The history of the Taliban is actually quite confusing if you study it in greater detail. It is much easier when someone just glances over it without actually understanding it. There are many misconceptions surrounding the Taliban and it’s origin.

The flag of the Taliban

First of all there are two mistakes within the question itself. The Taliban have nothing to do with the Middle East. The Taliban operate in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not in the Middle East. It is in South Asia or Central Asia depending on how you choose to view it. The other thing is that the Taliban do not really have such a long history. From what we know of them, the Taliban did not really exist before 1994.

The Middle East

Afghanistan, the land where Central Asia and South Asia meet

The topic of the Taliban is always filled with half-truths and lies. Whether or not these lies are deliberate, I do not know. Whenever the Taliban and its origin is mentioned, the US is the first one to be blamed. How often have we all heard that the US created the Taliban to fight the Soviets and now their own monster has come back to bite them. Many who say that the US is getting a taste of its own medicine. Everyone who has a grudge against the US uses the Taliban as an excuse to blame the US for everything wrong in the world. The Taliban is all the evidence all of the anti-US group of people need to prove how evil the US is.

What If I were to say that the US has little to nothing to do with the Taliban. That the US played a small if any part at all in the creation of the Taliban.

History of Afghanistan

To understand the origin of the Taliban, one must first have a basic understanding of the history of Afghanistan. Here is a summary. Afghanistan was for a long time a monarchy where the politicians had limited powers. King Muhammad Zahir Shah had ruled the country for about 40 years, from 1933 to 1973. He had slowly been modernizing the country and improving relations with other countries. Generally speaking, the country was at peace and doing well. His cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan, had previously served as the prime minister from 1953–1963. In 1963 Daud Khan was forced to resign by the King’s orders due to some unpopular policies. In 1973 while King Zahir was in Europe seeking medical treatment, Daud Khan took over following a bloodless coup. Daud Khan had gotten the support of the army and the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The PDPA was a leftist party as is clear by the name. At this point, Afghanistan was made into a Republic under the rule of one man.

King Muhammad Zahir Shah

President Daud Khan

Daud Khan became the President of Afghanistan. Initially, Afghanistan’s relationship with the USSR was fairly good. The Soviets helped Afghanistan is in various ways. Daud Khan wanted to continue King Zahir’s policy of non-alignment and not pick a side between the US and the USSR. As time passed on Daud Khan began to see the Soviets as a threat. The USSR now had far too much influence in the country. He began to distance Afghanistan from the Soviets. Instead of opting to improve relations with various Muslim nations including Pakistan, Afghanistan’s main rival. In 1978, a PDPA member was killed. The PDPA suspected government involvement and began to suspect Daud Khan. They believed that they might be killed by Daud Khan. What did not help matters was that the government arrested a few PDPA members following a protest. The PDPA launched a coup called the Saur Revolution. In April 1978, the coup ended in success with the death of Daud Khan and his family. It should be mentioned the Soviets had a lot of influence in the PDPA.

President Nur Muhammad Taraki

The PDPA declared the formation of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan with Nur Muhammad Taraki as the first president. The Soviets were fully supporting the new government of Afghanistan, both financially and in the form of military advisers and equipment. The new modernizing reforms were greatly unpopular. They were brought in too rapidly and radically. This resulted in unrest and rebellions against the central government. In 1979, President Taraki was assassinated by another PDPA member, Hafizullah Amin. Amin while being a radical communist, did not trust the USSR. He wanted to move Afghanistan from Soviet influence. He began to improve relations with both Pakistan and Iran. The Soviets were not pleased with President Amin and invaded in December of 1979 and killed Amin. In the time period of 1978–1979, from the coup to the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan faced repression like never before in its history. Tens of thousands were killed by the PDPA government and many more arrested. It was in this time that both Pakistan and the US began to support the Mujaheddin, the anti-government factions. It is believed that Amin was killed by the USSR because he was purging the PDPA of members that were too close to the Soviets and moving closer to China and Pakistan.

President Hafizullah Amin

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan provided the US with an opportunity. The US could use it to drain the USSR resources and make it the Soviet equivalent of Vietnam. This is the part where the US-financed the Mujaheddin. A common misconception here is that that the Taliban were the Mujaheddin. This is not true. The Taliban would not show up for another decade. This invasion was criticized by almost every nation around the world. Even China and Israel helped support the Mujaheddin. The Soviets only had support from a handful of countries. These being East Germany, Vietnam and India. The US along with many others such as Saudi Arabia started to arm the Mujaheddin forces. Training camps were set up in Pakistan. The US began to send educational books to brainwash the children into seeing outsiders as evil. A more militant view of Islam was also promoted. All of this resulted in a decade long war that ended as a loss for the Soviet as they were forced to withdraw. By the end of this war, the Soviet forces are believed to have killed between half a million to two million Afghans along with thousands of war crimes.

President Mohammad Najibullah

Even after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the Mujaheddin continued their war against the PDPA now being led by President Mohammad Najibullah. The Soviets continued to provide financial support to the PDPA government. With the weak PDPA governments, many different militant groups arose, each fighting to be in charge when the government fell. Each of these groups had a different foreign nation financing them. The main groups were:

• Jamiat-e Islami- A group dominated by Tajiks and led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. One of the main groups in the war against the Soviets. Believed to have been supported by the US. However, the support was little and lacking.
• Hezb-e Islami - Another group that along with Jamiat-e-Islami was one of the main participants in the Soviet war. This group was led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Pakistan supported this group and have a massive influence on its decisions and objectives.
• Hizb-i-Wahdat - A group made up of the Shia Hazara of Afghanistan. Received support from Iran.
• Ittihad-i Islami - A group mostly made up of Sunni Pushtun led by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. This group was supported by Saudi Arabia.
• Junbish-i Milli - An Uzbek dominated group led by Abdul Rashid Dostum. This group was supported by Uzbekistan.

The Taliban would not come into existence till the late into civil war in 1994. This is a brief summary of the history of Afghanistan prior to the existence of the Taliban.

The Taliban History

As you can see from the history of Afghanistan the Taliban did not exist before 1994. Many people seem to confuse the Taliban with the Mujaheddin. The Mujaheddin was not a single group. Rather, it was many different groups working together towards a single goal. The removal of the PDPA from power and forcing the Soviets to leave Afghanistan. They were simple Afghans who saw the PDPA governments as tyrants and the Soviets as foreign invaders. Some chose this way because they were against modernization, others for religious reasons, some because they had been victims of the oppressive government’s atrocities and some because of their opposing views to communism. Generally speaking, if you picked up a gun and fought against the PDPA government and Soviets, you became one of the Mujaheddin.

Mujaheddin from the Afghan-Soviet war

The word Taliban is derived from the Arabic word Talib meaning student. The Taliban’s ideology was based on an extreme version of Deobandi Islam mixed with the Pushtunwali code. The Taliban were very much against tribalism that had been very prevalent in Afghan society. The Taliban believed music, television, art and photography were all sin so banned them. Men were forbidden from shaving their beards and women were forced to cover up. The Shia were not even seen as Muslims. The Taliban did not seem to believe in the Ijma part of the Sharia law. That is law derived from general consensus as the Taliban were very much against the idea of discussing their version of Islam with other Muslims.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-e Islami and Pakistan’s man in the Afghan Civil War

Despite what many people seem to believe, Pakistan did not actually create the Taliban. Pakistan already had it’s a pet in the game, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar leading the Hezb-e Islami. The Taliban is believed to have been formed by Mullah Mohammed Omar in the region of Kandahar in 1994. He began this movement with less than 50 students from his madrassa. He is first believed to have mobilized the Taliban (his armed madrassa students) to fight against the injustices that the people faced at the hands of the warlords that controlled Afghanistan in the civil war.

As one story goes a young boy was kidnapped and raped by a local warlord. The mother unable to find justice for her son from any other source turned to the local mullah in the madrassa. He sent his students to rescue the boy and kill the warlord. His students numbering around 20–30 killed the warlord and rescued the boy. The local Mullah was Mohammed Omar and his students the first Taliban. Again, this is just a story and unlikely to be the actual origin of the group but it does help explain the Taliban’s rapid rise. The Taliban did on many occasions punish corrupt warlords known for raping children. On one occasion early in the Taliban’s history, they did rescue 2 young girls who had been kidnapped and hanged the warlord off the gun barrel of a tank.

Mullah Muhammed Omar, blinded in one eye during the Soviet invasion

What we know is that the movement began in 1994 and began to gain support. Soon they had captured a few villages and town near the region of Kandahar. It was at this moment that Pakistan’s ISI saw an opportunity. Their last puppet in the game Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e Islami had been quite disappointing. He had been unable to yield any results despite great support. So Pakistan chose a new group to support and threw their weight behind this new group. By November of 1994, the Taliban had taken Kandahar and by the January of 1995, they controlled 12 provinces.

Support for the Taliban from Pakistan came from two different sources. The first was from the ISI representing Pakistan’s agenda in Afghanistan. The failure of Hekmatyar meant that Pakistan needed a new plan to gain influence in Afghanistan. The Taliban were perfect for this. In the decade of the Soviet-Afghan war, millions of Afghan refugees had fled to Pakistan. Many of these refugees were penniless. Pakistan had been provided with financial support to help the refugees. However, Pakistan had dedicated a large part of that money to build madrassas in northwestern Pakistan. In these madrassas, the children were not given proper education but rather taught extremist versions of Islam. These madrassas would provide the Taliban with many of their followers and became excellent recruitment centres. Secondly, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a Deobandi party in Pakistan, feared the increasing Wahhabi influence from the Arab states in Afghanistan. The Taliban were seen as a way to counter them.

Pakistan is still home to over a million Afghans. Pakistan abused this responsibility in the Soviet-Afghan war.

The end result was that the Taliban took city after city with their numbers growing every day while their enemies depleted their strength fighting each other. New reinforcement flooded the ranks from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban secured another victory by receiving support from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. In 1995, the Taliban launched an attack on Kabul but failed after suffering a defeat at the hands of Ahmad Shah Massoud. By 1996, the Taliban’s strength had grown even further. In September of 1996, Ahmad Shah Massoud decided to abandon Kabul and withdraw northwards after realizing that he was being surrounded. Soon after in the very month, the Taliban took Kabul. It is believed Pakistan provided that Taliban with somewhere between 10,000–20,000 reinforcements for the invasion of Kabul. The first thing that the Taliban did after taking Kabul was torturing and hanging President Najibullah. The Taliban then formed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The remaining groups now saw the Taliban as the greatest threat and united together in a military alliance to form the Afghan Northern Alliance. Some of the main leaders being Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdul Rashid Dostum and Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Green (Taliban), Yellow (Hizb-e Wahdat), Blue (Massoud), Red (Dostum)

After many battles and just as many massacres of innocent civilians, the Taliban defeated Abdul Rashid Dostum and the Hezb-e Wahdat after the Battle of Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998. Thousands of civilians were just executed on the spot after the Taliban took Mazar-e-Sharif. Dostum went into exile. In the end, only Ahmad Shah Massoud remained. From what we know the Taliban offered his positions in the government in return for an alliance that would end the war. But Massoud refused.

Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir

Massoud desperately appealed and begged the Europeans, the US and other foreign governments for assistance in the war against the Taliban but had no such luck. On the 9th of September in 2001, two Arabs suicide bombers posing as journalists assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud. Al-Qaeda is believed to have been responsible for this. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban had formed an alliance. The Taliban had won. Afghanistan was theirs now but not for long. Two days later Al-Qaeda carried out the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The US with an international alliance launched Operation Enduring Freedom and an invasion of Afghanistan. The rest we all know.

A map showing the Taliban’s rise and fall

Taliban Governance as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

The Taliban implemented their strict interpretation of the Sharia Law throughout the country. Women were banned from working, girls were no longer allowed to be educated in schools or colleges and women had to be covered at all times. Women were generally just forced into their homes with little to no rights. The punishments became far more strict with thieves being amputated. Communists were hunted down and executed.

The method of governance changed as well. The educated or experienced bureaucrats were all removed from power and replaced with madrassa educated ministers. Originally the Taliban governance worked in the form of a Jirga or council that ruled matters. These people believed in trying to recreate the earliest forms of Islamic governance. However, soon Mullah Omar began to take more power for himself and no longer discussed matters with the council before making decisions. Mullah Mohammed Omar was declared Amir al-Mu'minin (Commander of the Faithful).

Decisions are based on the advice of the Amir-ul Momineen. For us, consultation is not necessary. We believe that this is in line with the Sharia. We abide by the Amir's view even if he alone takes this view. There will not be a head of state. Instead, there will be an Amir al-Mu'minin. Mullah Omar will be the highest authority, and the government will not be able to implement any decision to which he does not agree. General elections are incompatible with Sharia and therefore we reject them.
-According to a Taliban spokesman

The Taliban were mostly comprised of ethnic Pushtuns. After coming to power non-Pushuns were kept away from positions of governance. There were also many massacres of the ethnic Hazara people.

Having received only a religious education from a madrassa the Taliban did not know how to run the economy of a nation. They imposed massive taxes on all businesses that wanted to operate in Afghanistan and drove them out. Imports were also heavily taxed. The country that was already penniless due to the decades-long wars was even more poor. Now on the verge of bankruptcy, Mullah Omar declared that growing opium was no longer illegal. The drug trade was now allowed. This had previously been declared anti-Islamic and illegal, a crime punishable by death. This drug money was used to fund the war against the Northern Alliance.

Then there was the whole thing with the Buddha Statues. Contrary to what most people believe the Taliban did not destroy the statues because they were idols or memories of “infidels”. In 1999, Mullah Omar declared that the statues would be protected and no one was allowed to harm them.

I did not want to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha. In fact, some foreigners came to me and said they would like to conduct the repair work of the Bamiyan Buddha that had been slightly damaged due to rains. This shocked me. I thought, these callous people have no regard for thousands of living human beings – the Afghans who are dying of hunger, but they are so concerned about non-living objects like the Buddha. This was extremely deplorable. That is why I ordered its destruction. Had they come for humanitarian work, I would have never ordered the Buddha's destruction.

-Mullah Mohammed Omar

The reason for the destruction was that he believed that foreigners cared more for the statues than they did for Afghans. The Taliban essentially helped create an environment where Afghans were poor and starving. They then destroyed the economy of the country. Banned all NGOs as they were not trusted. Committed countless atrocities that resulted in international sanctions. When the international community decided to help by repairing the Buddha statues as Afghanistan could not afford to do so, the Taliban decided that the foreigners were evil people who only cared for the statues, not humans.

The Bamiyan Buddha prior to its destruction

That pretty much sums up the Taliban. Cavemen that oppose any form of modernization. A group that arose because they hated the corrupt and evil warlords. Yet after rising to power became worse than them all in every way possible. The Taliban is not like other terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. It cares nothing for a global Caliphate. It wants to establish the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan once more and then take in back a thousand years into the past. To establish a nation like the Islamic Empires of old. Little do they know how far their beliefs and ideas are from the pragmatic Rashidun Caliphate or the elitist Umayyads or the enlightened Abbasids.