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Abstract
This article addresses the question of what the Taliban think about drones. Western literature on this question is predominately anti-war, anti-drone, or critical of the lack of transparency, which means little to the Taliban. The discussion here focuses on their literature, exploring it through the frames of how Pashtuns understand war and bravery in combat, how Pashtuns have created meta narratives to discuss the relationship between US and allied use of force and how that connects to a wider understanding of the legitimacy. This has important policy implications because the primacy that the drone has in the West as a totemic weapon of war does not exist for the Taliban. Their dislike of drones is indivisibly and culturally bound, not specific to the instrument as distinct from other means of aerial and indirect fire.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Professor Paul Jackson and Professor Nicholas Wheeler at the University of Birmingham, Dr Tristram Riley-Smith at Cambridge University, Dr TX Hammes at National Defence University, USA and two anonymous referees.
Notes
1 Here meant as the lesser jihād.
2 This article uses the term ‘Pashtun’, though the same group is also called ‘Pathan’ or ‘Pukhtun’. The term is also considered by them to be synonymous with the word ‘Afghan’. The term ‘Afghan’, over time, has come to mean everyone living in the country.
3 Glatzer is citing Janata and Hassas (1975, p. 84).
4 Personal Communication, January 19, 2016.
5 Christopher Blanchard (Citation2008, pp. 1–2) offers a useful summary of both these terms, as follows:
Wahhabism is a puritanical form of Sunni Islam and is practiced in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, although it is much less rigidly enforced in the latter. The word ‘Wahhabi’ is derived from the name of a Muslim scholar, Muhammad bin Abd al Wahhab, who lived in the Arabian peninsula during the eighteenth century (1703–1791). Today, the term ‘Wahhabism’ is broadly applied outside of the Arabian peninsula to refer to a Sunni Islamic movement that seeks to purify Islam of any innovations or practices that deviate from the seventh-century teachings of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. In most predominantly Muslim nations, however, believers who adhere to this creed or hold similar perspectives prefer to call themselves ‘Unitarians’ (muwahiddun) or ‘Salafiyyun’ (sing. Salafi, noun Salafiyya). The latter term derives from the word salaf meaning to ‘follow’ or ‘precede’, a reference to the followers and companions of the Prophet Mohammed.
6 The Qur’an, Sura 2, v 190.
7 Michael Semple in a lecture on the Taliban in 2015 identified fard-al ayn and zolm as two core concepts to the movement, ‘Making Sense of the Taliban’, University of Birmingham, 9 March 2015. The same point is made in Aggarwal (Citation2016, pp. 107–108).
8 Personal Communication, May 11, 2015.
9 Qur’an, Sura 13 v 25, those ‘who create corruption in the land: Allah’s curse shall be upon them’, Sayyid Abul A’lā Mawdudi – Tahfīm al-Qur’ān (UKIM Dawah, 2012). This is reflected in Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s Commentary, page 611 to the 1938 edition, though he uses ‘mischief’ in place of ‘corruption’ here. Mawdudi’s commentary to Sura 5 v 105, note 52 to page 180, is also revealing, where he cites one of Abū Bakr’s sermons: ‘I have heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say that when people see corruption but do not try to change it, and when they see a wrong-doer commit wrong but do not prevent him from doing so, it is not unlikely that God’s chastisement will seize them all. By God, it is incumbent upon you that you bid what is good and forbid what is evil.’ Mawdudi’s Tahfīm al-Qur’ān is more direct than Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s Commentary on the specificity of right remedial action. See the respective notes to Sura 17 v 80, Mawdudi note 37, page 429 and Ali note 2280, page 717.