Guardians of God: Inside the Religious Mind of Pakistani Taliban, by Mona Kanwal Sheikh

In the recent past, several Islamist movements promising to re-establish the pristine political system dating back to the days of the Prophet have captured the mind of believers. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is one such movement that grew out of the resentment against the established religious parties’ failure to implement sharia, coupled with Pakistan’s decision to join the war on terror which fuelled religious anxiety that this war was aimed against Islam. Significantly, many Islamists have looked at the erstwhile Taliban regime in Afghanistan as an ideal model to be emulated and replicated. While the Afghan Taliban was a protégé of the Pakistani state and was nurtured in seminaries in Pakistan, the TTP—an umbrella group of smaller jihadi groups operating in the country’s tribal area—from its very birth in 2007 was against the state and the army.