Hezbi Islami

Afghanistan

Hezb-e-Islami (also Hezb-e Islami, Hezb-i-Islami, Hezbi-Islami, Hezbi Islami), meaning Islamic Party is an Islamist organization that was commonly known for fighting the Communist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union.[citation needed] Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Afghanistan in 1975.[citation needed] It grew out of the Muslim Youth organization, an Islamist organization founded in Kabul by students and teachers at Kabul University in 1969 to combat communism in Afghanistan. Its membership was drawn from ethnic Pashtuns, and its ideology from the Muslim Brotherhood and Abul Ala Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami. Another source describes it as having splintered away from Burhanuddin Rabbani's original Islamist party, Jamiat-e Islami, in 1976, after Hekmatyar found that group too moderate and willing to compromise with others.