In pursuing Yazdegerd, the Arabs entered the area from northeastern Iran[12] via Herat, where they stationed a large portion of their army before advancing toward northern Afghanistan.

Many of the inhabitants of northern Afghanistan accepted Islam through Umayyad missionary efforts, particularly under the reign of Caliph Hisham and Umar ibn AbdulAziz.

Later, the Samanids propagated Sunni Islam deep into Central Asia, and the first complete translation of the Qur'an into Persian was made in the 9th century.

Until Mir Wais Hotak liberated the Afghans in 1709, the Kandahar region of Afghanistan was often a battleground between the Shia Safavids and the Sunni Mughals.

Many economic privileges enjoyed by religious personalities and institutions were restructured within the framework of the state; the propagation of learning, once the sole prerogative of the ulama, was closely supervised; and the Amir became the supreme arbiter of justice.

They rose up on several occasions against King Amanullah Shah (1919–1929), for example, in protest against reforms they believed to be western intrusions inimical to Islam.

[18][19] The largely secular PDPA rule precipitated the fledgling Islamist Movement into a national revolt; Islam moved from its passive stance on the periphery to play an active role.

The founders were largely professors influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a party formed in the 1930s that was dedicated to Islamic revivalism and social, economic, and political equity.

The liberalization of government attitudes following the passage of the 1964 Constitution ushered in a period of intense activism among students at Kabul University.

Professors and their students set up the Muslim Youth Organization (Sazmani Jawanani Musulman) in the mid-1960s at the same time that the leftists were also forming many parties.

With the support of foreign aid, the mujahideen were ultimately successful in their jihad to drive out the Soviet forces, but not in their attempts to construct a political alternative to govern Afghanistan after their victory.

With the departure of foreign troops and the long sought demise of Kabul's leftist government, The Islamic State of Afghanistan finally came into being in April 1992.

But the new government failed to establish its legitimacy and, as much of its financial support dissipated, local and middle range commanders and their militia not only fought among themselves but resorted to a host of unacceptable practices in their protracted scrambles for power and profit.

A number of its leaders were one-time mujahideen members, but the bulk of their forces were young Afghan refugees trained in Pakistani madrassas (religious schools), especially those run by the Jamiat-e Ulema-e Islam Pakistan, the aggressively conservative Pakistani political religious party headed by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, arch rival of Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the equally conservative Jamaat-e-Islami and longtime supporter of the mujahideen.

Headquartered in Kandahar, mostly Pashtuns from the rural areas, and from the top leadership down to the fighting militia characteristically in their thirties or forties and even younger, the Taliban swept the country.

At the same time, acts committed for the purpose of enforcing the Shariah included public executions of murderers, stoning for adultery, amputation for theft, a ban on all forms of gambling such as kite flying, chess and cockfights, prohibition of music and videos, proscriptions against pictures of humans and animals, and an embargo on women's voices over the radio.

For Afghans, Islam represents a potentially unifying symbolic system which offsets the divisiveness that frequently rises from the existence of a deep pride in tribal loyalties and an abounding sense of personal and family honor found in multitribal and multiethnic societies such as Afghanistan.

Supposedly versed in the Qur'an, Sunnah, Hadith and Shariah, they must ensure that their communities are knowledgeable in the fundamentals of Islamic ritual and behavior.

Often they function as paid teachers responsible for religious education classes held in mosques where children learn basic moral values and correct ritual practices.

Their role has additional social aspects for they officiate on the occasion of life crisis rituals associated with births, marriages and deaths.

Shrines vary in form from simple mounds of earth or stones marked by pennants to lavishly ornamented complexes surrounding a central domed tomb.

Shrines may mark the final resting place of a fallen hero (shahid), a venerated religious teacher, a renowned Sufi poet, or relics, such as a hair of Muhammad or a piece of his cloak (khirqah).

These visits may be short or last several days and many pilgrims carry away specially blessed curative and protective amulets (usually a tawiz) to ward off the evil eye, assure loving relationships between husbands and wives and many other forms of solace.

Like saint veneration, such practices are generally not encouraged in Islam according to classical understanding of the Holy Qu'ran and Hadiths (prophetic sayings of the Rabi) Roughly 10% of the Afghan population is Shia.

They are found primarily in and near the eastern Hazarajat, in the Baghlan area north of the Hindu Kush, among the mountain Tajik of Badakhshan, and amongst the Wakhi in the Wakhan Corridor.

[21] [22][23] During the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan Sayed Jafar Naderi was the Ismaili commander, called the 'Warlord of Kayan' in a documentary by Journeyman Pictures.

Among the Naqshbandi, Ahmad al Faruqi Kabuli, born north of Kabul, acquired renown for his teachings in India during the reign of the Moghul Emperor Akbar in the sixteenth century.

The Cheshtiya brotherhood, concentrated in the Hari River valley around Obe, Karukh and Chehst-i-Sharif, is very strong locally and maintains madrasas with fine libraries.

The general populace accords Sufis respect for their learning and for possessing karamat, the psychic spiritual power conferred upon them by God that enables pirs to perform acts of generosity and bestow blessings (barakat).

In addition, since Sufi leaders distance themselves from the mundane, they are at times turned to as more disinterested mediators in tribal disputes in preference to mullahs who are reputed to escalate minor secular issues into volatile confrontations couched in Islamic rhetoric.