Islamic Party,[1] was an Islamist organization that was commonly known for fighting the Communist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union.

[citation needed] Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Afghanistan in 1976.

[citation needed] It grew out of the Muslim Youth organization, an Islamist organization founded in Kabul by students and teachers at Kabul University in 1969 to combat communism in Afghanistan.

[2] Its membership was drawn from ethnic Pashtuns, and its ideology from the Muslim Brotherhood and Abul Ala Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami.

[2] Another source describes it as having splintered away from Burhanuddin Rabbani's original Islamist party, Jamiat-e Islami, in 1976, after Hekmatyar found that group too moderate and willing to compromise with others.