Hezbi Islami

Hezbi Islami د افغانستان اسلامي حزب
Leader	Juma Khan Hamdard
Founder	Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Founded	1976
Dissolved	1979
Preceded by	Muslim Youth
Succeeded by	HIG HIK HIKF
Ideology	Islamism
Party flag
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Hezb-e-Islami (also Hezb-e Islami, Hezb-i-Islami, Hezbi-Islami, Hezbi Islami), lit. Islamic Party,^[1] was an Islamist organization that was commonly known for fighting the Communist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union.^{[citation needed]} Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Afghanistan in 1976.^{[citation needed]}

It grew out of the Muslim Youth organization, an Islamist organization founded in Kabul by students and teachers at Kabul University in 1969 to combat communism in Afghanistan.^[2] Its membership was drawn from ethnic Pashtuns, and its ideology from the Muslim Brotherhood and Abul Ala Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami.^[2] Another source describes it as having splintered away from Burhanuddin Rabbani's original Islamist party, Jamiat-e Islami, in 1976, after Hekmatyar found that group too moderate and willing to compromise with others.^[3]

In 1979, Mulavi Younas Khalis split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezbi Islami, known as the Khalis faction, with its power base in Nangarhar.^{[citation needed]} Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's faction is since then referred to as the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, or HIG.