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June 2008

Qazi Soliman Hamid, a graduate of the Islamic Law Faculty of Kabul University, has been an Islamist leader in western Afghanistan for many years. During the Mujahedeen government of the 1990s, Mr. Hamid served in different high ranking posts in Afghanistan Supreme Court. He also served on the commission which attempted to negotiate peace agreements between the warring Mujahideen parties from 1992 to 1995. Kabul Direct interviewed Qazi Soliman Hamid in his office in Kabul.

Kabul Direct: The Muslim Brotherhood movement has a long history in Afghanistan. Can you tell our readers when the Muslim Brotherhood first emerged in Afghanistan and how it splintered?

Mr. Hamid: The Muslim Brotherhood’s roots go back to Egypt, to the place that many Muslims have long considered the center of Islamic learning and studies ‐ Al Azhar University in Cairo. Though at the time the Muslim Brotherhood emerged in Egypt, the political center of Islam had for decades been in Turkey. But it was always Al Azhar University which was considered the center of Islamic studies in the Muslim world.

During the 1960s, many Afghan students went to Egypt to study in Al Azhar University as well. It was these students who later played leading roles in the Jihad against the Soviets in the 1980s. By then, some of these students of the sixties were back Afghanistan working as teachers in Kabul University here.

Kabul Direct: Do you mean they had already established themselves by the time they came back to Afghanistan?

Mr. Hamid: People like Musa Shafiq, Ustad Tavana, Burhanuddin Rabbani, and Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf are some of the main leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Afghanistan. Now back in Afghanistan, they started teaching in the university and established the Afghan branch of the movement – or, as they called it, The Afghanistan Muslim Youth Movement.

The Muslim Brotherhood parties in Afghanistan were not of course exactly the same as their Egyptian counterparts. But at the beginning in Afghanistan, the movement was centered at the university and attracted mainly students. This was during the 1960s when the Afghan’s political spectrum was being carved out by democrats, Islamists, Marxists and communists. Most Afghans wanted some kind of change as this was the time when the country was under the control of a totalitarian regime. There was also widespread poverty and unemployment.

Under the reign of Daud Khan, the Islamists were under threat. They had to fear not just the government but also other powerful forces inside the country. The leaders of the Islamist movements then – leaders such as Eng. Habiburrahman, Musa Shafiq, Ustad Niazi and various others were placed under surveillance or even prosecuted. Some of these leaders were even sentenced to death. Some of the leaders fled to Pakistan to seek safe harbor.

Kabul Direct: When the leaders of the Brotherhood-influencedarties actually entered the political scene and tried to participate in the politics, did they make this move intentionally, after having adequately prepared themselves to effectively engage in the process or did this just happen?

Mr. Hamid: They entered the political scene in order to promote the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. They wanted to introduce the idea of basing the state of the religious laws and tenets. Remember, this happened during a time when there was a totalitarian state that ruled the Afghan people – a state that did not allow its citizens to challenge the state’s actions, a state that would not tolerate any effective opposition.

There was a student demonstration during this period in which the state security services turned on the student demonstrators and many were killed. This took place right here, in Kabul. When the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Ikhwan al Muslemin first emerged, there was no room for political parties of any kind, really, in Afghanistan. So no party was able to evolve naturally. Many of the Brotherhood‐inspired leaders had to flee to Pakistan.

Kabul Direct: Did the Muslim Brotherhood in Afghanistan have a precise agenda? Did the leaders have specific goal in mind and an idea of a calendar in which they accomplish them?

Mr. Hamid: At the time the Brotherhood parties began to emerge, no party in Afghanistan, whether they were religious or leftist or whatever could imagine a route to power. Parties could not even conceive of that kind of think happening back then.

Kabul Direct: Why couldn’t they? Couldn’t the opposition parties have come together to coordinate an opposition?

Mr. Hamid: Well, at first, when the leaders in the movement were still united under the banner of the Afghanistan Muslim Youth Movement, they perhaps could have united. But differences emerged quickly. Differences that caused Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, for example, to establish Hizb‐e Islami and Ustad Rabbani to establish the Jamiat Islami – as the way to sort out their differences.

To date, the parties that emerged out of the Muslim Brotherhood have been unable to reconcile their differences. The early Muslim Brotherhood leaders were not politically astute or experienced enough to realize the value inherent in keeping the movement together. They were never able to conceive of a path that would enable them to establish Islamic governance here in Afghanistan. The same was true for the communist parties. No one expected that type of change to occur.

Kabul Direct: How did the Muslim Brothers fare during the Jihad in Afghanistan? Were they able to take advantage of the situation?

Mr. Hamid: The people expected the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. When they found out that their country had been occupied by the Soviet Union, the clerics issued decrees saying that Muslims were obligated to join the jihad against the Soviets. It was the people of Afghanistan who started the Jihad. The Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Afghanistan primarily arranged money and provided logistical support for the Afghan jihadist. They were able to establish the channels through which the money and weapons flowed. But it was the Afghan people not the Muslim Brothers who actually fought the jihad.

Kabul Direct: Why did not the Muslim Brotherhood in Afghanistan succeed in bringing about an Islamic state in Afghanistan?

Mr. Hamid: The leading Afghan Muslim Brothers – and the jihadist parties – were never able to reconcile their differences and figure out a way they successfully work together. In the 1990s, when Burhunddin Rabbani was running the government, it became clear that the jihadi leaders did not have the ability to bridge their various tribal, religious, sectarian, and even personal differences for the sake of the national interest.

For example, when Rabbani was in power, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar could never accept that he had to share power with Rabbani and vice versa. Rabbani could never conceive of giving Hekmatyar his share of power.

I acted as a peace envoy during this time, and I shuttled messages between the warring parties. I remember asking Gubbuddin Hekmatyar now that they had won the jihad, if it wasn’t a good idea for him to now to transition the militia he headed into a political party – if it wasn’t the time to acknowledge the rights of other political parties and engage in real power sharing. His response was that as long as Gen. Dustom, one of communist‐backed regime’s main commanders was part of the Kabul government, he would never consider making such a move. But then when Gen. Dostum turned against Rabbani , Hekmatyar was able to form an alliance with him.

The Jihadi leaders have never been honest – not among themselves and neither with the Afghan people. I think the problem really was that neither the Muslim Brotherhood or the jihadist parties had any real strategy or plan to actually bring about their vision of creating an Islamic state in Afghanistan. First they never really expected that they would succeed in forcing the Soviets to withdraw. Then there were their other failures of imagination.

Kabul Direct: Was this because the Mujahedin didn’t have any real political experience?

Mr. Hamid: Yes. I think we see the same lack of experience today in the regime’s inability to reign in the corruption or deliver on its promises. We are still plagued by the same problems now, in this post‐ Taliban phase. Most Afghan regimes have not had the necessary experience to govern effectively.

Kabul Direct: Some experts believe that the Muslim Brotherhood in Afghanistan has split along generational lines. Is that your sense?

Mr. Hamid: I believe that once the Rabbani government fell from power, and the Taliban emerged, the Afghanistan people lost their trust any trust they ever had in the Mujahedeen. They saw the Mujahedeen being unable to defendthemselves against the onslaught of the Taliban. This was for a number of reasons including the Mujahedeen’s gross mismanagement and their weak leadership. The Mujahedeen were unable to draw the support they needed from abroad to defend their government. This is how they lost the confidence of the Afghan people.

The Afghan people are now in a new phase. They can see that new players and powers have emerged. If the international community helps to stabilize Afghanistan, our political parties will naturally evolve. If this happens, the Muslim Brotherhood parties will lose any appeal they once had. While the Afghan people may not trust the new political players, they can see that after three decades of activity in Afghanistan, the Muslim Brotherhood has yet to deliver any real salvation or progress when it comes to Afghan politics.

Kabul Direct: Some experts have suggested that there is a new generation of Muslim Brothers in Afghanistan, a generation that is not interested working inside the political system. This new generation instead focuses its efforts on social welfare services and programs, and building civil society. They are said to want to build the Islamic state in Afghanistan from the bottom up. And that the plan is to do this in the next two decades.

Mr. Hamid: As an Afghan who has long been inside the Muslim Brotherhood, I cannot say I have witnessed what you are talking about. I have not seen any organized wave of the kind you are talking about. But I do think there might indeed be individual Muslim Brothers who are indeed focused on this kind of plan.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Afghanistan: Qazi Solaiman Hamid Explains