Ahmed Gailani

Pir Sayyid Ahmed Gailani
پیر سید احمد گیلانی
Gailani in September 2014
Religion	Islam
Lineage	Abdul-Qadir Gilani
Order	Qadiriyyah Sufi
Alma mater	Kabul University
Personal
Nationality	Afghan
Home town	Surkh-Rōd
Born	1932 Surkh-Rōd District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan
Died	21 January 2017(2017-01-21) (aged 84–85) Kabul, Afghanistan
Children	5
Parents	Sayyid Hasan Gailani (father)

Pir Sayyid Ahmed Gailani (Persian: پیر سید احمد گیلانی‎ 1932– 20 January 2017), was the leader (Pir) of the Qadiriyyah Sufi order in Afghanistan, and the founder of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (Mahaz-i-Milli Islami ye Afghanistan), a party that was associated with the Mujahideen who led the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Sayyid Ahmed Gailani's family are descended from Abdul-Qadir Gilani, the founder of the Qadiriyyah. His father, Sayyid Hasan Gailani, was born in Baghdad before moving to Afghanistan in 1905 in order to establish the Qadiriyyah order in that country. Amir Habibullah Khan gave him land in Kabul and eastern Nangarhar Province.

Ahmed Gailani was born in the Surkh-Rōd District of eastern Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, where he remains a significant figure. He studied at Abu Hanifa College in Kabul, before graduating at the Faculty of Theology of Kabul University in 1960. In 1952, he reinforced his family's close ties to the Afghan royal family by marrying Adela, a granddaughter of Amir Habibullah.

Prior to the war, Gailani invested more time in his business career than in the leadership of his Sufi tariqah, often travelling to France and England. Through his connection with the monarchy, he was able to obtain the Peugeot dealership in Kabul.

In 1979, after the communist PDPA had come to power, Pir Gailani fled to Pakistan where he created the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, a moderate royalist faction. This party was one of the seven used by the Pakistani ISI for distributing CIA-funded weapons to the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation. NIFA had the most liberal stance of all the Peshawar parties, and it supported the return of King Zahir Shah from exile. Representing the interests of the pre-war Pashtun establishment, it rejected both communism and Islamism, in favour of "nationalism and democracy."