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136 CHAPTER 5people, professing some devotion to certain Shi‘i ceremonies and rituals,to an Iranianized form of Shi‘ism 115 sustained by madrasas, sectarian organizations,and Shi‘i literature. 116As an agent of religious change sectarianism has assisted the ‘ulama inasserting their influence and in extending it to areas where previously suchinfluence was minimal. But this influence is not just that of those we havecalled the peripheral ‘ulama in the context of Pakistani sectarianism—those who have been in the trenches, so to speak, in this struggle. Just asthe work of the leading ‘ulama offers justifications for the radical Sunnisto wage their struggle against the Shi‘a, so too does that struggle expandthe influence of the ‘ulama in general, not only that of the peripheral onesor those associated directly with the Sipah-i Sahaba. When leaders of theSipah-i Sahaba instruct their followers to concentrate on reading religiousliterature as a way of deepening their newfound identities, they have inmind more than the literature produced by the organization itself. 117 Suchexhortations serve equally to expand the audiences, the sphere of influence,of the ‘ulama as a whole.That financial support for sectarian organizations comes from the middleclass, as we saw earlier in this chapter, means that sectarianism createsopportunities for the ‘ulama not only to extend their reach in societythrough such support but to expand and deepen it within this class itself.With this expanding influence, acquired in the course of the struggleagainst the Shi‘a (and before them, the Ahmadis), the Deobandi ‘ulamahave also come to eclipse Barelawi forms of shrine-based religiosity withinSunnism. What is more, they have begun to “dominate the Islamist discourseat the cost of such lay Islamist parties as the Jama‘at-i Islami,” 118which has also traditionally drawn its support from the urban middleclasses.The significance, then, of sectarianism in Pakistan is manifold. It is anagent of Islamization from below, and it is a mechanism for the expansionof Deobandi reformism. Though it comes at the expense of the Barelawisand the Shi‘a, it is, overall, also an expression of the ‘ulama’s growinginfluence. The latter is, indeed, a phenomenon much broader than sectarianismitself and one that is to be witnessed in many other contemporaryMuslim societies as well (see chapter 6). So far as Pakistan’s Deobandi‘ulama are concerned, the past quarter century has seen an expansion oftheir influence not only within the country but also outside it. If sectarianismis the most important expression of the former, the strange career ofthe Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan is surely the most striking illustrationof the latter.The Taliban emerged in response to the massive dislocations caused inAfghan society during and after the Soviet invasion of 1979. 119 Duringthe course of the Soviet occupation and the Afghan resistance against it,