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The Challenges to Nation-Building
in Afghanistan
continues....
Islam and other religious identities
The Islam in Afghanistan is part of an entire civilization and the source of universal values and ethics that give life a transcendent meaning. Apart from tens of thousands of Hindus and Sikhs, and a small minority of Armenian Christians and Jews in the major cities, all other Afghans are Muslims. Muslims are roughly 99 percent of the total population and around 85 percent of the Muslims are Sunnis of the Hanafi School. Most of the rest, including the Hazaras, the Qizilbash and some Farsiwan, are Imami (twelver) Shi’a’ia, as are the Wakhis of the Wakhan Corridor.
In any review of nationalism in Afghanistan, it is important to study the role of Islam in Afghan society as legitimizer of authority, and at times rebellion too—under successive rulers.
Although from outside, Afghanistan, may appear as a remarkably homogeneous group, even if they did form a distinct social group, there is a basic divide between the Sunni Muslim majority following the Hanafi rite and substantial Shi’a Muslim minorities - mainly Imami Shi’a (Twelvers), but also Ismailis. The Sufi tariqas and their pirs (hereditary saints) have and retain today a wide following, and tribal custom is more important in many spheres of life than Shari’a law.
In principle, the Shi’a faith is more unified and hierarchical than Sunnism. Religious dignitaries among the Shi’s enjoy extremely high prestige and influence because they either claimed descent from the Prophet (Saddad) and/or because of their reputation for learning or pilgrimage to holy shrines like Mashhad, Nejaf and Kerbala.
The social and political significance of the Sadad in Imami Hazara society was so great that Kopecky (1982) goes as far as to say that it is not the Hazaras who integrate the Sadad population but rather the Sadad who manage to unite continually contending the divisive kin groups and tribes of the Hazaras, and other Imami groups, into a political unit.
To be continued...