SUMMARY

Jamiat-ul-dawa (Society for the Preaching) is is an Afghan rebel group and a political party. The group is sometimes referred to as Jamaat al-Dawa ila al-Sunnah (Society for the preaching of the Sunna) or Jamaat ud Dawa il al Quran al Sunnah (Society for the preaching of the Quran and the Sunna). The group should not be confused with the Pakistani organization Jamaat ud Dawa, although both are Salafi groups and have the same name.

The Islamist movements in Afghanistan originate from a cell of intellectuals at Kabul University. In the 1950s, the theology faculty opened, and graduates could travel to other Muslim universities. Inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a group called the Muslim Youth was formed in the mid-1960s. As a reaction to a communist-backed coup in 1973, the resistance group Jam’iyyat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan (Islamic Society of Afghanistan) was created by members of the Muslim Youth network. Hekmatyar, together with the most radical elements of the organisation, left Jam’iyyat-i Islami in 1975 and established a separate rebel group, Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan (Islamic Party of Afghanistan). In the following years, and especially after the Soviet invasion in 1979, several new resistance groups were formed.

One of the early members of Jam’iyyat-i Islami was Maulawi Jamil-ur Rahman from Pech Valley in Konar province. In 1978 he crossed over to Hizb-i Islami, but split from them in the early 1980s and founded his own group, Jamiat-ul-Dawa. Jamiat-ul-Dawa took a more extreme approach toward Islam and was committed to the Salafi tradition of Islam. They have also been referred to as a Wahhabi movement. Both Salafis and Wahhabis adhere to a radical form of Islam according to which the Quran should be strictly followed without being interpreted by clerics.

Jamiat-ul-Dawa was not recognized by Pakistan as one of the main Mujahideen groups during the 1980s and therefore did not qualify for the financial and military support from the US and Saudi Arabia that the seven main insurgency groups had access to. However, with close connections to the Arab world, Jamiat-ul-Dawa managed to recruit many Arab volunteers and also to receive funding from individuals in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, Konar province fell under Mujahideen control. Jamil-ur Rahman, who had strong support in the province, managed to eliminate the other resistance groups until his Jamiat-ul-Dawa was the strongest force in the region together with Hizb-i Islami. Jamil-ur Rahman proclaimed the Islamic Emirate of Konar in 1991 and created his own government in the area. After heavy fighting against Hizb-i Islami during 1991, Jamil-ur Rahman fled to Pakistan where he was assassinated in August. He was succeeded by Maulawi Samiullah Najibi, who remained in Pakistan during the 1990s.

Jamiat-ul-Dawa still exists as a licensed political party with Najibi as its leader. However, there are also reports that an organization with the same name is fighting the Afghan government in Pech Valley in Konar province. In January 2010 this part of Jamiat-ul-Dawa proclaimed that they had allied themselves with the Taleban.

Jamiat-ul-Dawa has been involved in the non-state category of UCDP organised violence