Mulavi Younas Khalis
Encyclopedia
Mawlawi
Mawlawi
Mawlawi may refer to:*Mevlevi Order, a Sufi order founded in Konya*Mawlawi , an honorific Islamic title often given to Sunni Muslim Clergy...

 Mohammad Yunus Khalis (alternate spellings Yunis and Younas) (Arabic: محمد يونس خالص; c. 1919 − July 19, 2006) was a mujahideen commander in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His party was called Hezb-i-Islami
Hezbi Islami
Hezbi Islami , meaning Islamic Party is an Islamist organization commonly known for fighting in the Marxist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union. Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Pakistan in 1975...

 ("Party of Islam"), the same as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the...

's party. The two are commonly differentiated as Hezb-e Islami Khalis and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin
Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin is an Afghan islamist political party.The original Hezb-e-Islami was founded in 1977 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is now the head of HIG. The other faction is headed by Mulavi Younas Khalis who split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezbi Islami in 1979...

.

He was a hardline fundamentalist, and wrote the 1991 treatise "An Appeal to Support the Holy War in the Sudan". After the fall of the communist government in 1992, his forces controlled Nangarhar Province
Nangarhar Province
Nangarhar is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan in the east of the country. Its capital is the city of Jalalabad. The population of the province is 1,334,000, which consists mainly of ethnic Pashtuns with a sizable community of Arabs and Pashais....

 in eastern Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

.

Maulvi Mohammad Yunus Khalis was born in 1919 in Khogyani District
Khogyani District
Khogyani is a district in the south of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, bordering on Pakistan. Its population is almost entirely Pashtun, and was estimated at 146,852 in 2002. The district centre is the village of Khogyani, though the largest village is Vazir....

, Nangarhar Province in Afghanistan and became a powerful figure in his country’s turbulent modern history. Educated in Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 and theology
Kalam
ʿIlm al-Kalām is the Islamic philosophical discipline of seeking theological principles through dialectic. Kalām in Islamic practice relates to the discipline of seeking theological knowledge through debate and argument. A scholar of kalām is referred to as a mutakallim...

, Khalis exercised influence through his conservative vision of Islamic society. Sometimes referred to as the "Godfather" of Nangarhar, he was also a shrewd politician who wielded considerable power behind the scenes during one of the most turbulent and violent periods in his country’s history.

After the overthrow of Mohammad Zahir Shah by Mohammad Daoud
Mohammad Daoud
Mohammad Daoud is the name of:* Mohammed Daoud Khan , first President of Afghanistan, from 1973, until his assassination in 1978* Engineer Mohammad Daoud , former Governor of Helmand Province, Afghanistan...

 in 1973, Khalis fled to Pakistan and joined Hekmatyar's Islamic Party (Hezb-e Islami). After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Khalis broke with Hekmatyar and established his own party (Hezb-e Islami Khalis).

Khalis reportedly entered Afghanistan many times to join his forces in waging war against the Soviets and their local proxies. Many prominent mujahideen commanders including Abdul Haq
Abdul Haq (Afghan leader)
Abdul Haq was an Afghan Pashtun mujahideen commander who fought against the Soviets and Afghan communists during the Soviet-Afghan War...

, Amin Wardak
Amin Wardak
Amin Wardak was an Afghan mujahideen leader who fought in Wardak Province during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He was educated a the Lycée Esteqlal in Kabul, before taking his B.A...

 and Jalaluddin Haqqani
Jalaluddin Haqqani
Mawlawi Jalaluddin Haqqani is the leader of the Haqqani network, an insurgent group fighting against US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan. He also fought in the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan, including in the Operation Magistral...

 were affiliated with Hezb-e-Islami Khalis.

After the fall of the Communist regime in 1992, Khalis participated in the Islamic Interim Government. He was a member of the Leadership Council (Shura-ye Qiyaadi), but held no other official post. Instead of moving to Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

, he chose to remain in Nangarhar. His party controlled major parts of this politically and strategically important province. The Taliban brought Nangarhar under their control in September 1996 and Khalis was quietly supportive of the Taliban movement.

Khalis resided in Pakistan in the late 1990s. After the fall of the Taliban, his supporters regained their stronghold in Jalalabad where Khalis exerted considerable influence, although he held no official post. Two of his close associates, Haji Abdul Qadir
Abdul Qadir (Afghan leader)
Hajji Abdul Qadir Arsala was a former anti-Taliban leader in the United Islamic Front in Afghanistan...

 and Haji Din Mohammad
Haji Din Mohammad
Hajji Din Mohammad is a politician in Afghanistan, who first served as the Governor of Nangarhar Province followed by Governor of Kabul Province. He comes from a distinguished Pashtun family which has served the Afghan nation for more than 150 years. His great-grandfather, Wazir Arsala Khan, served...

 served as governors of Nangarhar Province after the fall of the Communist regime.

In 2001, the United States claimed that Khalis helped facilitate Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

's escape from Tora Bora
Tora Bora
Tora Bora , known locally as Spīn Ghar , is a cave complex situated in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, in the Pachir Wa Agam District of Nangarhar province, approximately west of the Khyber Pass and north of the border of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan...

.

According to a statement from his son, Anwar al-Haq Mojahed, Khalis died on July 19, 2006.

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