Muhammad Omar

1959 -

Afghani leader of the Taliban Movement that ruled most of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2002.

Muhammad Omar was born of Pashtun ethnic heritage in the village of Singesar, near Kandahar, and attended a religious school. He started teaching before finishing his degree but when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, he joined the resistance and commanded a small group of mujahidin (also mojahedin) (fighters), losing an eye in one of the confrontations with the Soviet military. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union, he went back to teaching in Kandahar but was driven to start in 1994 a small movement called the Taliban in order to end the crimes and abuses of local strongmen during the Afghani civil war.

Benefiting from Pakistani endorsement and help and initial Pashtun grassroots support, he managed to recruit a number of former mujahidin trained for the most part in the schools set up in the refugee camps in Pakistan and by 1998 had taken control of most of Afghanistan. Affected by a history of war and foreign oppression and motivated by a strong devotion to Islam, the Taliban's ideology was influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Pakistani Jamaati Islami, focusing on fighting Western occupation and intervention, and seeking to establish an Islamic State. Reclusive and autocratic, Omar directed the movement with a small number of associates and adopted an increasingly strict interpretation of his cultural and religious heritage, resorting to a repressive control of Afghan society, restricting the work and education of women, and ordering the destruction of ancient Buddhist statues deemed idolatrous.

Though at first mostly concerned with Afghani issues, the Taliban became more involved with panIslamism with the increased presence of non-Afghani Muslims, including Osama bin Ladin, who provided them with funds and support. After the 11 September 2001 attacks on U.S. targets, the Taliban refused U.S. demands for the extradition of bin Ladin. As a result, the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2002 and dispersed the Taliban, whose leaders went into hiding.

Bibliography

Nojumi, Neamotollah. The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. New York: Palgrave 2002.

— MAYSAM J. AL FARUQI