[The region of Khorasan is of
special significance in the political and cultural history of Islam as well as
in Islamic theology.]
The ISKP envisions the creation of
a historical region that went by the name of Khorasan. Historically, the region
being referred to as Khorasan had varying borders depending on its political
rulers. But scholars do agree that the origins of the term, which means ‘rising
sun’, lies in the Sasanian Empire in what is modern day Iran. Khorasan, under
the Sassanians, comprised the north eastern part of Iran. At the same time,
there was a persistent notion of a Greater Khorasan, comprising large parts
south of the Aral Sea.
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are the Islamic State Khorasan?
“Theoretically, then, the
eastern frontier of Khurasan went as far as China, but in fact it seldom
extended very far past Balkh into the district known as Turkharistan (roughly
analogous to ancient Bactria),” writes historian Elton L.
Daniel in his book, ‘The political and social history of Khurasan under Abbasid
rule, 747-820’ (1979). So, despite its varying notions in the Islamic
world, Khorasan seldom crossed beyond the region that is modern day
Afghanistan.
In recent years, the first time the
term ‘Khorasan’ was adopted by a radical Islamic group was in 1996 by Osama Bin
Laden of Al-Qaeda. At this point, Afghanistan was the base of operations for
the larger goals of establishing an Islamic Caliphate after driving the United
States out of Saudi Arabia and destroying Israel. Bin Laden, operating from
Afghanistan, proclaimed that he had found a safe refuge in Khorasan. Later, the
same term was adopted by the ISKP, which claimed Khorasan to be the land
encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian republics,
northwestern or sometimes all of India, and Russia.
“Both Al-Qaeda and the ISKP are in
fact not based in Khorasan. Historically speaking, Khorasan never went south of
the Hindu Kush. But the allies of Al-Qaeda and ISKP are Pakistani Jihadi groups
who wish to include Kashmir in their area of operations. They are not
interested in the Arab world issues, and are rather looking east,” explains Dr.
Amin Tarzi, director of Middle Eastern Studies at Marine Corps University, in
an interview with Indianepxress.com. Consequently, these groups hark back to
Islamic history to find political currency in the significance of Khorasan.
Indeed there was much to appropriate here, as the region of Khorasan is of
special significance in the political and cultural history of Islam as well as
in Islamic theology.
Why Khorasan is special to Islam
Modern scholars of Islamic history
agree on this idea that between the seventh century CE when the Sasanian Empire
collapsed with the Muslim conquest and the 13th century CE, Khorasan went from
being in the margins of empire to becoming the centre and then again
withdrawing to the margins. “Its very name (literally Khurasan means
the land of the rising sun) hints at its marginal position vis-a-vis the centre
of the Sasanian Empire, which was first in Fars, then in Iraq,” writes
historian of medieval Iran David Durand Guedy in his article, ‘Pre-Mongol
Khurasan: A historical introduction’ (2015).
The Encyclopaedia Iranica notes
that during the Arab Islamic invasion, Khorasan seemed to have corresponded to
an ‘abstract geographical entity’. “The Arab armies did not
limit their conquest to the boundaries of Sasanian Khorasan, but rapidly passed
the Oxus River through the Kara Kum desert and advanced through Sogdiana toward
the northeast, to stop later on the Talas River around 750 CE,” it
suggests.
In his article, Guedy explains that
the biggest impact of the Arab conquest was the unification of the territories
that were previously divided under the common umbrella term called ‘Khorasan’.
He also writes that unlike other provinces, “Khurasan also saw the
massive installation of Arab settlers, perhaps as many as 250,000, which
reflects both its strategic importance as well as its potential wealth.” He
adds: “Logically the the conversion of the local population to Islam began
there earlier.”
Rocco Rante, archaeologist at the
department of Islamic Art in the Louvre Museum says that “excavations in the
area show cultural and technological similarities, proving that the Greater
Khorasan area came to be unified from Herat to Balkh. Sometimes we can find
similar objects from the other side of the Oxus River as well.”
Speaking about the strategic
importance of the Khorasan region to the Islamic Caliphate, Daniel says, “All
the major trade routes went through this area.” “Controlling it was important
to control the world economy.” Politically, he says, the area was crucial to
the Caliphate because “it was the military frontier for Islamic expansion
eastwards.” “Khorasan was also the richest province in terms of the amount of
taxes it paid to the Caliphate. Financially, militarily, and commercially, this
area was critical for the Caliphate,” says Daniel who is Director at Ehsan
Yarshater Center For Iranian Studies in Columbia University.
The importance of this area also
stems from the fact that it was the cradle of the Abbasid Revolution, a
critical moment in Islamic history. Hitherto the Islamic world was ruled by the
Umayyads, an Arab dynasty. Non-Arabs in the region, including those who had
converted to Islam, were particularly distressed by the discriminatory treatment
meted out to them under the Umayyads. The Abbasid dynasty that stood up in
opposition to them claimed descent from al-Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet.
Under the leadership of Abu Muslim, a Persian general, the Abbasids toppled the
Umayyad dynasty.
“This was an extremely significant
event because this is when the idea that in order to be Muslim one also had to
be Arab is rejected. The idea of Islam as a multi-national, multi-ethnic
religion grew out of these events,” says Daniel.
Thereafter, leaders of the
Caliphate were no longer Arabs. They were Iranians and other Easterners drawn
in from Central Asia. The centre of the Muslim world shifted from Baghdad to
Khorasan region, that now became the linchpin of the Muslim Empire.
Under the Abbasids this region
acquired a newfound cultural significance. Rante explains that it would be
incorrect to assume that the material cultural productions at Khorasan were
superior to that in other parts of the Muslim world. However, after the Abbasid
revolution, Khorasan assumed a political role way more important than what it
was before.
The Encyclopaedia Iranica suggests
that “it was from the province’s association with the Abbasids that
hadiths or traditions came into circulation like the one attributed to the
Prophet: “Khorasan is God’s quiver; when He becomes angry with a people, he
launches at them the Khorasanis.”
Consequently, Khorasan also became
a space for intellectual productions, with the city of Nishapur at the centre
of it. The multi-ethnic nature of Islam here was one of main reasons behind the
region producing exciting new works in philosophy, science, and literature.
“Nishapur’s lively
intellectual climate was not solely the product of legal and theological
disputes and civil strife. The presence there of articulate Zoroastrians and
Christians also played a role, as did, the submerged traditions of Buddhism and
the ongoing intellectual contacts with India,” writes
S.Frederick Starr, an expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs in his book, ‘Lost
Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane’
(2013).
One of the first philosophers to
emerge here was a polymath by the name Abul-Abbas Iranshahri who brought to his
philosophy a deep knowledge of Christianity and Zoroastrianism. He is known to
have produced works on astronomy as well and firmly believed in the rational
intellect of humans to approach questions of existence.
One of Iranshahri’s students,
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, is noted by Starr in his book as being the “greatest
medical clinician of all times”. Then there was the ninth century scholar,
Jabir Ibn Hayyan who is known to have authored an enormous volume of works
dealing with Chemistry, alchemy, magic and religion.
“Khurasan produced more than
its share of skeptics and radical freethinkers,” writes
Starr. This was no surprise as people of this region were reading, editing and
translating religious texts for a while now. Several of these freethinkers
focused their attack squarely on Islam.
For instance, there was Abu Hasan
Ahmad Ibn Al-Rawandi born around 820 CE in Lesser Merv (what is now northern
Afghanistan). As Starr writes, Rawandi used “logic and reason to plumb
the nature of religion” and is supposed to have mastered the art
of “using the Bible against the Bible and the Quran against the Quran
to show ‘The Futility of Divine Wisdom’, the title of one of his diatribes
against all revealed religions.” He wrote close to 114 books and
treatises on philosophy, politics, music, grammar, but none of them survive
today, nor does any of his poetry.
No discussion of intellectual
productions in Khorasan is complete without referring to the ‘Shahnameh’, an
epic written by the Persian poet Firdawsi in the 10th century CE. The Shahnameh
provides a mythical and historical account of the Persian Empire. It is
believed to be one of the longest epic poems of the world, and is deemed to be
part of global cultural heritage.
When the Abbasids were defeated by
the Mongols in the 13th century, the Khorasan region once again lost its
centrality and went into the periphery. “The next time this region becomes
important is under the Timurids. But by now the name ‘Khorasan’ is no longer in
usage. The centre of the empire shifted to Bukhara (in present day Uzbekistan)
and Balkh (in present day Afghanistan) and the region of Khorasan lost the
political significance it had before,” says Tarzi. “It had to do with
geopolitics and changing of the empires.”
Why Khorasan is important to
Islamic extremists
The next time that the term
‘Khorasan’ emerged in popular consciousness was in 1932 when the prominent
Afghan historian and politician Mir Ghulam Muhammad Ghobar in his writings,
called Afghanistan as ‘Aryana’ (land of the Aryans) in pre-Islamic times and as
‘Khorasan’ after the Islamic conquests. “After modern Afghanistan is born the
Afghans proclaim Abu Muslim, the Abbasid general as their hero. This was done
not for religious reasons but for a nationalist cause to stand up against the
Arabs,” says Tarzi. The Afghans even changed the birthplace of Abu Moslem to a
village in Afghanistan called Sar-e-Pol rather than the conventional location
near Isfahan in Iran. Tarzi explains that in the mid-20th century several books
and historians in Afghanistan repeatedly referred to their country as
‘Khorasan’, much of which, he says, was based on very thin historical evidence.
In the 1980s and 90s, the term
emerged once again, this time though it is Islamic extremism that usurps its
symbolism. Tarzi in an article published in 2020 explains that “from
the initial phases of the Afghan Mujahideen political campaigns against the
Soviets (1979-89) to the internal conflict with the Taliban (1994-2001),
Khorasan became a term of reference used by some of the local, mainly
non-Pashtun groups to propagate the idea that their armed struggle went beyond
freeing the country from the foreign yoke and communism or the Taliban. For
them, it was a call to return the country to its pre-1747 political makeup, the
time before modern-day Afghanistan emerged as a political unit ruled by
Dorrani.”
After the departure of the Soviets
from Afghanistan, the focus of the Al-Qaeda formed in the 1980s shifted to a
more global jihadist agenda. Afghanistan served as the base for Bin Laden and
it was from here that he proclaimed his safe refuge in ‘Khorasan’. Scholars
explain that the theological aspect of the Al-Qaeda’s use of the Khorasan
symbolism is based on a few hadiths (traditions or sayings of the Prophet) that
associated the region with future events. “The most referenced hadith,
of which there are several renditions, conveys the message that there would
emerge from Khorasan an army carrying black banners that no one would repel
until it raised its banners Ilia (the name used in early Muslim sources for
Jerusalem),” writes Tarzi.
Taken in this context, perhaps it
is no surprise as to why Al-Qaeda chose to represent itself with a black flag.
They even published a magazine, ‘Talai ‘i Khorasan’ (Vanguard of Khorasan)
detailing the virtues and significance of Khorasan in Islamic thought.
With the US-led invasion of Iraq in
2003, Jihadish organisations, including many in the ranks of Al-Qaeda were
prompted to shift focus westwards. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
was formed, which no longer looked east to fulfill its destiny and the idea of
‘Khorasan’ once again waned. It emerged once again in 2015 when the ISKP was
born. To them, Khorasan, the region, encompassed the fluid borders between
Afghanistan and Pakistan and went on to include countries like Iran, other
Central Asian republics, parts of Russia and parts of India. Members of the
group, explains Tarzi, included disgruntled jihadists in Afghanistan who were
against Pashtun nationalism and those in Pakistan working against India to
occupy Kashmir.
Even though the ISKP claims to be
an offshoot of ISIS and while they both wish to create an Islamic world, in
their aims and vision they both are remarkably different. “The ISKP is clearly
looking towards India. Their map of Khorasan includes large parts of north
India where the Mughals ruled and they do not include most of southern India,”
says Tarzi. He reiterates that “even in the heyday of Islamic rule in India, it
was never called Khorasan… India was called Al-Hind”.
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it is necessary to watch the emergence of ISIS in the region
Speaking about the implications of
the ISKP’s vision for India, Tarzi explains that firstly one needs to see to
what extent their ideology resonates with radical Islamic groups within India.
“Secondly, they would need support from a different country to germinate
further. This is dependent on international relations among countries in the
region. So, if India’s relations with one of its neighbouring countries
deteriorates they might find support there,” says Tarzi.
At present the ISKP stands firmly
diminished in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. This is one of
the reasons for the Taliban finding favourability among the Chinese and the
Russians. While the Taliban’s extremist ideology is definitely seen as
worrying, it is recognised as being restricted to Afghanistan, while the ISKP
is seen as a much bigger regional threat.
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State chapter in Afghanistan, and the turf war with Taliban
It is indeed interesting that the
symbol of Khorasan that the radical Islamic groups employ harks back to a time
and space of intellectual enlightenment and cultural productions. “It is true
that Islam has made so many positive contributions to the history and
development of this region,” says Tarzi. “These extremist organisations do not
have that kind of a vision. Their only vision is to create fear and work for
whoever pays them.”
Further reading:
Elton L. Daniel, The political and social history of Khurasan under Abbasid
rule, 747-820, Bibliotheca Islamica, 1979
Rocco Rante (ed.), Greater Khorasan: History, Geography, archaeology and material
culture, De Gruyter, 2015
S. Frederick Starr, Lost
Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane’,
Princeton University Press, 2015
Amin Tarzi, Khorasan in modern Islamist ideology, in
‘Encyclopaedia Iranica’, Brill Publishers, Fascicle XVI/6, 2020
