Afghanistan’s Shiite minority, and in spiritual Sufi brotherhoods.
But as an ideology of resistance, Islam was to prove extraordinar-
ily important.
This ideology was shaped in the crucible of the early Muslim
community in the Arabian peninsula, where unbelievers
represented a serious threat to the survival of the Prophet and his
followers. The term which emerged to describe resistance to such
attacks was jihad, which can be translated as ‘struggle’, ‘striving’,
or ‘effort’ (Lewis, 1988: 72). It was this term which Afghan oppo-
nents of communist rule routinely used to describe their struggle
(in contrast to the Arabic harbor the Persian jang, both of which
literally mean ‘war’). From the same Arabic root as jihad were
then derived the words mujahid, and its plural mujahideen, which
identify practitioners of jihad. The word ‘mujahideen’ came to be
used as a generic term for the Afghan resistance and its various
components. The significance of these designations derives from
their moral implications. As Lewis puts it: ‘According to Muslim
teaching,jihadis one of the basic commandments of the faith, an
obligation imposed on all Muslims by God, through revelation. In
an offensive war, it is an obligation of the Muslim community as a
whole (fard kafiya); in a defensive war, it becomes a personal obli-
gation of every adult male Muslim (fard ‘ayn)’ (Lewis, 1988: 73).
It finds justification in the Holy Koran, a verse of which enjoins
believers to ‘Fight for the sake of Allah those that fight against
you, but do not attack them first’ (2: 190).
This is not to suggest that Islam’s potency as an ideology of
resistance leads mechanistically to a community of martially
minded believers. Doctrine is flexible and subject to constant re-
interpretation, and in any case is only one of a number of sources
of individual motivation (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996: 16–17).
However, the legitimation of action by reference to divine sanction
can prove a powerful source of energy and commitment. Stalin’s
famous question to Churchill during the Second World War –
‘How many divisions has the Pope?’ – displayed a blindness to the
significance of religious commitment which was to cost his suc-
cessors dearly in Afghanistan. He might better have followed the
The Development of Afghan Resistance 59