https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/india-many-moderate-muslims-increasingly-open-ashlyn-davis/
Despite their negative image in popular news platforms, the Taliban is winning support from some Muslims of India. Some are wishing for the Taliban to knock on India’s doors and establish their Islamic caliphate in India as well.
The Indian Muslims who have openly declared their support for the Taliban are not a poor, uneducated bunch of hoodlums who can be dismissed as exceptional cases. Several Indian politicians, eminent citizens, government officials and teachers from the community have been found to be supporting the Taliban, with even more fervor recently than they had shown before, as they celebrate the group’s recent victory. Some social media accounts belonging to reputedly moderate Indian Muslims couldn’t contain their exhilaration following the return of Islamic rule in India’s northwestern neighborhood.
In a first, the Secretary of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Maulana Umrain Mahfuz Rahmani, took the nation by surprise by taking to his official Twitter account to shower praises on the terror outfit for their “extraordinary success” in Afghanistan. In a tweet written in Urdu, he also claimed that this victory had come with the help of Allah, and that such powerful decisions are “made in Heaven and not on Earth.”
Just days after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan; an Indian MP, Shafiqur Rahman Barq, tried to legitimize the jihadist outfit by likening them to the Indian freedom fighters who fought the British. “When India was under British rule, our country fought for freedom. Now the Taliban wants to free their country & run it,” asserted the people’s representative from a local leftist political party in India. He further justified the actions of the Taliban by claiming that the “Taliban is a force that did not allow even strong countries like Russia and America to settle in their country.”
A Mufti of Darul-Uloom Deoband, Maulana Mufti Arshad Farooqi, who is also the chairman of Online Fatwa Department, was seen glorifying the Taliban in a now-viral video. He hailed the Taliban for ousting the “superpower” from Afghanistan and forcing Afghan forces to concede. The Maulana of Deoband also stated that there is something special about the Taliban. He may feel elated; after all, it is from this Deobandi movement that the Taliban originally drew inspiration.