depth and strength. One of the fundamental steps toward the maturity of societies is to get rid of the trap of pious worship and rely on one’s wisdom and knowledge. As long as the reign of our reason is in the hands of others and we don’t dare to think for ourselves, our situation won’t change.

Pluralism is a situation where two or more states, groups, principles, and sources of authority coexist. All human societies are made up of diverse races, languages, religions, classes, political groups and cultures.

This piece is not about proving pluralism in societies. This is an established and accepted fact, the purpose of this article is to discuss the importance of recognizing it. The recognition of pluralism in a society means that the people of each culture, language, religion, party and religion have equal status before the law and access to equal economic growth resources. Also, equal opportunities should be provided to them in political spheres and there should be no positive discrimination in favor of one and negative discrimination to the detriment of another.

Part of the crises and conflicts that are going on in the world comes from this source. That is, in a place where the plurality of societies is not recognized and the power apparatus, whether it is in the hands of an individual or a group or a movement, tries to deny others and make the whole society uniform according to its own opinion. Whether such an attempt is made out of good intentions or out of malice and with the intention of consciously suppressing someone who is considered “alien”, in any case the results will be dire and destructive. Here, it doesn’t matter that one side is considered the majority in terms of number and human quantity, and the other is the minority. Being a majority and being a minority in itself is neither a positive nor a negative value, and in no way can it be a reason for having privileges or being deprived of opportunities.

In addition, paying attention to minorities and protecting their rights is one of the important criteria for evaluating countries in terms of maturity and social maturity. In developed societies, there is this awareness that if the people of a particular religion, language or descent are supposedly the majority, they naturally have more opportunities, and there is no need to worry, and if their right is supposed to be lost, they can more easily claim their rights back. For this reason, the focus in these societies is to protect the rights of minorities and because they are more vulnerable, more measures should be taken to protect their rights and benefits. Therefore, the more developed and humane societies are, the more they pay attention to the rights of minorities, and those who are considered the majority feel this responsibility more than others.

The result of social evolution is, of course, that basically the discussion of majority and minority should fade away, and every citizen should have equal value and status with other citizens, and his individuality should be considered as a criterion for enjoying rights and privileges, not his group identity or descent. If a group seeks to advance a society toward prosperity, a part of its strategy should be to defend pluralism and support the diversity in a society so that all citizens feel safe and secure. The opposite trend of pluralism is exclusivism, which tries to control the public resources and exclude others. Exclusivism of any kind, be it religious, political, cultural, linguistic, or descent, is one of the main causes of bloody conflicts in human history. The elites of societies should buckle up in order to institutionalize pluralism and eliminate exclusivity.

In protraction of the Taliban’s misogynistic policies, they recently announced banning all girls from going to universities; which is an explicit example of disregard to the basic human rights of education and work, discriminating against half of the society. According to their narrow worldview people should be categorized and profiled based on Muslim and non-Muslim, men and women, Shiite and Sunni, and some other bigoted categories like ethnic group and the language they speak.

Most of their policies are derived from their sexual view of women, one in which women are reduced to sex objects and striped off of any human dignity, which then can be bought and sold as commodities. Taliban despise a humane look and normalization of sexual affairs and insist on keeping it a shameful taboo to the point that if other men accidentally see the face of their sisters/mothers it is equivalent to rape. In his manifestation, Taliban’s supreme judge explains that men and women looking at each other is adultery.

Taliban understand that educated women will participate in economy, politics, and cultural activities, fight for their rights and will never accept to be sold or bought as sex slaves or commodities. This exactly is against Taliban’s agenda, to enslave women and use them however they want after conquering the land. Free media is suppressed to keep the public in darkness and avoid resistance, girls are banned from universities to keep them unaware of their rights and clear the ground for commanders to continue their sex adventure as a reward to conquest. Taliban intentionally follow this path to keep commander’s loyalty and motivate them to continue fighting. With millions of people stuck in poverty, discrimination and deprivation Taliban have found a perfect ground to fulfill their unlimited sexual desires.

What is shocking for any sane human being is that why the UN, the U.S. and international community are silent? Don’t they see all these misogyny and violence? What good can condemnations do?