Night Letters: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Afghan Islamists Who Changed the World

by Chris Sands, Fazelminallah Qazizai

In 1969, several young men met on a rainy night in Kabul to form an Islamist student group. Their aim was laid out in a simple typewritten statement: to halt the spread of Soviet and American influence in Afghanistan. They went on to change the world. 'Night Letters' tells the extraordinary story of the group’s most notorious member, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the guerrilla organisation he came to lead, Hizb-e Islami. By the late 1980s, tens of thousands were drawn to Hekmatyar’s vision of a radical Islamic state that would sow unrest from Kashmir to Jerusalem. His doctrine of violent global jihad culminated in 9/11 and the birth of ISIS, yet he never achieved his dream of ruling Afghanistan. The peace deal he signed with Kabul in 2016 was yet another controversial twist in an astonishing life. Sands and Qazizai delve into the secret history of Hekmatyar and Hizb-e Islami: their wars against Russian and American troops, and their bloody and bitter feuds with domestic enemies. Based on hundreds of exclusive interviews carried out across the region and beyond, this is the definitive account of the most important, yet poorly understood, international Islamist movement of the last fifty years.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Biography, War

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 26, 2019

Reviews

[Obaidullah Baheer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and balanced view of a rather disputed figure within Afghan politics. Despite having single source interviews to back some major facts, the book is still decently researched. The best part of the book is the writing style that doesn't bore you and keeps you engaged till the end. Hekmatyar himself would enjoy reading this (and maybe he does).

[Øystein Brekke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted a book to learn more about recent Afghan history. While this is a book about Gulbuddin Hekmatyar specifically, it also served my purpose really well for the time from the 60s until the mid 90s, when Hekmatyar was a central figure in much of that history. After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and especially after the US invasion in 2001, Hekmatyar has been less important, and accordingly these chapters are shorter and offers less detail of general Afghan history and more of Hekmatyar's role in inspiring and facilitating international terrorism.

Although not an expert, I thought I knew as much about as Afghanistan as your average Western news junkie. I remembered Hekmatyar's name from the intra-Mujahedin fighting in the early 90s, and I noticed his name popping up again in Kabul in the Taliban's second takeover of the country last month, and that was about the extent of my knowledge about the man. From this starting point, I obviously learned a lot about him, but also a lot that I didn't know before about Afghan history.

First, I had always thought of the Mujahedin as a reaction to the communist takeover of the country and subsequent Soviet invasion. This book shows how islamists and communists both started their campaigns to oust the king and the old order already in the 1960s, and were basically competing about who would be able to take power first.

The book also does a good job of explaining the differences between the different Mujahedin groups - where so many other narratives simply says "it's very complicated" and don't even try. The Mujahedin fighting the Soviets were never a united movement - it didn't split into factions, it always consisted of different groups. What especially set Hekmatyar apart from the others, was his global perspective - taking power in Afghanistan was never his final aim, he has always been a pan-islamist and aspired to wage global jihad. This is one of the things that set him on a collision course with the Taliban, who have a more narrow Afghan focus.

The book is well written, with a general public in mind - the style is more journalistic than academic, with "dramaturgical" passages setting the scene of events (what people are wearing, what the weather was like, etc.) - but without underestimating the reader. The level of detail is impressive, and the enormous amount of work that must have gone into the book, is obvious.

Highly recommended!

[Darius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regardless of where you sit in the Afghan political spectrum or as an outside observer, this book depicts the tumultuous events that unfolded in Afghanistan over some decades in a fair and balanced way. The writing style is superb, it doesn’t drone on, and is thoroughly engaging.

[Sarieh Al-Tabaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book, this was my first read on a modern historical figure which helped me develop a better understanding of Islamist figures, though I think the writer was way too sympathetic to shah massoud who was just another warlord, no book is perfect and I don't blame the author for reading into afghan history from a western point of view but that's another point of contention.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very engaging biography of Gulbuddin. Great pace. I do wonder if there was some self-censorship by the authors in relation to the criminal operations of Hizb? Very brief mentions (maybe 2 or 3 sentences in a 400+ page book) of the drug manufacturing and smuggling.

[Abdul Wali · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the first book which can explain Islamic party in Afghanistan! How they start movement by name of hizbi islami, what good and bad done by them!!
Thanks MR fazal qazizia

[Tucker Kuhn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insights into the modern Afghan world through a nice mix of research and interviews on the ground!