Hezb-e-Islami (also ''Hezb-e Islami'', ''Hezb-i-Islami'', ''Hezbi-Islami'', ''Hezbi Islami''), lit. Islamic Party, was an Islamist organization that was commonly known for fighting the Communist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union. Founded and led by

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (born 1 August 1949) is an Afghan politician, and former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis spl ...

, it was established in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

in 1976. It grew out of the

Muslim Youth Muslim Youth ( ''Sāzmān-e Jawānān-e Musulmān'') was an Islamist group founded in 1969 in Kabul by several Afghan junior professors and a handful of students at Kabul University. Many of the leading figures of the Soviet–Afghan War were mem ...

organization, an Islamist organization founded in

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

by students and teachers at

Kabul University Kabul University (KU; ) is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah, wh ...

in 1969 to combat

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

in Afghanistan. Its membership was drawn from ethnic

Pashtuns Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghan (ethnon ...

, and its ideology from the

Muslim Brotherhood The Society of the Muslim Brothers ('' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, Imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings s ...

and Abul Ala Maududi's

Jamaat-e-Islami Jamaat-e-Islami is an Islamist fundamentalist movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamist author and theorist Syed Abul Ala Maududi, who was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. It is considered one of the most influential Isla ...

. Another source describes it as having splintered away from

Burhanuddin Rabbani Burhānuddīn Rabbānī (; 20 September 1940 – 20 September 2011) was an Afghanistan, Afghan politician and teacher who served as the sixth president of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996, and again from November to December 2001 (in exile from 199 ...

's original Islamist party, Jamiat-e Islami, in 1976, after Hekmatyar found that group too moderate and willing to compromise with others. In 1979, Mulavi Younas Khalis split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezbi Islami, known as the Khalis faction, with its power base in Nangarhar.

's faction is since then referred to as the

Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (; abbreviated HIG), also referred to as Hezb-e-Islami or Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is an Afghan political party and paramilitary organization, originally founded in 1976 as Hezb-e-Islami and led by Gulbuddi ...

, or HIG.

Sources

External links

Sedra, Mark. "The Taliban still larger than life"
''Asia Times Online'', 2004-03-11.

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20170305012604/http://www.dia.mil/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=43BWsnvesZc%3d&tabid=7068&portalid=27&mid=14146 Declassified October 8, 2002 Reportby DIA {{Political parties in Afghanistan Anti-Soviet factions in the Soviet–Afghan War Islamic political parties in Afghanistan Sunni Islamic political parties Islamic organizations established in 1976 Political parties established in 1976 1976 establishments in Afghanistan

See also

Sources

External links