Afghan Biographies

Haqqani, Rahimullah


Name Haqqani, Rahimullah
Ethnic backgr. Pashtun
Date of birth
Function/Grade Prominent Taliban Cleric
History and Biodata

3. Biodata:

Rahimullah Haqqani was an Afghan national from Pachir-aw-Agam District of Nangarhar province near Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Haqqani was said to be a scholar of Hadith literature. He received his religious education in Deobandi madrassas in Swabi and Akora Khattak.

He was an important pro-Taliban ideologue. He was a critic of pro-ISKP (Islamic State Khorasan Province) channels. Haqqani was once an affiliated member of the Taliban military commission in Nangarhar province.
 

Rahimullah Haqqani was also the administrator of Dir Colony’s Madrassa Zubeiri, and was injured in a blast on October 27, 2020 when he was teaching more than 300 students but had miraculously survived the blast. His close associate Mufti Khalid was killed in the attack.
 

Mawlawi Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani was killed on Thursday August 12, 2022 after an attacker detonated explosives hidden in a prosthetic leg.

In an interview back in May 2022, Haqqani voiced his support for the education of Afghan women and girls. Though Haqqani did not directly criticise the Taliban for reneging on promises to allow Afghan girls to go to school, he did reiterate that religious texts did not prohibit the education of females. According to local reports, the attack took place at an Islamic seminary in the Afghan capital. 

Sheikh Haqqani was a supporter of Afghanistan's Taliban government and a prominent critic of the jihadist militant group Islamic State Kohrasan Province (IS-K), a regional affiliate of IS that operates in Afghanistan and opposes the Taliban's rule.

 

He is one of the highest profile figures to have been killed in the country since the Taliban returned to power last year in August 2021.
 

Despite sharing the same name, he was not related to Afghanistan's Haqqani militant group network.

The religious leader had previously issued a fatwa, or religious decree, in support of female education - a contentious issue inside Afghanistan.
 

Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani spent  over three decades in Pakistan. He was educated in Pakistan. Haqqani was in charge of a religious school in Peshawar; once the Islamic Emirate returned to power, he moved the institution to Kabul.

 

 

Last Modified 2022-08-13
Established 2022-08-13