St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies

St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies 71 Panel Five. Political Patterns in Afghanistan and in the Liminal Areas... Marianna S. Bakonina (independent scholar, St Petersburg, Russia) Wilayah Khorasan, or Islamic State vs the Taliban: Religious and Political Justification of War (on the Materials of the Glossy Dabiq and Rumiyah Magazines) The proclamation of the “Caliphate” (hereinafter referred to as the Caliphate) in July 2014 was a doctrinal revolution that completely changed the ideological and political landscape in the Islamic world, especially the part controlled by the ideologists of political Islamism. The decision to proclaim the Caliphate here and now, and not in the distant future, gave a new impetus to the war for the historical time and space that the ideologists of political Islam began in the 1960’s. Having proclaimed the Caliphate, the leaders of the Islamic State (IS) completely disengaged from the rest of the Salafis, not only from the Wahhabis and other Islamist propagandists, but also from the Jihadists. This decision allows them to actively enlist supporters of radical Islam, who have adopted the ideological paradigms of modern Salafi movements, which promote the Caliphate as the ultimate goal of Islamism as a political trend, and jihad as the only way to the Caliphate. The motto of the revived Caliphate: [It] Shall be preserved and expanded implies an expansionist pan-Islamic strategy. In 2015, during the peak of its power, after a year of victories and triumphs, when the IS controlled almost half of the territory of Syria and Iraq, it was announced that the jihadists of Waziristan, Sinai, Libya, Yemen, Nigeria, the North Caucasus and other regions had joined the Caliphate . Wilayah Khorasan was proclaimed in January 2015, when several prominent figures of the Pakistani Taliban movement ( Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) distributed the video with the oath to the Caliph al-Baghdadi, and the official representative of the IS Muhammad al-Adnani, announced the establishment of the IS wilayah in the territories of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Thus, the IS began to be established in the territories where the Taliban movement for many years had been the most influential representative of militant Islamist discourse. Ideological and political preparations for the invasion to the territory of competitors began long before the creation of the wilayah and the appointment of a wali in the new province. Since the proclamation of the Caliphate, ideologists of the IS in their propaganda materials have tried to disavow and discredit Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their leadership. Criticism of the Taliban was conducted in the following directions: the propagandists of the IS pointed to the doctrinal delusions of the Taliban, viz., belonging to the Deobandi school, which, in particular, allows irja’ ; a tolerant attitude towards Sufism; the refusal to persecute Shiites, the replacement of certain Sharia provisions with those of adat 1 . 1 DABIQ , № 8. P. 30–31.