The Role of Darul Uloom Deoband in the Formation of Religious Extremism:The Case Study of the Thought Foundations of Taliban

One of the schools of thought influenced by Salafism is the Deobandi school of India. Inspired by Shah Waliullah Dehlawi’s thoughts, this jurisprudential school of thought was founded in the 19th century C.E. and by adopting an anti-colonialist policy and relying on "Jihadism" struggled against the British colonialism in India. Following India’s independence from England it began to gradually form an Islamic movement, by spreading its religious and political views through its Darul Ulooms, that played an influential role in the emergence of extremist groups like Taliban. By keeping in view that Deobandi thoughts form one of the most important fundamentalist movements in the Indian Subcontinent and its profound religious and ideological impact on Taliban, the proof of which is that many of Taliban’s top ranking leaders received their religious education from Deoband Darul Uloom, this research paper intends to examines the intellectual and ideological foundations of the Taliban Movement. The hypothesis of the paper is that the Deobandi School is one of the most important Islamic fundamentalist movements in the Indian subcontinent that has had the most religious and ideological impact on Taliban through the religious training of Taliban scholars in Deobandi schools. In order to prove this claim, the researchers have made a review of the intellectual and ideological roots of the Taliban movement by using library-based resources and applying an analytical-descriptive research methodology.