ABSTRACT
The Afghan people have experienced decades of consecutive civil wars that have profoundly undermined their security. This chapter reviews the development of the sectarian dynamics pervading present-day Afghanistan. It provides an overview of the two millennia of imperialism that dominated the region now comprising Afghanistan and Pakistan. The region now comprising Afghanistan, Turko-Persia, has been sought by empires since the seventh century due to the strategic trade routes it offered to the Indian subcontinent in the south, Iran to the west, and Central Asia to the north. Barfield observes that these wars reflected a significant turning point in Afghan history because they unified Afghans against foreigners to fight for an imagined 'nascent nation-state'. The frontier region was strategically critical to the British Empire. Islamism re-emerged as a nationalist political vehicle in Afghanistan. In 1865, Maulana Qasim Nanotvi initiated the Deobandi movement by establishing the Dar-ul-Ulam madrassa in Deoband, India, to counter the Western, Christian influence on Islam in British India.
