After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the empowerment of the Shiʿa Hazāras of Afghanistan brought hope for a sustainable improvement in the living conditions of this Muslim minority. This led to the recognition of the Shiʿa school of jurisprudence (mazhab) as a possible juridical source in the Afghan constitution of 2004. After the Second World War, Al-Azhar University proposed that Shiʿa be accepted as the fifth school of jurisprudence of Islam.Footnote 1 This apparent return of the new Afghan constitution to the brief period in Egyptian history of Islamic ecumenism was then perceived as the recognition of the right of the Afghan Shiʿa to be considered as Muslims and not as the heretics they are perceived to be by some of the followers of the Hanafi School of jurisprudence. This work of rapprochement (taghrib) between Shiʿa and Sunni in Afghanistan was conducted by the Council of Brotherhood. Āyatollāh Mohseni created this council in 2003 with Borhāneddin Rabbāni, who was close to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Shiʿa citizens officially represent 10 to 20 percent of the total population but according to Shiʿa sources this number could be 25‒30 percent.Footnote 2 Shiʿas are mostly Hazāras but there are also some Turkmen, Qizilbāsh, Bayāt and Seyyed Shiʿas. The Shiʿa community in Afghanistan has developed transnational links with their religious counterparts mainly in Iran, Iraq and Pakistan. Firstly, this article will shed light on the history of the emergence of the Shiʿa community in Afghanistan, since their conversion until the first decade of the civil war (1979‒89). Then, we will analyze the role of Afghan Shiʿa organizations and the religious and ideological influence of Iran in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lastly, we will focus on the Afghan Shiʿas in the framework of the US‒Iran rivalry after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. In conclusion, Iran appears as a theocratic model, ill-adapted to the Afghan situation despite the Islamic Revolution’s central role in the empowerment of Shiʿa communities in the Muslim worlds through education and funding.
Historical Background
There are various hypotheses regarding the origins and the time of the Shiʿas’ conversion in Afghanistan and the emergence of Hazāras. According to some sources, Shiʿa people in Afghanistan appeared at the time of Ali’s caliphate, others evoke the thirteenth century under the Mongol rule in the era of the Hazārajāt.Footnote 3 Eventually, the last wave of conversion seems to have occurred during the Safavid period (sixteenth‒seventeenth centuries) in a broader area including Kandahār.Footnote 4 Whatever the historical truth,Footnote 5 Alessandro Monsutti rightly underlines that “a shared identity does not necessarily mean a common historical origin.”Footnote 6 At the end of the nineteenth century, Amir Abdur Rahmān Khan accused Shiʿa Hazāras of being infidels and enemies of the Sunni community.Footnote 7 Moreover, it was only in the 1940s that Afghan Shiʿas ceased practicing dissimulation (ketmān, taqiyya). The historical narrative regarding the Hazāras has been reconstructed along the lines of the existence of “a Hazāra national identity.”Footnote 8 But the birth of the Afghan national ideaFootnote 9 and the hegemonic narrative regarding Afghan history is deeply related to the Pashtun tribes’ narrative on history: not only from an ethnic point of view but also from a Sunni (Hanafi) religious one.
From the start of the civil war and the rise of the Islamic revolution in Iran (1978‒79), one has to consider their political empowerment through jihad in the 1980s. As Olivier Roy explains, Hazāras “were provided for the first time in Afghan history with a military and political organisation of their own.”Footnote 10 The new leadership of Muhaqqiq and the ideological and financial support received from Iran were the backbone of the rise of Hazāras after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Despite their participation in higher education, Hazāra are underrepresented in the highest paying sector of the Afghan economy and in the political transformation of their country. Even if between 10 and 20 percent of the population in Afghanistan are Hazāras—only 7 percent of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are Hazāras.Footnote 11
Since 2001, Afghan Pashtun discourse on the rise of the Hazāras (the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan) is deeply rooted in both anti-American and anti-Shiʿa feelings. The role of Afghan refugees is central in the definition of religious/political relations between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, one of the limits of Iranian influence in Afghanistan is the sectarian dimension. Tehran focused on the creation of religious Shiʿa transnational networks between the two countries. This explains why there are numerous hurdles to Iranian influence in the province of Herāt, which is predominantly Sunni. Therefore it is not surprising that links to Tehran are overvalued compared to the relations between Herāt and Kabul.Footnote 12 To overcome the Sunni‒Shiʿa divide in Afghanistan in general—and within Herāt province in particular—Tehran aims to build trade networks and to diffuse anti-American propaganda insisting on the “imperialist” and the “colonialist” dimensions of US foreign policy. This is the message of Iranian public diplomacy but others, like Sunni Pashtuns, argue that Tehran’s objective is quite the contrary: to inflame the Sunni‒Shiʿa divide. Much of the Iranian regime’s rhetoric is not only aimed at countering American propaganda, but also to challenge the so-called Sunni Afghan state. Also there is a considerable increase in returning Hazāras from Iran being settled in Herāt, especially during the term of Hussein Anwari as governor of Herāt, thus changing the city’s demographic make-up (15 percent of Herāt province are Hazāras).Footnote 13 Similarly, one has to consider the relocation of the Hazāras in Mazār-i Sharif, with the permission of and welcomed by Rashid Dostum, which took place after the Taliban conquest of Hazārajāt in the 1990s, especially the Yakawlang massacres. For the first time in the history of Afghanistan, both these urban centers have had a large influx of Hazāras, which has changed the demographic composition of these cities. This development can be analyzed as being a consequence of the recent decades of war as well as Iranian aid and support to the Hazāra community. Nevertheless, according to US diplomats, despite the accusations made by Sunni local militants against an Iranian “hidden hand” in the 7 February 2006 Shiʿa‒Sunni riots of ʿāshūrāʾ, it is doubtful that “Iran would intentionally encourage Sunni‒Shiʿa violence, as evidenced during ʿāshūrāʾ, placing minority Shiʿites/Hazāras in greater peril.”Footnote 14
Afghan Shiʿa Organizations
In 1989, at the end of the first decade of the civil war, the unity of Shiʿa organizations was realized after the formation of a new political party, namely the Hezb-e Vahdat. Amin Tarzi outlines the new contribution of the main Shiʿa organization to the constitutional history of Afghanistan through a constitutional draft:
Wahdat draft constitution contained 193 articles, plus an addendum of an additional 80 articles. As such, it is the longest document of its kind in the Afghan constitutional history. For the first time, the Jaʿfarite school of jurisprudence was also included: the “official religion of the Afghan people is the sacred religion of Islam and their official rites are Jaʿfarite and Hanafite” (Article 2).Footnote 15
Iranian funding contributed to the social empowerment of Shiʿa people in Afghanistan through the diffusion of the new official state religious ideology. In the 1980s, an Iranian “ideological sphere of influence” in Afghanistan emerged.Footnote 16 Despite these new religious networks between Afghan and Iranian clerics, some Afghan religious figures developed links with Najaf, rather than Qom. For instance, at this time, Āyatollāh Mohseni was considered a supporter of Āyatollāh Khoi and therefore “less pro-Iranian.”Footnote 17 There is no Afghan marjaʿ-e taqlid (source of imitation) living on Afghan territory. As a result, Afghan Shiʿism relies on religious influences mainly from Iran and Iraq. Until his death in 1989, Āyatollāh Khomeini had many followers in Afghanistan. Even if there is no public opinion poll in Afghanistan to test the popularity of different marjaʿ-e taqlid, it appears that Āyatollāh Sistani Kāboli and Fayyāz have the largest number of followers amongst the Shiʿa believers. There are only two Afghan sources of imitation (marjaʿ-e taqlid) in Afghanistan: āyatollāhs Kāboli in Qom and Fayyāz based in Najaf. Fayyāz is neither Hazāra nor in the Iranian sphere of ideological influence. He seems to be the most followed by Afghan Shiʿa believers alongside Āyatollāh Sistāni.Footnote 18
In addition, there are no direct links between ethnicity and the practice of Shiʿa Islam in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. For instance, Afghan Hazāras are not choosing their grand āyatollāh according to his ethnic background.Footnote 19 Afghan Shiʿism dependency towards Najaf and Qom is more acute because of the weakness of religious institutions in Afghanistan and the shortcomings of the Afghan educational system – most Afghan believers are illiterate and do not have access to the internet. Nevertheless there is one major religious university in Kabul and at least two small institutions in Bamyan.Footnote 20
Consequently, they are not following the technological revolution observed in the religious practice of Iraqi and Iranian believers.Footnote 21 In Afghanistan, the local mullāh often has more power than an Āyatollāh who is a model to imitate (marjaʿ-e taqlid). Despite these religious peculiarities, Iran is offering a large number of scholarships to Afghan Shiʿas to study theology in Qom. According to some estimates, there are 8,000 Afghans studying theology in Iran.Footnote 22
Despite the strong Iranian religious influence in Afghanistan, the majority of Afghan Hazāras appear to pursue a strategy of being both pro-Iranian and pro-western. Since the Afghan constitution of 4 January 2004, Islam is the religion of the state. From the longue durée perspective, despite the religious piety of most of the Afghan population, one has to consider that during the nineteenth century “most of the Afghan ulemā were not very educated as there were no major Islamic learning centers in the country, nor were many Afghans able to go abroad to study theology or jurisprudence.”Footnote 23 The constitution of 1964 (Article 102) states that “the courts base their judgments on the essential principles of Hanafi Fiqh, Shariʿa and Islam.”Footnote 24 In 2004, the constitution outlined that all citizens are equals and that non-Muslims are free to practice their religion “within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals” (Article 2). Nevertheless, “No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan” (Article 3).Footnote 25 The Shiʿa school of jurisprudence is recognized by the constitution as the fifth juridical school of Islam but it is not clear which Shiʿa sects are concerned:
Article 131 in this draft for the first time provided room for Shiʿi jurisprudence to be applied in cases involving personal matters of followers of the Shiʿi sect. It did not, however, specify which Shiʿi sect. While the majority of Afghan Shiʿis and those represented in the constitutional debates were mostly followers of the Jaʿfari school of jurisprudence adhered to by Twelver Shiʿis, Afghanistan is also home to members of the Ismaʿili sect, creating ambiguity in interpreting this article.Footnote 26
Another important dimension of the empowerment of the Hazāra Shiʿa community since 2001 is effected through academic cooperation. There are a large number of Afghan students in Iran especially at the Ferdowsi University in Mashhad. In 2008, according to the Afghan Graduates Association, 3,000 Afghans were studying in Iran.Footnote 27 Moreover, most Persian language book publishers are based in Iran. The cultural ties between Iran and Afghanistan are the foundation of the rapprochement between the two Persian-speaking countries. But at the same time, this proximity can be a source of political tension. Critical perspectives on books published in Iran emphasize the political background and the religious ideology coloring academic work in Iran, especially in the fields of political science and international relations. Often mentioned is the poor quality of translations of Persian language books published in the West. This would appear to be a major problem because the books translated into the Persian language in Iran are the primary means for Afghan students to access the academic literature published in the West.Footnote 28 Pashtun nationalists also complain about the evolution of the Dari language closer to the spoken and written form of the Persian language as it is practiced in Iran. They criticize what they call the “Iranian cultural hegemonic policy,” even if this phenomenon is more linked to the influence of returned former refugees from Iran and their impact in the media and academic spheres.
Private Universities of the Hazāras
According to Fariba Adelkhah, Shiʿa confessional educational institutions and public institutions complement one another.Footnote 29 Nevertheless, according to our interviews with professors in Kabul and Herāt, there are also some competing dimensions in their relationship, especially concerning private universities. For instance, a student who began his curriculum in public education can move during his studies to the private system but not vice versa. In Afghanistan, there are eighty-one private universities—of which twenty-eight are in Kabul.Footnote 30 However few of them teach the Persian language or literature: their major disciplines are economics and trade. Higher education is organized according to the License-Master system—most Afghan students go abroad for postgraduate at doctoral level, as the country does not have a doctoral program, except in medicine. This opens doors for the two powerful neighbors of Afghanistan—namely Iran and Pakistan—to attract PhD students in order to diffuse their ideological views (soft power) amongst the Afghan political and intellectual elite.
Moreover, private universities and Shiʿite TV channels try to preserve their autonomy with regards to Iran while having the ambition to appear as the most progressive community in Afghanistan, particularly concerning women’s education.Footnote 31 This politico-religious dimension is significant due to the nature of the theocratic Iranian regime that presents a fusion of politics and religion unsuited to the realities of Afghanistan, where Shiʿites are a minority. However, local Afghan actors can “use” Iran to obtain doctoral degrees without adhering to all the values of the Islamic Revolution. The number of Hazāra private universities is increasing. Even if the majority of their professors have been trained in Iran (master’s or doctoral degrees), or in either Herāt or Kabul, this does not mean that they endorse all Khomeinist views.
In public universities, the ethnic dimension is taken into account in the recruitment of academic staff. According to the teaching staff of Hazāra private universities, it is often easier for Tajiks and Pashtuns, rather than Hazāras, to be accepted into the academic community of public universities.Footnote 32 Also departments of language and Persian civilization insist on their “Dari” identity instead of calling themselves “Iranshenāsi” (Iranian Studies). But even the professors in the “Dari” department of the University of Herāt recognize that this is a political issue.Footnote 33 Indeed, the Dari and Persian languages cannot be distinguished from a strictly academic plan. “Dari” in the Persian language means the language of the court. There is, however, a debate on the origins of the Persian civilization, especially on whether the Khorasan Province was a space belonging to Afghan or Iranian history. The problem for Afghan university professors is asserting an Afghan vision of the history of the Persian civilization while using books written by Iranian authors, published in Iran. Consequently, in their teaching, Afghan teachers emphasize the “errors” in the books provided to the students; they strive to produce syllabi that avoid what they call the “misinterpretation of history” by Iranian academics.Footnote 34
Mistrust towards Iran can be seen in the recruitment of lecturers at the public university, where lecturers who have obtained their doctorate in Iran are a minority. One of the reasons given is the danger of espionage activities by students and teachers trained in Iran. Despite this negative perception, one has to recognize that the standard of teachers trained in Iran is, in general, very good—which is not always the case for those trained elsewhere. This partly explains the success of Hazāra private universities in Kabul supported by Iran (Kāteb, Ibn Sinā, etc.), in which the majority of lecturers are trained in Iranian universities.
We can observe a similar pattern in Herāt, where private universities financed by Iran like Dāneshgāh (university)Footnote 35 Jāmi, Ansāri and Asiā. Conversely, there are private universities in Herāt funded by Pakistan, whose lecturers were formerly Afghan refugees in Pakistan, such as Khāleb University.
The Iranian Political-Ideological Sphere of Influence
The Hazāra community is at the center of Iranian strategy. For instance, whenever there is a change of government in Kabul, Iran supports the appointment of Hazāra ministers. Moreover, according to diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks, Iran has used cash payments to strengthen its influence on forty-four of Afghanistan’s 249 parliamentarians. Wikileaks also suggests that Iran has spent $25 million to buy “no” votes from Afghan parliamentarians in the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) negotiated between Afghanistan and the United States. Allegedly, Sayed Hussein ‘Alemi Balkhi (Kābul), Ahmad Ali Jebraili (Herāt), and Ustād Mohammad Akbari (Bamyān) are “the Hazāra MPs who receive the most support from Iran. The Iranian Embassy has also cultivated deep relations with members of opposition groups (including the United Front), Tajik Sayeds, and MPs from Herāt and other western provinces.”Footnote 36
Therefore, Iranian support to Shiʿite deputies is not exclusive. Indeed, Iran demonstrated a certain pragmatism in its relations with its neighbors, and even a form of “Islamist realpolitik.” Tehran has also shown a real ability to support different actors with conflicting relations within the political establishment and, at times, the Hekmatyār faction or the Taliban opposition for the realization of short-term objectives.Footnote 37 The contradictory dimensions are due to the political instability of Afghanistan, which has been in an almost constant state of civil war since 1978Footnote 38 and due to the tension between permanent diplomatic realpolitik objectives (trade, stability of the border area, to present itself as a responsible regional power, etc.) and ideological imperatives (anti-Americanism, the constitution of a Khomeinist ideological sphere, etc.).
There is also a soft power aspect to Iran’s policy on Afghanistan. At the religious level, Iran supports the construction of mosques in the region of Herāt and the Iranian clergy strives to promote pro-Iranian seminars in Kabul. A religious figure appears to be more particularly close to Iran since the end of the Soviet military intervention: Āyatollāh Mohammad Āsef Mohseni and his “Islamic Movement of Afghanistan” (harekat-e eslāmi afghānestān).Footnote 39 For instance, the presence of the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee is key to better understanding the regional influence of Iran in Afghanistan since this organization is mainly present in the region of Herāt, although it has forty-five offices and 30,000 employees across Afghanistan. Its program “promotes Iran’s ideological and political goals and incites anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan.”Footnote 40 This Iranian ambition, to be an ideological sphere of influence, has had some success with the Afghan political and religious elites, including a re-appropriation of the Iranian discourse on the “colonial” dimension of the US military intervention since 2001. However, because of the existence of Afghan nationalism, it is always difficult for an Afghan politician to appear to be taking orders from Tehran. In Kabul on 4 June 2014, during a ceremony commemorating twenty-five years since the death of Āyatollāh Khomeini, the running mate of ʿAbdullah ʿAbdullah (second vice-president), former chief of Hazāra group during the civil war, Mohammad Mohaqqeq, was photographed paying tribute to Khomeini. Each year the participation of Afghan Shiʿa leaders in these commemorations arouses nationalist reactions across Afghanistan, with thousands denouncing the submission of Afghan leaders in Iran: one tweet captured this as, “This is Kabul, not Tehran!”Footnote 41
The relationship between Tehran and Kabul remains asymmetrical and this imbalance is likely to increase with the increasing withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan. The weakness of Afghanistan as a state reveals a defensive posture in front of the cultural policy of the seemingly thriving Iranian state. Tehran has intentions to strengthen its cultural sphere of influence through the promotion of Persian language policy. This ambition explains the 2008 creation of a Persian-speaking television channel, in partnership with Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and an Economic Council of the Persian Speaking Union. The trilateral and cultural cooperation of these projects provokes some fear amongst the Afghan Pashtun intellectual elite, who worry that only Tehran will benefit. Furthermore, they denounce this Iranian attempt to impose cultural homogenization on a Persian-speaking world that is ethnically very diverse. Finally, they believe that the religious divide between Shiʿite and Sunni is an obstacle to the formation of a cultural union between Kabul, Dushanbe and Tehran. This mistrust can be found in Afghan theological faculties within the public university. Indeed, no professor of Islamic law in any public university is Shiʿite, either in Kabul or Herāt. Similarly, even if, in theory, Shiʿa fiqh should be taught in Afghan theological faculties through a comparative approach, in reality it appears that Shiʿa fiqh is only taught in private Hazāra universities and in one state university—namely Bamyan University. In addition, at the theological faculty of Herāt, I was told that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is a ‘sectarian’ state, because there are only Shiʿite mosques in Mashhad, contrary to Afghanistan where there are both Sunni and Shiʿite mosques.”Footnote 42 This criticism is nevertheless not completely accurate because there are Sunni mosques in some Iranian provinces especially in the Kurdish and Baloch areas.
Shiʿa Afghans are also trying to stay out of the US‒Iran rivalry, as they aim to appear as an independent voice, contrasting with the anti-western ideology of the Iranian theocracy. There is also a critical Afghan Shiʿa view regarding the “hegemonic” policy of Iran (cultural imperialism and religious propaganda networks). Since 2001, Afghan intellectual elites, both Shiʿa and Sunni, seem to adhere more to a Turkish model of a peaceful relationship between Islam and the West, rather than relying exclusively on an Islamist revolutionary discourse from Iran.
Conclusion
Tehran’s support to the Shiʿa minority in Afghanistan has had contrasting results. On the one hand, there is an improvement in their educational skills and this has also had positive effects on women’s rights, in particular at the academic level. Nevertheless, the empowerment of the Shiʿa community would not having been possible without the US policy of regime change after 2001 (the fall of the Taliban regime) and the objective of state building which took shape after the adoption of a new constitution in 2004.
On the other hand, Iranian influence remains limited because of the ideological opposition to the West and cultural nationalism. The rise of a new “moderate” political faction since the Iranian presidential election of Hasan Rouhani could ease the negative effects of Iranian support to the Shiʿa minority in Afghanistan because of their strategy of détente with the West and their desire to appear as a responsible regional power. Indeed, receiving Iranian support could be a hindrance rather than an asset to the integration of the Hazāra within the national community because of the ideological rift between Iran and the West and the Afghan Pashtuns’ cultural mistrust towards what is perceived as Persian cultural hegemonic influence and Shiʿite proselytism. In Pakistan, Iranian support for the Shiʿa minority is more of a pragmatic stance, even if there is an Iranian temptation to use the Shiʿa transnational network as a soft-power tool to enhance its position as the main regional power.
