afghanistancompleting his studies at al-Azhar and was appointed Professor of Islamic
Law at Kabul University. Niyazi then formed a circle of like-minded indi-
viduals, the most prominent of whom were also graduates of al-Azhar.
In the late 1970s many of these men became prominent leaders of the
jihad against the Soviet occupation, including Burhan al-Din Rabbani,
a Tajik from Badakhshan, who was President of the Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996; ‘Abd al-Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, a Kharoti
Ghilzai from Paghman, who in the 1980s developed close ties with ’Osama
bin Laden and Arab jihadists; and Sibghat Allah Mujadidi, a relative of the
Hazrat of Shor Bazaar. Another member of the Niyazi circle was Gulbudin
Hikmatyar, a Kharoti Ghilzai from Qataghan who, unlike others in the
network, had no formal background in Islamic studies. He had been
educated at Kabul’s Military Academy and then studied engineering at
the Kabul Polytechnic. From 1993 to 1994 Hikmatyar was the nominal
prime minister of Afghanistan.
The Niyazi circle had three objectives: to counteract the government’s
drift to Western secularism; to propagate the teachings of Sayyid Qutb and
like-minded Islamists; and to develop an Islamic response to Communism
and Western ideologies. Following the passing of the 1964 Constitution,
which Niyazi and his circle bitterly criticized, he established the Jawanan-i
Islami, or Islamic Youth Movement, which had a strong following in high
schools and Kabul University. Eventually the Jawanan-i Islami came to
dominate the university’s unofficial Students’ Union. The Harakat-i Inqilab-i
Islami, the Islamic Revolutionary Movement, was another Islamist party that
emerged in the 1960s. Its founder, Maulawi Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi,
was a Ghilzai from Ghazni and a Mujadidi pir. Nabi Muhammadi was
educated in the madrasa system and during the jihad against the Soviet
Union in the 1980s one of Harakat’s most prominent members was Mullah
‘Omar, who later became head of Afghanistan’s Taliban.
When the results of the elections of 1964 were announced several of
these parties had representatives elected to the Wolusi Jirga. They included
Babrak Karmal and Anahita Ratebzad of the pdpa, Ghulam Muhammad
Farhad of Afghan Millat, Da’udist and Nabi Muhammadi. Several women
gained seats in the Lower and Upper Houses and there were representa-
tives of ethnic and religious minorities too. Almost as soon as the new
session of the Wolusi Jirga convened in early 1965, the debating chamber
became a battleground as Leftists, Islamists, Pushtunists, Monarchists and
representatives of ethnic and religious minorities clashed. The pdpa was
particularly well organized and its members staged set-piece interven-
tions in the Chamber as well as demonstrations outside the Assembly.