Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 08/2010

Afghanistan's religious landscape: politicising the sacred

Kaja Borchgrevink, Kristian Berg Harpviken

March 2010

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Abstract

Afghanistan's thirty years of war have seen the gradual and heavy politicisation of religion. A number of new and distinct types of political movements - which can be characterised broadly as "fundamentalists", "Islamists" and "neo-fundamentalists" - has emerged to challenge traditional expressions of Islam. This has transformed the religious landscape in Afghanistan, which is as a result more variegated than ever before.