Omar, Mullah Muhammad
(b. 1959), Taliban leader and ruler of Afghanistan. Mullah Muhammad Omar, member of the Pashtun ethnic group, is the leader of the Taliban, formerly the ruling group in Afghanistan. His experiences are both military and religious. Before the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, he was head of a madrasah (Islamic religious school). During the jihad (holy war) against Soviet power, he was a mujahideen (guerrilla fighter) and commander in Kandahar Province, the Taliban stronghold in the southern part of the country. Following the Soviet defeat, Omar eventually returned to his religious role and currently holds the supreme religious title of Amir Al-Muʾminin (Leader of the Faithful). Until 2001, he was also the ultimate political authority in Afghanistan.
Under Omar's leadership since the mid-1990s, Afghanistan suffered from Taliban oppression. Focusing on internal affairs, Omar led the Taliban to reject unstable civil law in favor of an idiosyncratic interpretation of Islamic shariʿa law. Taliban rule was perceived by the international community, and by many Afghans, as harsh, severe, and indifferent to human rights, particularly in the case of women. Through the Taliban Office of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, women were denied the right to freedom of expression, movement, education, employment, health care, and religious expression. The most visible sign of their oppression was the mandatory enforcement of the chaadaree or burqa, a full-body covering.
Omar's alignment with the renegade Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group made him an adversary of the coalition of Western forces supporting the Afghan groups that defeated the Taliban in 2001.
Further Reading
Burhan, E., and T. Gouttierre. (1983) Dari for Foreigners. Omaha, NE: Center for Afghanistan Studies.
Magnus, R., and E. Naby. (1998) Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx, and Mujahid. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Marsden, P. (1998) The Taliban: War, Religion, and the New Order in Afghanistan. Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press.
Rashid, A. (2000) Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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