The years 1978 and 1979 were dramatic throughout south and western Asia‎.‎ In Iran‎,‎ the Pahlavi dynasty was toppled by an Islamic revolution‎.‎ In Pakistan‎,‎ Zulfigar Ali Bhutto was hanged by the military regime that toppled him and which then proceeded to implement an Islamization programme‎.‎ Between the two lay Afghanistan whose ‎"‎Saur Revolution‎"‎ of April 1978 soon developed into a full scale civil war and Soviet intervention‎.‎ The military struggle that followed was largely influenced by Soviet‎-US rivalry but the ideological struggle followed a dynamic of its own‎.‎ Drawing on a wide range of sources‎,‎ including such previously unused archival material as British Intelligence reports‎,‎ this is a detailed study of the Afghan debate on the role of Islam in politics from the formation of the modern Afghan state around 1800 to the present day‎.‎