Jamiat-e Islami (also rendered as Jamiat-e-Islami, Jamiati Islami) (Pashto:جمعیت اسلامی افغانستان), is an Islamic political party in Afghanistan along the line of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Jamiat-e Islami means "Islamic society" in the Persian language and is also known as just Jamiat for short. Jamiat is the oldest Islamic political party in Afghanistan. It has a communitarian ideology based on Islamic law but is also considered moderately progressive. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the following civil war in Afghanistan, Jamiat-e Islami was one of the most powerful of the mujahideen groups. The majority of the party are ethnic Tajiks of northern and western Afghanistan. Former President of Afghanistan Burhanuddin Rabbani lead the party from 1968 to 2011.[1]
Jamiat was one of the most popular and broadly spread party during Jihad with representations in every ethnic group. Although, primarily they were composed of Tajiks & Uzbeks but it had signifiant presence in Pashtun and other ethnic areas. Some of the prominent commanders of Jamiat included Ustad Zabihullah, Ahmad Shah Massoud, Ismail Khan, Atta Mohammad Noor, Mullah Naqib, Dr Fazlullah. . Undoubtedly, Ahmad Shah Massoud was the military wing of the party. In 1979 Ahmad Shah Massoud, who had joined Jamiat as a university student, organised a mujahideen group in Parwan Province to fight against the Communist government and their Soviet allies. This group grew to control multiple provinces and include thousands of fighters. The Soviet Army launched a series of major offensives to attempt to destroy the Jamiat forces, but they were unable to engage most of Massoud's men. After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 1988, the mujahideen groups continued to wear down the government forces; in 1992 the communist government collapsed entirely. Massoud's forces were among the first to enter Kabul.
Meanwhile, a peace and power-sharing agreement among the leadership of the Afghan political party leaders led to a tentative agreement to appoint Rabbani, who had spent the civil war in exile, as interim president. The peace agreement was called the Peshawar Accords.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar however, did not support the peace agreement despite the fact that Hekmatyar was repeatedly offered the position of prime minister. Subsequently Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami attacked the new interim government and the capital of Kabul with tens of thousands of rockets. As Hezb-i Wahdat and Ittihad-i Islami started a second war in 1992 and Dostum's Junbish-i Milli joint Hekmatyar in 1994 Kabul witnessed a gruesome war. The war led to massive civilian casualties and destruction of much of the city. In 1995 the Islmaic State of Aghanistan government also with Jamiat forces retained control of Kabul, pushing back a coalition of Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami, the Hizb-i-Wahdat and Abdul Rashid Dostum's Jumbish-i-Milli Islami.
By 1995 the Taliban, which had seized control of much of southern Afghanistan with comparative ease in the previous year, were advancing on Kabul. Massoud rejected Taliban demands that he surrender and the Taliban rejected Massoud's offer to join a peaceful political process leading towards general elections. In March 1995, Massoud handed the Taliban their first major loss. The Taliban regrouped and were then by Osama Bin Laden's forces and Saudi Arabia, which allowed them to launch another offensive in mid-1996. Massoud ordered the retreat of his troops among them Jamiat to avoid another bloodbath.
Following the capture of Kabul, the major mujahideen factions put aside their previous feuds and formed the United Front, United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, commonly known in the west as the Northern Alliance. Rabbani officially became political leader of the United Front, but most power lay with Defense Minister Massoud. Other Jamiat members took up senior positions within the United Front Government. Yunus Qanuni served as Interior Minister and Dr Abdullah became Foreign Minister. During the United Front's existence, the political parties became less important. Individual commanders were leading the struggle against the Taliban, foremost Ahmad Shah Massoud. He controlled about 10,000 of the Alliance's 40,000 troops. Most observers agreed that Massoud's forces were the most disciplined, best trained and equipped of the United Front.
On the 9th of September 2001, Massoud was assassinated by two of suicide bombers. Immediately afterwards Taliban forces launched a major offensive against United Front positions. Mohammed Qasim Fahim was chosen to succeed Massoud as leader of Jamiat's military wing and repulsed the Taliban offensive. With extensive assistance from an American-led coalition in October and November 2001 (see War in Afghanistan (2001–present)), United Front forces recaptured most of Afghanistan.
Since then, Jamiat appears to have splintered. The military wing of the party, led by Fahim and Qanuni, dominated the Afghan Transitional Administration (2001–2004) from which Rabbani was absent. Massoud's friend, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah became minister of foreign affairs. In the 2009 Presidential Elections, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah ran as an independent candidate against Hamid Karzai. He came in second place, but a run-off was suspended because of wide-spread allegations of election fraud against Karzai. When Abdullah's followers wanted to take to the streets, Abdullah hold them back in order not to endanger the fragile rebuilding of Afghanistan.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5586E/x5586e0e.htm. for SAYED NOORULLAH EMAD
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