A Comparative Study Between the Islamic Emirate of Taliban in Afghanistan 1996-2001 and the Totalitarian State Model in the West

The Taliban movement was born in the condition of internal and external conflicts. The domain for the emergence of this movement was events such as the internal coup d’état on April 28th, 1978, the invasion of the Red Army in 1979, and the civil wars of 1994-1992 in Afghanistan. Finally, the Taliban with a quasi-totalitarian identity tried to declare its existence and rule in that country under the title of the Islamic Emirate of the Taliban between 1996 and 2001. This article tries to look at the emergence of the Taliban movement by relying on Alain Touraine's theory about the emergence of movements, relying on the three principles of Opposition, Identity, and Totality, and analyzing the third principle of "Totality" among these three principles in the establishment of the Emirate of Taliban. The following article tries to answer the question of whether it is possible that the Islamic Emirate of the Taliban 1996-2001 can be recognized as a totalitarian state that has found its identity from the historical conflict situation. To answer this question, Hannah Arendt's opinions in the book Totalitarianism have been cited, and six indicators have been selected for this comparative study, all of which are analyzed according to Arendt's theory of understanding and describing the characteristics of totalitarian political systems. These indicators are: formlessness (informité), mass society, absolute loyalty, ideology and the meaning of borders, totalitarian leadership and Religion and rituals. Before examining these indicators, an attempt has been made to answer these two questions: to what extent is it possible to compare the State in the West and the State in the Islamic world? And also, to what extent can there be a relationship between the Islamic state and the totalitarian State? The theoretical framework used in this research is a combination of Alain Touraine's opinion (in understanding socio-political movements) and Hannah Arendt's theory (in understanding totalitarianism). The research method used in this article is the library and documentary method.