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Historically, faith and political power in Afghanistan maintained a relationship of indirect mutual cooperation. However, this dynamic shifted in 1978 when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power through the April Revolution, marking the rise of collective atheism. The Cold War and Soviet intervention in 1979, aimed at stabilizing the deteriorating communist regime, not only altered the nature of Afghan communism but also transformed its atheist foundation into a puritan religious movement, framing the conflict as a struggle between two forms of Islam: the “fake and American” versus the “true and egalitarian.”
This study examines that transformation, focusing on two key aspects. First, the role of a religion-friendly communist government in fostering Islamic jihadism. Second, the evolution of Afghan jihad from a religiously minimalistic movement to a global and maximalist force. The study argues that Afghan jihadis of the 20th and 21st centuries were shaped by the atheistic communism they opposed, meaning their movement cannot be fully understood through religious rhetoric alone. The analysis draws on sources from Afghanistan’s modern intellectual history and Vassily A. Klimentov’s examination of over 17,000 pages of Soviet Telegraph Agency reports from 1978 to 1988.