Where the Taliban's ideology originated

+ YOLO, 'rise and grind' and people who think leisure time is a waste US Edition - Today's top story: Taliban's religious ideology – Deobandi Islam – has roots in colonial India [View in browser]( US Edition | 25 August 2021 [The Conversation]( Since the Taliban’s recapture of power in Afghanistan earlier this month, images of people trying to flee have been a reminder of the horror of their earlier rule, which began in the 1990s. The Taliban profess to be a religious group, drawing their understanding from a particular fundamentalist view of Islam. Indeed, the Arabic word “Talib” means a seeker or a student. As someone who grew up in India, I’m familiar with the Deobandi school, located in a small town called Deoband in northern India, where the Taliban’s ideology originated. I turned to Indiana University’s Sumit Ganguly and his PhD student Sohel Rana, who study the group, to explain the history of the Deobandi school, which emerged in late 19th century in opposition to British colonial rule in India. These scholars [write a fascinating history]( of how fundamentalist and geopolitical interests have taken the Taliban quite far from their original roots in Deoband, a town I’ve visited several times and where I’ve seen students immersed in a simple and religious life. Also today: - [What climate change has to do with extreme storms]( - [Immunologist: Vaccines don’t harm women’s reproductive health]( - [Remembering Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts]( Kalpana Jain Senior Religion + Ethics Editor Students on the campus of Darul Uloom, the Deoband school of Islam located in a small town, Deoband, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images [Taliban’s religious ideology – Deobandi Islam – has roots in colonial India]( Sohel Rana, Indiana University; Sumit Ganguly, Indiana University Deobandi Islam, the religious school that the Taliban draw their ideology from, was set up in 19th century India to educate Muslim youth. Environment + Energy - [Is climate change to blame for extreme weather events? Attribution science says yes, for some – here’s how it works]( Xubin Zeng, University of Arizona A new attribution study finds human-caused climate change made Europe’s July floods more likely. What about Tennessee’s flooding? An atmospheric scientist explains how scientists make the connection. Health - [Pregnant or worried about infertility? 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