Deobandi movement in the context of "Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind"

The Taliban, which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is an Afghan political and militant organization with an ideology comprising elements of the Deobandi movement of Islamic fundamentalism and Pashtun nationalism. It ruled approximately 90% of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, before it was overthrown by an American-led invasion after the September 11 attacks carried out by the Taliban's ally al-Qaeda. Following a 20-year insurgency and the departure of coalition forces, the Taliban recaptured Kabul in August 2021, overthrowing the Islamic Republic, and now controls all of Afghanistan. The Taliban has been condemned for restricting human rights, including women's rights to work and have an education, and for the persecution of ethnic minorities. It is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries, and the Taliban government is largely unrecognized by the international community.

The Taliban emerged in 1994 as a prominent faction in the Second Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) and largely consisted of warlords from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan. Under the leadership of Mullah Omar, the movement spread through most of Afghanistan, shifting power away from the Islamic State of Afghanistan, as well as other Mujahideen militants. The Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and established the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that was opposed by the Northern Alliance, which maintained international recognition as a continuation of the Islamic State.

Sunni Islam (Hanafi/Deobandi) is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. According to The World Factbook, Sunni Muslims constitute between 84.7 and 89.7% of the population, and Shia Muslims between 10 and 15%. Other religions are followed by 0.3% of the population.

In 2022, Freedom House rated Afghanistan's religious freedom as 1 out of 4.

Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic seminary in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh, India, established on 15 Muharram 1283 AH / 31 May 1866, in the aftermath of the 1857 revolt, through the efforts of Sayyid Muhammad Abid and other local scholars and notables. Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi is later described in historiography as the seminary’s intellectual guide and principal founder (bānī-yi aʿẓam). The institution, which began under a pomegranate tree with the Dars-i Nizami curriculum, later developed into a leading center of Islamic learning in South Asia, after Al-Azhar University. It came to be regarded as a vanguard of Sunni Muslim identity in the Indian subcontinent and gave rise to the Sunni Deobandi movement. The seminary has been described not merely as a madrasa but as a 'center of Islamic culture' and a 'patrimony for the Islamic world.'

Rashīd Aḥmad ibn Hidāyat Aḥmad Ayyūbī Anṣārī Gangohī (12 June 1826 – 11 August 1905) was an Indian Deobandi Islamic scholar, a leading figure of the Deobandi movement, jurist and scholar of hadith, author of Fatawa-e-Rashidiya. His lineage reaches back to Abu Ayyub al-Ansari.

Along with Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi he was a pupil of Mamluk Ali Nanautawi. Both studied the books of hadith under Shah Abdul Ghani Mujaddidi and later became Sufi disciples of Haji Imdadullah. His lectures on Sahih al-Bukhari and Jami` at-Tirmidhi were recorded by his student Muhammad Yahya Kandhlawi, later edited, arranged, and commented on by Zakariyya Kandhlawi, and published as Lami al-Darari ala Jami al-Bukhari and Al-Kawakib al-Durri sharh Jami al-Tirmidhi.

Shah Ismail Dehlvi (26 April, 1779 – 6 May, 1831) was an Indian Islamic scholar and Salafi-oriented Sufi and theologian. He was an active member in the jihad proclaimed by Sayyid Ahmad of Raebareli with the support of Pashtun tribes against the Sikh Empire, which ruled northwest India with their base in Punjab in the early half of the 19th century. He is considered as an important influence on the Ahl-i Hadith and the Deobandi movement.

Islam is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan has over 231.69 million adherents of Islam (excluding the administrative territory of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan), making it the world's second-largest country by Muslim population. As much as 85–90% of Pakistanis follows Sunni Islam. Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions.

About 97% of Pakistanis are Muslims. The majority are Sunni (85–90%) while Shias make up around 10-15%. Smaller minority Muslim populations in Pakistan include Quranists, nondenominational Muslims. There are also two Mahdi'ist based creeds practised in Pakistan, namely Mahdavia and Ahmadiyya, the latter of whom are considered by the constitution of Pakistan to be non-Muslims; they jointly constitute less than 1% of the population. Pakistan has the world's largest Muslim majority city (Karachi).