Analysis of the current situation in the global Jihad total war

Tore Hamming September 13, 2016

This is the first Q&A of the interview series with Ahmed Al Hamdan (@a7taker), a Jihadi-Salafi analyst and author of “Methodological Difference Between ISIS and Al Qaida“. Al Hamdan was a former friend of Turki bin Ali, and a student of Shaykh Abu Muhammad Al Maqdisi under whom he studied and was given Ijazah, becoming one of his official students. Also, Shaykh Abu Qatada al Filistini wrote an introduction for his book when it was published in the Arabic language. The interview series contains contains five themes in total and will all be published on Jihadica.com

Tore Hamming:

Back in 2014, the Islamic State (IS) was winning territory while IS affiliated media and its official spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani were extremely active propagating its successes. In the meantime al-Qaida (AQ) leader Ayman al-Zawahiri remained quiet. Now, in mid-2016, it seems to be the opposite situation as IS is loosing territory, while al-Adnani is increasingly absent from the media scene. Zawahiri, on the other hand, has lately been very active with several speech series e.g. The Islamic Spring and Brief Messages to a Supported Ummah. What does this development tell you?

Ahmed Al Hamdan:

This is due to several reasons. Firstly, during the period in which Adnani came out several times, there were several successes achieved by this group such as them conquering large areas of Iraq and Syria and the opening of branches outside the region of Iraq and Syria. Normally when commercial companies make any profit, they exploit these profits for strengthening their advertising and marketing. So the multiple appearances of Adnani during that period is a normal thing and in accordance with the circumstances which his group was going through at that time. However as for Zawahiri appearing only rarely, there are a number of reasons such as:

Firstly, Al Fajr centre (the media forum for the Mujahideen) which releases publications of all the branches of Al Qaeda contained within its ranks people who were sympathetic to the Islamic State. And these people would delay any verbal attack that would be launched from any branch of Al-Qaeda…!! And they would delay any correspondence relating to the same matter and would even send it to the leaders of ISIS and then the leaders of ISIS would make preemptive attacks in advance to absorb the effect of the publication of Al-Qaeda that was sent to Al Fajr Centre to be released. An example of this is the seventh interview by As-Sahab Foundation with Sheikh Ayman al Zawahiri which got published under the title “The reality between pain and hope”. They released the speech of Adnani “This was not our methodology and it will never be” before releasing the interview, and also the release of this seventh interview by As-Sahab Foundation with Dr. Zawahiri was delayed for around twelve days, even though the date of this interview by As-Sahab was before the speech of Adnani. But the speech of Adnani got released before it. So Al Fair centre played the biggest role in transforming the sympathy of many in the Jihadi movement to make them support the Islamic State through this manipulation by them, in addition to Al Fajr center turning to be a defence for ISIS.

And when the well known Jihadi researcher, Abdullah bin Muhammad, wrote about the possibility of the ranks of ISIS being infiltrated as had happened in the Algerian Jihad, this centre took an unusual step of issuing an official statement… !!! They falsified this man and accused him of lying..!!!! And so the branches of Al Qaeda began to ignore this centre and they changed their means of publication by using their own two media delegates in the social media sites in a direct manner. For example the account ‘Abdullah al Mujahid’ belongs to Al Qaeda of Yemen, and ‘Abu Mus’ab Ash-Shanqiti’ belongs to Al Qaeda of Khurasan. And so they began to release all the publications directly without having the need for any intermediaries.

And what must be noted is that these are not exclusive information that are known only to those close to these sources, but they are known to anyone who used to follow the Jihadi forums. And the reality is just as a friend had said, that the Jihadi groups and their media establishments were like closed boxes which not even those close to them would know as to what they contained inside them. However the Fitna (tribulation) of ISIS caused every secret to become publicly known..! And I don’t say known only to the supporters of these groups but also to all the people. This relieved the intelligence and the security agencies a lot, and so they no longer have to tire themselves much like how it was in the past in order to know what is inside the house of their enemy..! Thus there occurred polarization between two competitors and each would speak publicly on secret issues causing the other party to be the accused one which would make them want to defend themselves. And so they too would speak publicly about secret issues..!!. Due to this rivalry a lot of secrets became publicly known. And all praise belongs to Allah in every case.

Secondly, another matter is that Al-Qaeda needed to get its internal ranks to be set in order after they got swept by a tide. Previously there had been elements within Al Qaeda who were sympathetic towards the Islamic State but now the matter has developed and these sympathizers began to pledge allegiance to the Islamic state…! And they began to promote it from inside the ranks of Al Qaeda. So it would not be wise at such a time to come out in public frequently and release statements while your internal ranks have become flimsy and shaky. The priority was to rectify the internal ranks and absorb this attack. And in fact because of the stupidity of ISIS in taking the initiative in attacking the leaders of Al Qaeda in their other branches and slandering them and spreading doubtful allegations which would reach to the point of Takfeer upon them, this contributed to the awareness of some of those who were deceived by ISIS previously and they said that yes it is true that we differ with Al Qaeda in some issues, but not to the extent of Takfeer.

Yet despite that, I used to think and still now think that the role of Al Qaeda’s media was negative to some extent because of them continuing to have hopes that ISIS would return back to the right path. Also from the mistakes committed by the media of Al Qaeda in general was to not confront in an official manner the charges made against them by ISIS. For example Abu Ubaida Al-Lubnani who was the former security official of Al-Qaeda before being expelled and giving the pledge of allegiance to ISIS, was one of the members of Al-Qaeda of Khurasan, and he had written his testimony in the official publication of ISIS known as ‘An-Naba’. And then his former friend known as Abu Kareemah wrote an article in refutation to his testimony, but this was done in his individual capacity through the website of “Justpaste”, and he made evident many of the lies and contradictions that were present in this testimony..!

However I ask, which would have a greater impact- when the group Al-Qaeda officially adopts this article and publishes it through a media wing, or when its author publishes it by himself on his own capacity? By this, you will cause people to ask as to what is the evidence that Abu Kareemah is actually a Mujahid from Khurasan?! And what is the evidence that he is the actual author of this article? There is no doubt that the people will take the official publication as being more credible. On the other hand we see that in every issue of Dabiq, ISIS would heap allegations against Al-Qaeda even to the point of saying that they are agents and disbelievers, while the official media of Al-Qaeda represented by their two magazines “Resurgence” and “Inspire” would completely avoid responding to these allegations and would be content with the writings of some of the leaders and soldiers who would publish them in an unofficial manner.

And if I was a simple Jihadi follower, I would interpret the lack of official response by Al-Qaeda as a weakness in their standpoint, and I would not interpret this as a desire to not escalate the matter so as to not cut off the road for ISIS to come back to the right path. Rather I would say “If the talk that is being spread regarding this matter is not correct then they would have responded to it at the earliest”. But this is a mistaken policy which contributed to increasing the number of ISIS followers from amongst the Jihadi supporters.

With regards to the frequent appearances of Dr. Ayman lately, I sat down with my companions and I said to them “Let us think in the way how the men of intelligence agencies think. Can it be reasonable that these speeches are recent ones? That is they are published just a few days after been recorded? Or are they all recorded before some weeks, if not months, and then published gradually? Obviously it is the second one that is correct. And it is never wise in terms of security for the one who is number one in the wanted list of the security agencies to publish his statement in close intervals as this strengthens the chances of getting hold of the link in the thread which will lead towards him. The security official of Al-Qaeda, Abdullah Adam [1] has said “Two people who keep moving will definitely meet each other at some point”. But when you decrease the movement, then there is a greater level for your safety.

Brief analysis of answer:

In the early stage after the Islamic State left the al-Qaida network (or was thrown out depending on the perspective), it won the fight both on the battlefield and in the media. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri simply did not respond forcefully enough as the fitna erupted. In this regard, however, it is interesting to consider the position and influence of the Jihadi media foundations. If the account Ahmed Al Hamdan gives of the Al Fajr Centre’s role in delaying Zawahiri’s attempt of responding to the attacks from the Islamic State holds true, this would point to a critical interference of the media foundations. Interestingly, Al Fajr was also accused of refusing to publish Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s response (titled “Remaining in Iraq and the Levant”, 14 June 2013) to Zawahiri’s ruling that the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham should remain in Iraq only. If both stories are true, it shows an ambiguous role of Al Fajr, fighting an internal struggle to choose side.

Al Hamdan’s account also pinpoints another important factor in order to grasp Zawahiri’s initial passivity. Due to the increasing sympathy towards the Islamic State within al-Qaida, Zawahiri needed to get his house in order before publically taking a stance. Had he been too explicit in his critique of the Islamic State at this point, he would have risked to push away many al-Qaida members. This probably happened anyway though as his passive approach was interpreted as weakness by many.

Perhaps al-Qaida did not realise the seriousness of the situation quickly enough. Whereas the Islamic State utilised all channels of communication and propaganda as efficiently as possible, al-Qaida was hesitant and too conservative (well they are Salafis after all) in their communication instead of empowering its followers through the use of official media centres. On this point, Ahmed Al Hamdan is correct.

In summary, as the Islamic State challenged al-Qaida neither Zawahiri nor his organisation were prepared to counter the aggressiveness of its renegade affiliate. Baffled by the context where it found itself abandoned by its media foundations and its followers, al-Qaida was left in the backseat. But the tide is changing. The Islamic State has less and less to brag about, while Zawahiri is taking the position of the old wise man, who is following a long-term strategy, slowly attracting public support and taking back followers from the Islamic State. This is evident from the number of piblic statements from the two organisations’ leaders. While statements from Baghdadi or Adnani (before his death) have become increasingly rare, Zawahiri has released two series of speeches (first “the Islamic Spring” series followed by “Brief Messages to a Supported Ummah”) recently, giving the impression that he is now once again the main authority within the Global Jihadi movement.

UPDATE: Ahmed Al Hamdan responds to analysis and elaborates on the role of the Jihadi media

The release “Remaining in Iraq and Sham” by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi had been previously published by the Islamic State independently, and it is capable of spreading its material quickly and directly. And this is different to the one who has committed himself to method of publishing specifically through Al Fajr Centre. So if this person wants to change his policy it will take him a long time to search for alternative means and he must increase his security before replacing the method of publication. Those who sympathised with the State within Al Fajr Centre took advantage of the fact that the centre was the only source for spreading the material of Al Qaeda to delay or even prevent the arrival of communications between the different branches of Al Qaeda concerning the matter of the Islamic State. And I will give some examples:

The brother Abu Umar al Najdi is a Mujahid from Yemen who wrote under the name “The loyal companion” on twitter and was recommended by the other Mujahideen from Yemen who were present on twitter, for example “Mohamed al Malaki” who is one of the Mujahideen who had previously been in Afghanistan and then went to Yemen. This person published a confidential letter which had been sent from a veteran leader of Al Qaeda who was present in Syria i.e. Muhsin Al Fadli, to the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He said in it:

Attached with this letter is the letter of Shaykh Abu Khalid al Suri, may Allah accept him, which he sent to Dr. Ayman during the first day of the Fitna, also the statements and the claims of both Al Nusra and The State [IS] which I have previously sent to Dr. Ayman, may Allah protect him, and the audio message of Al Jawlani clarifying the causes of the problem and also the audio witness testimony of (…..) and Abu Azeez al Qatari. And for your information I have sent it to you again despite having sent it before through (…..) who is the representative of the leader of Al Fajr Centre – I sent it to you again to make sure that it would reach you.

Abu Umar al Najdi said, commenting in the margin of this letter about the text:

The attachments and testimonies which the writer of the letter sent at the beginning of the Fitna of the State by way of Al Fajr Centre, never arrived to Shaykh Abu Baseer [Wuhayshi] and only arrived with this letter. And he warned everyone to be careful in dealing with Al Fajr Centre and there are suspicious and frightening dealings which did not come from new members, rather from the senior members within the centre. And Allahs refuge is sought.

This explains why the branch in Yemen stopped publishing articles through al Fajr Centre and instead began publishing through their own representative “Abdullah Mujahid”

So, if the Islamic State had not been able to publish their material in any way other than through Al Fajr Centre and despite that the Centre did not publish their material, then at that time we would be able to have doubt and ask if it was true that those people were really sympathetic to the State?

Interestingly, my opinion matches his opinion regarding the reason why fighters went over into the ranks of the Islamic State. And look what this leader said to Abu Baseer:

Now the third generation of the Mujahideen are influenced by the thinking of the State and this is due to a number of reasons, including the strength of the State media, another reason being the silence of the leaders of Al Qaeda and the absence of clarifying the methodological mistakes of the State, making the youth of the Nation go to them and here the Nation has lost out by the silence of the Jihadi movement about these errors. And may Allah reward you with good for publishing the statement of Shaykh Harith al Nadhari as it clarified and made plain many rulings, however while we have now spoken of the reality, it has unfortunately come too late. And why did you not previously speak out and clarify the ruling about the fake Khilafah of Al Baghdadi. This is necessary for us to restore the confidence of the rational, confident and self-assured youth of the Ummah in Al Qaeda, so don’t postpose the speech beyond its time in order to take a neutral position as this policy is no longer going to work in the face of the behaviour and folly of the state.

Has al-Maqdisi Softened on the Islamic State?

Cole Bunzel May 11, 2016

Two months ago, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the leading Jihadi-Salafi scholar known for his fierce opposition to the Islamic State and support for al-Qaida, released an essay that was widely interpreted as a softening of his position toward the Islamic State. As Hassan Hassan recently pointed out, al-Maqdisi has made other pronouncements of late that would seem to point in the same direction, including a December 2015 tweet in which he said: “There is nothing to stop me from reassessing my position towards the [Islamic] State and enraging the entire world by supporting it…”

But is al-Maqdisi really ready to reassess his position? The answer is no, though he has added a little nuance and hope to it over the past year. In the same tweet, al-Maqdisi conditioned his potential reassessment on “the Islamic State reassessing its position toward excommunicating, killing, and slandering those Muslims who oppose it.” He knows that this is not in the offing.

Al-Maqdisi has actually always been a bit softer on the Islamic State than some of his peers in the jihadi scholarly community. The differences between them and himself come out clearly in his most recent essay, but have actually been on display in his writings for almost a year now. The differences center on two key questions: Should the Islamic State be considered a group of Kharijites (in reference to the radical early Islamic sect by that name)? And should it be fought proactively or only in self-defense? Al-Maqdisi is against labeling them as Kharijites, and he is against fighting them proactively. It is a position with potential implications for the future unity of the Jihadi-Salafi movement—or so he would like to think.

Four scholars and a fatwa

In assessing al-Maqdisi’s position, it is helpful to view him in the company of three other jihadi scholars of like mind, age, and stature: Abu Qatada al-Filastini (b. 1960), Hani al-Siba‘i (b. 1961), and Tariq ‘Abd al-Halim (b. 1948). Like al-Maqdisi (b. 1959), Abu Qatada is of Palestinian origin and lives openly in Jordan; al-Siba‘i and ‘Abd al-Halim are Egyptians living openly in London and Canada, respectively. In September 2015, in the first installment of his (very boring) six-part audio series on “the Islamic Spring,” al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri singled out these four for praise, describing them as strong supporters of al-Qaida amid the controversy surrounding the Islamic State. Yet while Zawahiri lauded these “scholars of jihad” for remaining “steadfast upon the truth,” they were not all on the same message when it came to confronting the so-called caliphate.

The differences between them began to surface in the aftermath of a fatwa issued jointly by al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada, and several others in early June 2015. Al-Maqdisi had already, a year earlier, denounced the Islamic State as a “deviant” group that should be abandoned in favor of al-Qaida. This fatwa was his first public statement on the permissibility of fighting the group. It was prompted by the Islamic State’s assault on certain Syrian Islamist groups in the Suran area of Hama, Syria. Describing the Islamic State as “the Baghdadi-ists” (al-Baghdadiyyin), it authorized repelling their assault on the grounds that doing so was legitimate “defense of the assault of those assailing Muslim lands.” Whether the assailants were Muslim or not was beside the point, the fatwa stated. The Islamic State was oppressive, aggressive, and flawed in methodology.

For al-Siba‘i and ‘Abd al-Halim, however, the fatwa did not go nearly far enough in condemning the Islamic State. Responding on social media, the two Egyptians decried the term “Baghdadi-ists”—a weak insult and an offense to Baghdad—and called for a more proactive approach. Al-Siba‘i wrote that fighting the Islamic State should not be limited by the principles of defensive warfare, as this would all but ensure further aggression by the group. Its fighters would retreat to safety only to return once again “to cut off heads and blow things up in homes, mosques, and markets.” ‘Abd al-Halim made the same argument, adding that the Islamic State should be fought so as “to root them out” and that its members ought to be described as Kharijites. The spat attracted some media attention, with one site making a collage of the four scholars.

Resisting the Kharijite label

The battle lines seemed clear enough. Al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada were on one side, al-Siba‘i and ‘Abd al-Halim on the other. But there was also a minor difference between al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada concerning the appropriateness of pronouncing the Islamic State Kharijites. Al-Maqdisi refrained from doing so, while Abu Qatada did so liberally. The difference, however, as both have admitted, was only surface deep.

In late June 2015, following the jointly issued fatwa, Abu Qatada issued another fatwa on the same subject, which al-Maqdisi endorsed. Titled “A Fatwa Concerning Defending Against the Assault of the Kharijites,” it came in response to some Libyan questioners facing a conundrum. Jihadis themselves who were fighting the Islamic State, they had qualms about wishing ill on the “the Kharijites” (i.e., the Islamic State) when they came under aerial attack by the forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, leader of one side in Libya’s civil war. Abu Qatada assured his correspondents that their wishes were appropriate, but he reminded them that these “Kharijites” were still preferable to the “apostates” constituting Haftar’s forces. He clarified that by “Kharijites” he did not mean all those fighting on behalf of the Islamic State, but only “its leaders, commanders, and overseers.”

As his endorsement indicates, al-Maqdisi’s views were the same. But he resisted using the Kharijite label even with Abu Qatada’s qualification.

In a short essay written about the same time as Abu Qatada’s fatwa, titled “Why Have I Not Called Them Kharijites Even Till Now?” al-Maqdisi explains his reasoning. He begins by noting that many jihadis who oppose the Islamic State, which he describes as “the State Group” (Jama‘at al-Dawla), have lambasted him for refusing to use the Kharijite label. Some have even purportedly told him “that many men and scholars have temporized in fighting them, using the fact that I do not call them Kharijites as evidence.” But al-Maqdisi says it is wrong for anyone to see in his reluctance to use the term any indication of “praise or accommodation.” For, he affirms, some of the group’s members are “worse than Kharijites.” To illustrate the point, he relates part of the story of his attempted negotiation with the Islamic State for the life of the Jordanian pilot Mu‘adh al-Kasasiba, who was immolated in a well-known video released in February 2015. That the negotiation was a hoax dawned on al-Maqdisi when the group sent him a password-protected file containing the video, the password being “al-Maqdisi the cuckold…” (This confirms the Guardian report with similar details.) Al-Maqdisi holds Islamic State leaders Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani personally responsible for the slight. They are Kharijites through-and-through.

Yet for al-Maqdisi, the fact remains that not all of the Islamic State’s members are Kharijites. He does not fault Abu Qatada for using the label with qualification, but he will not use it himself since “most people do not know and do not understand this qualification.” The Kharijite label might lead people to fight the Islamic State “in order to root them out,” which would only serve “the interests of the idolatrous rulers,” the West, and the Shia. One must, he says, still hope that the Islamic State prevails against these enemies, notwithstanding its deviations. One cannot “support the apostates against them.” He also suggests that declining to call the group Kharijites could help in reaching out to certain of its fighters and in encouraging them to repent.

Not to be rooted out

In mid-March 2016, al-Maqdisi released the essay mentioned at the top of this post. It is mostly an extended justification of his position toward the Islamic State. He notes that “most of [the Islamic State’s] enemies” find his position “oppressive” but that he is going to stick to his guns, defending “the State Group” against the charge of Kharijism and criticizing those who fight it “in order to root it out.” According to his own account, al-Maqdisi delayed releasing the essay several times lest it appear at a “bad time” and be interpreted as justifying the Islamic State’s crimes. But with many in the Syrian opposition cooperating with the West and Turkey to fight the group, even accepting Western arms and directing the airstrikes of the U.S.-led coalition, he decided the time was finally right. The Islamic State, for all its faults, is still in al-Maqdisi’s opinion preferable to groups fighting on behalf of democracy—a form of polytheism in his opinion—and seeking the help of nonbelievers against Muslims—the Islamic State’s members still being Muslims in his view.

Al-Maqdisi reiterates his view that the Islamic State is not to a man a group of Kharijites, and argues that, even if it were, this is irrelevant. For even the Kharijites were still Muslims, he says, claiming the support of the majority view of Sunni Muslim scholars throughout history.

What has upset him in particular is the use—or misuse—by certain opposition groups in Syria of two Islamic texts concerning the Kharijites. The first is a statement attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, who says of the Kharijites that “if I could reach them, I would kill them as the the ‘Adites were killed.” The ‘Adites, as described in the Qur’an, were a recalcitrant Arabian tribe who rejected the preaching of the Prophet Hud, one of Muhammad’s prophetic predecessors. The importance of Muhammad’s statement lies in its suggestion that he would fight the Kharijites aggressively, not just in self-defense. The second text is a fatwa to the same effect by Ibn Taymiyya, the fourteenth-century Hanbali scholar from Syria whose writings form the theological backbone of Salafism. Ibn Taymiyya describes the Kharijites as worse than mere political “rebels,” ruling that they should be pursued until destroyed. Both texts thus suggest a “rooting out” approach to the Kharijites.

Al-Maqdisi argues that such texts are inapplicable to the case of the Islamic State. He rejects the comparison of the group with the early Kharijites for the reason that the Islamic State has good intentions—indeed better intentions than many of its opponents in the Syrian theater—while the early Kharijites did not. In his view the Islamic State is seeking, however misguidedly, to implement God’s law, and so possesses “an exculpatory interpretation” (ta’wil). This is in contrast with the early Kharijites, who rebelled against God’s law.

Al-Maqdisi also expresses hope that the Islamic State can reform itself, noting the potential for more moderate elements in the group to take over. “I know,” he says, “as the Shaykh [Abu Qatada al-Filastini] knows, that in the [Islamic] State are those who oppose al-‘Adnani and even hope that he and those extremists like him will fade.”

As was to be expected, the Islamic State’s opponents censured al-Maqdisi for allegedly softening his position toward it. In early April, he responded with a statement printed in the Jordanian press, avowing that he had not changed his mind at all: he still condemns the Islamic State’s actions in terms of spilling Muslim blood and believes that Muslims should fight it in self-defense.

An eternal olive branch

In considering al-Maqdisi’s hopeful outlook, one should recall just how wrong he has been about the Islamic State before. In early 2014, he thought he could bring about a reconciliation between the Islamic State and al-Qaida. He wrote to al-Baghdadi and one of his chief religious authorities, Turki al-Bin‘ali, only to be spurned. A year later, he was duped by the group for a whole month into thinking he was negotiating for the pilot al-Kasasiba, only to be spurned again. His read on the Islamic State does not appear to be very good. The optimist in him cannot help but ceaselessly extend the olive branch.

It is also important to note that al-Maqdisi has failed to set the tone of al-Qaida’s messaging vis-à-vis the Islamic State. Just this week, Ayman al-Zawahiri deployed the Kharijite label against the group for the first time, describing it as “neo-Kharijites.” Zawahiri still called for unity among jihadis in the face of the “crusader” aggression, but the hardening of his rhetoric seems at odds with al-Maqdisi’s more hopeful expressions. The Syrian al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, meanwhile, has long referred to the Islamic State as Kharijites, even using the Prophet’s statement about the ‘Adites. The jihadi civil war is nowhere near over.

Battlefield Yemen: The Islamic State’s Challenge to AQAP

Cole Bunzel December 12, 2014

Since the caliphate declaration of late June 2014, Yemen has emerged a key battleground in the intra-jihadi struggle pitting the Islamic State against al-Qaeda. The country hosts what is arguably al-Qaeda’s most prestigious affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). But as far as the Islamic State is concerned, that organization ceased to exist when the caliphate was declared. Thereafter all jihadi groups were expected to dissolve themselves and incorporate within the all-supreme caliphate.

Preemptive bay‘a

In mid-November, the Islamic State, driving home this point, officially declared its “expansion” to Yemen, among other target countries, proclaiming “the dissolution of the names of the groups in them and declaring them to be new provinces of the Islamic State.” A series of bay‘as— statements of allegiance to Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—were issued simultaneously on November 10 from Yemen, Arabia, Egypt, Libya, and Algeria. Three days later, Baghdadi “accepted” the pledges, conferring on the new territories the status of “provinces.” In two of the countries—Egypt and Algeria—the bay‘as came from preexisting jihadi groups known for their ties to the Islamic State. But in Yemen the statement of allegiance came not from that country’s well-established jihadi group—AQAP—but rather as a challenge to it.

Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, as Saud al-Sarhan has detailed in an important new study, is deeply divided over which side in the jihadi civil war to support: the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. Previously, the group had tried to adopt a more-or-less neutral stance. But the bay‘a, apparently calculated to force AQAP’s hand, compelled it to choose sides. And it definitively chose al-Qaeda. Predictably, pro-Islamic State jihadis online are outraged. The pro-Islamic State Yemeni community, however, has been more nuanced in response.

Yemen’s Islamic State supporters

As Sarhan noted, the two most noteworthy Yemeni promoters of the Islamic State are ‘Abd al-Majid al-Hittari (@alheetari), an independent preacher, and Ma’mun Hatim (@sdsg1210), an AQAP scholar. Both were early supporters of the Islamic State when its conflict with al-Qaeda heated up in late 2013, and both lent their imprimaturs to the Ghuraba’ Media Foundation’s February “Statement of Brotherhood in Faith for Support of the Islamic State.” Signed by 20 jihadi scholars, this called on all Muslims fighting in Syria to give bay‘a to Baghdadi, and on all Muslims across the world to support the Islamic State.

Both Hittari and Hatim were likewise supportive of the Islamic State’s declaration of the caliphate on June 29, 2014. Hittari wrote an essay in its favor, telling Baghdadi he would “urge the Muslims [of Yemen] to prepare to obey you.” Hittari furthermore endorsed Baghdadi’s decision upon declaring the caliphate to dissolve all competing jihadi groups across the world. As the caliphate declaration had noted, “the legitimacy of your groups and organizations is void.” Concurring, Hittari told Baghdadi: “I believe that your dissolution of the Islamic groups is a successful step on the path to uniting the Muslim community around its state and its emir.”

Hatim, for his part, congratulated those who “made the dream [of the caliphate] a reality.” And in mid-June he also gave his support to the strategy of dissolving other groups. In a long audio recording online he addressed “my brothers in the branches of al-Qaeda, in all countries and regions and lands,” urging them to unite within the Islamic State, which would be “the first of your steps toward [achieving] victory and political capability.” Ma’mun Hatim did not speak for the entire AQAP leadership, however.

Bay‘a for bay‘a

Unlike al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib, AQAP did not issue an early statement rejecting the Islamic State’s caliphate. Nor did it adopt the central al-Qaeda leadership’s dismissal of the Islamic State as a mere “group” as opposed to a “state.” AQAP sought to walk a neutral line. But the surprise bay‘a on November 10 changed that.

A week and a half later, in a video dated November 19, AQAP came out with its first significant refutation of the Islamic State, contesting its claim to have dissolved AQAP and to have founded a province in its stead. In a 30-minute address, senior AQAP scholar Harith al-Nizari reiterated his group’s desire for neutrality in the intra-jihadi conflict in Syria, urging all parties to consult an independent shari‘a court. But he denounced what he called the Islamic State’s effort to “export the fighting and discord [in Syria] to other fronts,” namely Yemen.

Two steps taken by the Islamic State were in particular disagreeable. The first was the caliphate declaration, which Nizari deemed illegitimate. Neither the proposed “caliphate” nor its “caliph,” he said, met the necessary conditions stipulated in the shari‘a. Furthermore, the time was not right for appointing an “imam,” or caliph. The second was the Islamic State’s more recent effort to eliminate AQAP via the preemptive bay‘a. “We call on our brothers in the Islamic State,” Nizari said, “to retract the fatwa to dissolve the groups and divide them…We consider them responsible for what could result…of the shedding of unlawful blood on the pretext of expansion and extending the authority of the state.”

Clarifying AQAP’s ultimate loyalties, Nizari defended Ayman al-Zawahiri’s al-Qaeda against charges of “deviation,” and he rejected the idea that AQAP could simply fold and gave bay‘a to the Islamic State as that would violate the terms of the group’s current bay‘a to al-Qaeda. He then reaffirmed his group’s loyalty to the al-Qaeda leadership: “We reject the call to split the ranks of the mujahid groups, and we renew the bay‘a to our commander, Shaykh Ayman al-Zawahiri, and, via him, the bay‘a to Mullah ‘Umar.” The nature of this latter bay‘a to Mullah ‘Umar was left unspecified, but it plays to al-Qaeda leaders’ recent efforts (see here and here) to cast the Taliban ruler in a caliphal role.

Refuting AQAP

Harith al-Nizari’s address was of course met with condemnation from pro-Islamic State writers online. Four scholarly refutations were quick to appear (see here, here, here, and here), all by pseudonymous authors. Three of them are prolific and well-known—Abu Khabbab al-‘Iraqi (@kbbaab), Abu Maysara al-Shami, and Abu l’-Mu‘tasim Khabbab (@abu_almuttasim). The latter’s refutation earned the endorsement of Hittari.

These pieces made several of the same points. First: AQAP’s pretense of neutrality is a sham, for there can be no neutrality. One is either on the side of “Divine Truth” (the Islamic State) or on that of “falsehood” (al-Qaeda). Second: Against Nizari’s claim to the contrary, the caliph and caliphate of the Islamic State no doubt meet the “conditions” mandated by Islamic law. On this matter AQAP is simply “lying” and deceiving; its leaders’ lust for power is preventing them from admitting what they surely know. Third: The Islamic State is no source of “discord”; rather it is the intransigence of groups like AQAP, which refuse to join the caliphate, that accounts for disunity. Fourth: AQAP’s claim to have a bay‘a to Mullah ‘Umar is incoherent. As one author points out: “Why is it OK for Mullah ‘Umar to gather bay‘as from territories in which he has no authority…while that is forbidden for Baghdadi?” And did not Nizari say that this is not the right time for appointing a caliph? If so, then how can he give Mullah ‘Umar bay‘a as putative caliph?

The anger and frustration in these refutations are apparent. Yet not all pro-Islamic State jihadis castigated Nizari so ardently. A prominent one of their number—a certain Abu ’l-Hasan al-Azdi—actually cautioned against attacking AQAP, urging measured argument. Responding to Abu Maysara al-Shami’s refutation, he said it would be wise not to antagonize jihadis who have yet to support the Islamic State; such argumentation only deepens the “chasm of the conflict.”

Dueling approaches in Yemen

In Yemen itself, the events of November drew different responses from the two main pro-Islamic State advocates there, ‘Abd al-Majid al-Hittari and Ma’mun Hatim. Each now represents a different way of being a pro-Islamic State jihadi in the country.

Hittari was unreservedly supportive of the Islamic State, applauding its “expansion” and condemning AQAP’s response. AQAP leader Nizari, he said, had failed to “comprehend the wisdom of the [current] stage [of jihad].” That is, the stage of the caliphate. One is either with it or against it. He encouraged the Islamic State to hold fast to its current strategy in Yemen.

Hatim was of a different mind. In a series of revealing Tweets, he argued that the Yemeni bay‘a to the Islamic State of November 10 was flawed. He did not denounce those who gave the bay‘a. Indeed, he revealed that he knows who they are: “the majority of them are among the best people I have known, and a large number of them are my students and brethren.” Nor did he reject the notion of the Islamic State’s expanding: “We are not opposed to the expansion of the [Islamic] State.” The problem was the means, not the ends: “We have to consider the correct and legitimate means for [achieving] its expansion.” In the present circumstances of Yemen, “the harmful consequences that will obtain from the bay‘a and the proclamation of a new group in one theater are many, many times greater than the desired benefit of that announcement and the division.” With regard to those circumstances, he spoke of “facing a fierce, multi-front war” in Yemen, referring to AQAP’s battles with the Yemeni government, the Houthi Shi‘a movement, and the United States.

From Hatim’s perspective, there are two ways to support the Islamic State in Yemen. “We,” he said, referring to pro-Islamic State jihadis, “are before two choices. Either we rush the bay‘a, meaning division, separation, weakness, and failure, or we act patiently in the coming days, ensuring that opponents’ understanding is rectified and their views clarified.” What Hatim wants—“what we strove for and called for”—is “a group bay‘a,” meaning a bay‘a given by AQAP to the Islamic State, not one meant to undermine the group. But that has yet to materialize. Aspiring to such an outcome, however, remains in his view a better option than fragmenting Yemen’s jihadis.

Some jihadis online have faulted Hatim’s siding with AQAP. As one representative critic stated, “maybe war”—not patience—“is the inevitable treatment for the ailment.” But at least one major pro-Islamic State jihadi online, Abu Khabbab al-‘Iraqi, defended the Yemeni to a degree. Hatim should be reproved for “his hesitation to give bay‘a to the Islamic State and come under its banner,” he said, but this should be done as to a “loved one,” not an enemy.

The Yemeni third way

There would thus appear to be a bit more flexibility on the part of pro-Islamic State jihadi ideologues when it comes to Yemen as opposed to elsewhere. At least two of these—Abu ’l-Hasan al-Azdi and Abu Khabbab al-‘Iraqi—have told their peers to tone it down in criticizing those Yemenis reluctant to join the caliphate. This is a flexibility hitherto absent from pro-Islamic State jihadi discourse, which has previously shown no tolerance for any kind of neutrality. It is as yet unclear whether the Islamic State’s new Yemeni “province” will really compete with AQAP. But it seems likely that any confrontation will be significantly delayed by Hatim’s staking out of a plausible Yemeni third way.

A Jihadi Civil War of Words: The Ghuraba’ Media Foundation and Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad

Cole Bunzel October 21, 2014

Amid the ongoing conflict between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, jihadi ideologues and media appear more divided than ever before. Notwithstanding U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria that some thought could unite jihadi ranks, the jihadi civil war is raging on unabated, and nowhere more so than on the ideological and media front. Among more traditional media, it is now the norm for jihadi web forums to identify—even openly—with one belligerent or the other. Some forums, such as Platform Media and Tahaddi, promote the Islamic State, with Shumukh more or less also on board; Fida’ and ‘Arin, among others, clearly favor al-Qaeda.

Yet the real jihadi battle of wits is not being waged on or between the forums. The ideological battlefield is defined, rather, by a number of upstart media outlets on Twitter supportive of the Islamic State, on the one side, and a few established websites of older jihadi scholars supporting al-Qaeda, on the other. Among the mass of competitors are two most worthy of attention. These are Mu’assasat al-Ghuraba’ lil-I‘lam (“The Ghuraba’ Media Foundation”), a pro-Islamic State Twitter outlet, and Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad (“The Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad”), a pro-al-Qaeda website overseen by the Jordanian jihadi Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.

The Newcomer and the old-timer

The competition between the Ghuraba Media Foundation and Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad (hereafter Ghuraba’ and Minbar, respectively) is very much one between new media and old. It highlights the generally more youthful profile of Islamic State supporters contra their more senior, pro-al-Qaeda counterparts.

Minbar (www.tawhed.ws) was founded in or around 2002 by al-Maqdisi (b. 1959), arguably the most well-known jihadi scholar alive. It features the largest online library of jihadi books, essays, fatwas, and audio recordings, and is further known for its “Shari‘a Council” of select scholars who respond to queries from visitors on a range of subjects, including jihad. Like other questionable Arabic websites, its domain name is registered in Samoa (.ws). Minbar does not regularly partake in social media.

The newcomer, Ghuraba’, has a completely different modus operandi, relying instead on social media and free upload sites. Founded in late 2013, it is largely a Twitter phenomenon, having started with the handle @alghuraba_ar. While Twitter’s censors routinely delete it, the outfit quickly reappears at each inconvenience, simply adding a number to its handle. (It is currently @alghuraba_ar04.) To create more permanent links to its files, Ghuraba’ relies on websites like justpaste.it, and for storage it uses sites such as gulfup.com and sendspace.com. Every week Ghuraba’ publishes, in slick PDF documents, multiple essays and books, most of which are devoted to defending the Islamic State against its detractors. Its growing archive of writings (for the moment available here) is becoming a rival, however modest, to Minbar’s jihadi library. The authors it regularly features have likewise become something of a rival to Minbar’s Shari‘a council.

Shari‘a councils of war

On August 16, 2014, Minbar unveiled a new lineup for its relaunched Shari‘a council, defunct since September 2013. The two men last writing for it, Abu al-Mundhir al-Shinqiti and Turki al-Bin‘ali, had adopted a pro-Islamic State position and, it appears, left their posts on the council. These two had also written lengthy works in favor of the Islamic State, subsequently removed by Minbar. By late 2013 Minbar was evidently censoring all pro-Islamic State writings, and Ghuraba’ began publishing the works of Shinqiti and Bin‘ali.

The new Shari‘a council has displayed Minbar’s now well-known bias for al-Qaeda and animus toward the Islamic State. Among the five new members is Sami al-‘Uraydi (b. 1973; @sami_oride), a Jordanian currently serving as a shari‘a official with the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. Another is one ‘Abdallah ibn Ahmad al-Bun al-Husayni, a man of uncertain identity who describes himself as “one of Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s students.” His first efforts for Minbar were devoted to attacking, in a long refutation, three pro-Islamic State scholars: Turki al-Bin‘ali, Abu Khabab al-‘Iraqi, and ‘Umar Mahdi Zaydan, the former two being regular contributors to Ghuraba’. In large measure, this is a shari‘a council of war.

Ghuraba’, for its part, does not have an official shari‘a council but does host a coterie of regular contributors with essentially the same function. Among the more prominent of these writers are two Mauritanians (Abu ‘Ubayda al-Shinqiti and Abu Salama al-Shinqiti), an Iraqi (Abu Khabab al-‘Iraqi), a Moroccan (Zakariya’ Bu Gharara), a Sudanese (Musa‘id ibn Bashir, recently arrested), and several others of unidentifiable origin (Abu Mus‘ab al-Athari, ‘Ubayda al-Athbaji, Abu Bara’a al-Sayf, and “Ahlam al-Nasr,” described as “the Islamic State’s poetess,” among others).

Bin‘ali, a Bahraini now residing in the Islamic State, was also a prolific contributor to Ghuraba’ before his abrupt disengagement from the internet in July. His one-time ally Abu al-Mundhir al-Shinqiti, a Mauritanian (not to be confused with the other Mauritanian Shinqitis), is another story. Last summer he emerged after a months-long absence to announce his sudden opposition to the Islamic State after previously supporting it, becoming the subject of a heated exchange between Ghuraba’ and Minbar.

Mutual recriminations

The origin of this dispute was an open letter of support for the Islamic State issued by Ghuraba’ in February of last year (for the outfit’s own English translation, see here). Called “The Statement of Brotherhood in Faith for Support of the Islamic State,” it was signed by twenty jihadi shaykhs including Shinqiti, whose name came first. The letter called on all Sunni fighters in Iraq and Syria to give fealty (bay‘a) to the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—an implicit attack on al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra. The thrust of the statement certainly fit with Shinqiti’s pro-Islamic State views, which Ghuraba’ had previously published (see here, here, and here).

In mid-July, following the caliphate declaration, Shinqiti suddenly reversed his position, coming out with a fatwa denouncing the Islamic State’s caliphal claim and waxing critical of the group. (While he himself has not acknowledged any reversal, al-Maqdisi has made clear that Shinqiti indeed “reviewed his opinion and corrected his stance.”) In line with this development, Minbar issued a statement on its homepage in late July with the news that Shinqiti was disavowing Ghuraba’s “Statement of Brotherhood in Faith.” Controversially, Minbar furthermore claimed that Ghuraba’ never consulted Shinqiti as to including his name on the “Statement.”

The same day, Ghuraba’ responded with a series of tweets affirming that Shinqiti had indeed been consulted and accusing Minbar of lying. The Ghuraba’ administrator cast this dispute as part a greater contest between Minbar and Ghuraba’:

“It seems Maqdisi and his Minbar can no longer bear our undertaking to publish books and essays by scholars and shaykhs supporting the Islamic State…We in Ghuraba’ Media have opened our hearts and our foundation to the estranged (ghuraba’)* scholars and seekers of religious knowledge whom Maqdisi sought to silence and prevent from speaking the truth…Ghuraba’ Media has become a veritable alternative to Maqdisi’s Minbar, which for years has exercised a monopoly on media activity concerned with religious knowledge and shari‘a…”

The next day Minbar shot back, defending its reputation and integrity and explaining that Shinqiti himself had requested the disavowal. There followed a letter from Shinqiti, who restated his disavowal and attributed his five months of silence to “reasons of health and security.” Neither side has backed down in this dispute, continuing to accuse the other of lying.

Raging on

Over the next month Ghuraba’s unofficial shari‘a council came out with three short pieces (see here, here, and here) blasting Minbar and defending their foundation. One of these authors addressed Minbar thus: “Your battle with the Islamic State is surely a losing battle. So pick up your pens and ready your paper, for this is a battle that will endure, not expire…The Ghuraba’ Media Foundation has been and will remain the redoubtable fortress for defense of the truthful jihad warriors, as we deem them, of the Islamic State.” Indeed, this battle of pens has yet to let up. In late August one Minbar scholar put together a summa of the criticisms used to repudiate the Islamic State’s caliphate declaration; in mid-September a Ghuraba’ scholar responded with a point-by-point rebuttal.

It is worth remarking that Ghuraba’ is not the only media outfit of its kind. There is an array of jihadi media agencies on Twitter engaging in similar activities, including the Battar Media Foundation (@me_bttar), the Wafa’ Foundation for Media Production (@alwaf_aa), and the ‘A’isha Media Center (@MarkazAisha4), to name just a few. (It is all really too much to keep up with.) In August and September more than a dozen of these “foundations” and “centers” came together under the umbrella of “The Media Front In Support of the Islamic State,” an effort apparently interrupted by Twitter censorship. Ghuraba’ is not even the most prominent of these outfits, but it is by far the most significant in terms of rivaling the vaunted Minbar.

The civil war on display here between Ghuraba and Minbar is a microcosm of the greater jihadi civil war raging across the world and particularly in the greater Middle East. If jihadi ideologues and media are any measure of the state of affairs, it is a conflict that is set to endure—the long war beset with a long war of its own.

[*] The word ghuraba’, as in the media outlet’s name, means “estranged ones” or “strangers.” It derives significance from the following statement attributed to the Prophet Muhammad that is popular among Salafi Muslims: “Islam began as a stranger and will return as a stranger as it began, so blessed be the strangers.”

Al-Qaeda’s Top Scholar

Kévin Jackson September 25, 2014

If the Bahraini jihadi ideologue Turki al-Bin`ali personifies “the caliphate’s scholar-in-arms” for the Islamic State, one would find difficult to name a similar leading figure in al-Qa`ida’s ranks. Indeed, although most of the senior jihadi scholars sided with Ayman al-Zawahiri in his conflict with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, none of them actually belong to the organization. While the senior scholars certainly have longstanding ties to both al-Qa`ida’s leaders and rank and file and have been instrumental in furthering its agenda and that of its affiliates, they all remain independent from al-Zawahiri’s command.

With that said, al-Qa`ida has long strived to promote religious scholars in its ranks, such as Abu Yahya al-Libi and `Atiyyatullah al-Libi, who proved to be major influences in the militant landscape and in jihadi sympathizers’ circles. However, a sustained U.S. drone strikes campaign in Pakistan’s tribal areas removed these well-known heavyweights.

Over the remaining ideologues, the Palestinian Abu al-Walid al-Ghazi al-Ansari, also known as Abu al-Walid al-Filistini, represents the closest thing to a formal al-Qa`ida scholar today.

(more…)

What role does the Palestinian question play in global jihad?

Joas Wagemakers December 17, 2013

In policy circles as well as among both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian activists, the question of whether, how and why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict plays a role in al-Qaida’s global jihad is hotly debated. The reason for this is clear: pro-Israeli politicians and activists obviously don’t want to conclude that American support for Israel, for example, causes people to become jihadis fighting the US, while people with a more pro-Palestinian point of view are often keen to point out that there is a correlation between the two, presumably hoping for a more even-handed American approach towards the conflict.

Research

Despite the fact that this question has often come up in debates, suprisingly little research has been done on the connection between transnational or global jihad on the one hand and the Palestinian question on the other. To address this issue, Jihadica alumnus Thomas Hegghammer and yours truly have edited a special issue of the journal Die Welt des Islams about this subject. It includes several articles as well as extra documents that will surely be of interest to Jihadica readers.

In the first article, Thomas and I address the question of “The Palestine effect“: what role do Palestinians and the Palestinian question play among global jihadis? Are Palestinians overrepresented among al-Qaida members or not? What role have Palestinian played in the global jihadi movement since its beginning? How has the Palestinian question developed from one seemingly monopolised by Arab nationalists to a cause championed by global Islamists? Does Palestinian suffering serve as a recruitment tool for al-Qaida? You can read our answers here.

Palestinian Ideologues

The next four articles of our special issue are dedicated to one Palestinian jihad ideologue each. The first of these is written by Mark Sanagan, a PhD-candidate at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, on ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam. Mark’s article (“Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Martyr: Rethinking ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam“) deals with al-Qassam’s Palestinian identity during his lifetime (he was killed in 1935 by the British) and his Palestinian legacy thereafter. Click here to read this fascinating article.

Thomas has written an article about the second ideologue dealt with in this issue, ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam. As many readers of Jihadica will know, Thomas has done extensive research on this man’s life, which becomes quite clear in this article, in which he shows that ‘Azzam is probably the most Palestinian of the ideologues dealt with in this special issue. We’ll have to wait for Thomas’ book on ‘Azzam for some time, but while waiting his article – which you can read here – is a good alternative.

As befits someone who’s written a book and many articles about him already, I dedicated my paper to Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s Palestinian identity. While I have often heard (at conferences, sometimes during field work and even in peer review reports) that al-Maqdisi’s Palestinianness is quite important to him, no serious research has been done on this issue so far and the people saying this don’t always seem to know what they’re talking about either. Luckily, this has changed with the publication of my article, which you can read here.

Finally, Petter Nesser of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) in Oslo, Norway, has authored an article on the Palestinian identity of a radical ideologue who’s been in the news a lot lately: Abu Qatada al-Filastini. Although this man’s name actually means “the Palestinian”, thus suggesting that he may be quite aware (and perhaps even proud) of his national identity, Petter comes to some interesting conclusions about Abu Qatada’s loyalties and how he feels about his Palestinian background. You can read the article here.

Documents and Active Citation

One of the added features of our special issue of Die Welt des Islams is that we also included several translated documents that are related to the subject. Thomas has selected three texts by ‘Azzam about the Palestinian question (“The Defence of Muslim Lands“, “Hamas” and “Memories of Palestine“), which you can read here, here and here. I have chosen two texts by al-Maqdisi: one about his ideas on jihad and another on his criticism of Hamas (read them here and here). Petter added an interview with Abu Qatada and an article describing the latter’s explanation of why a jihad should be waged (see the full texts here and here). All of these documents help explain how these ideologues feel about the Palestinian question.

Finally, all authors of this issue have decided to engage in what is referred to as “Active Citation“. As many readers will know, the links to jihadi documents often break because websites are taken down. To prevent the publications to which we refer in the footnotes from disappearing or becoming hard to find, we have uploaded them to our dropboxes and have provided direct links to these documents. This is not only a sign of academic transparency, but it also ensures that readers will continue to be able to read these documents, even if the websites from which they originally came disappear. You can find the direct links to “The Palestine Effect” here and here. The direct links to Mark’s article on al-Qassam can be accessed here, while Thomas provides his links here. The links to the sources used in my article can be found here and Petter gives his here.

What all of this adds up to is a fascinating special issue of Die Welt des Islams on a subject that should be of interest to a broad spectrum of specialists, academics and policy makers. Anyone interested in global jihad, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and/or Islamist ideology cannot afford to miss it.

The Islamic State of Disobedience: al-Baghdadi Triumphant

Cole Bunzel October 5, 2013

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), the leading jihadi fighting force in northern Syria, is often described as “an al-Qaeda group.” Its historical ties to Ayman al-Zawahiri’s al-Qaeda Central (AQC) notwithstanding, this characterization is unhelpful and possibly misleading. The Islamic State, in its own conception, is no ordinary jihadi group; nor is it strictly beholden to al-Qaeda as such. Describing ISIS in this way, moreover, overlooks the dramatic rupture that has set in between the Islamic State and AQC over the past several months.

Today ISIS persists in a state of outright disobedience to its supposed seniors in AQC, Zawahiri among them. The following examines both the extent of this state of disobedience and the nature of the Islamic State itself that has given rise to it.

Anguished forums

Shumukh al-Islam, al-Qaeda’s semi-official online forum, signaled alarm last week over enduring tensions between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), the al-Qaeda-aligned jihadi group in Syria that al-Baghdadi secretly organized in summer 2011 but now pledges allegiance (bay‘a) exclusively to Zawahiri. Evidently, ISIS and JN are engaged in a war for influence on the jihadi internet. In its very first Tweet, @shomokhalislam complained of being caught in the middle of this fight dividing the jihadi community: staunch supporters of ISIS and JN issuing demands to the forum to censor and delete rival content. Shumukh vowed to maintain a neutral stance in the dispute and, in the spirit of jihadi unity, threatened to terminate the account of any user casting aspersions on one side or the other. For more positive encouragement, it posted a doctored photo of JN and ISIS fighters standing together beside the caption, “Hand in hand…brothers in faith and religion.”

The Shumukh statement and threat owe much to the recent ascendancy in the Syrian jihad of ISIS and its much-vaunted emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi and Joas Wagemakers recently noted the increasing level of jihadi support for al-Baghdadi, in both public displays of support worldwide and in jihadi ideological production (see here and here). All this reflects an intra-jihadi conflict opposing ISIS to both JN and AQC. While Syria’s jihadis on the ground may have achieved a modus vivendi in many areas (JN and ISIS fighters have been filmed playing tug-of-war in Aleppo), tensions in jihadi media remain pronounced.

A case decided

The Shumukh administrators are not the first jihadis to try to mediate the ISIS-JN dispute. To remind readers, this dispute broke out in April last year when al-Baghdadi, emir of the then-Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), declared JN to be a mere “extension” of ISI and henceforward dissolved. Simultaneously, he extended the Islamic State’s writ to Sham, or greater Syria, thus begetting the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). When JN’s leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, rejected al-Baghdadi’s instruction to disband, Ayman al-Zawahiri stepped into the fray to “decide the case.”

In late May he issued a written directive, leaked to al-Jazeera, pronouncing against al-Baghdadi. The AQC emir annulled the Islamic State’s incorporation of Syria, ordering ISI and JN to remain separate entities observing separate jurisdictions—Iraq and Syria respectively.

Zawahiri, however, had overestimated the weight of his authority. From the Islamic State’s perspective, it was he, and not al-Baghdadi, who had overstepped his bounds.

2549 days and counting

The first thing one sees on many jihadi web forums (www.shamikh1.info/vb, www.alfidaa.org/vb/, www.alplatformmedia.com/vb/, among others) is a banner marking time passed since the Islamic State’s founding in 2006. Today the banner reads: “2549 days have passed since the announcement of the Islamic State and the umma’s forthcoming hope…and it will continue to persist by the will of God.” The symbolic centrality of the Islamic State across jihadi media goes some way in explaining the current outlook of the Islamic State qua a state—not a group—and its wide appeal among jihadis.

While it began as a purely Iraqi entity—announced on October 15, 2006 by a “council” of eight jihadi groups including the infamous al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia—the Islamic State has since its very beginning entertained a vision of limitless territorial expansion. In its founding statement, the state’s anonymous spokesman claimed to draw inspiration from the model of the original Islamic State (al-dawla al-islamiyya) founded in 622 by the Prophet Muhammad in Medina, whence it became the capital of the caliphate and global Islamic empire.

This prophetic model has been a standard feature of the Islamic State’s propaganda and intellectual production. A 90-page document from 2006 explaining the state’s raison d’être, authored by a member of ISI’s Shari‘a Council, likewise portrayed ISI as “the new Islamic state”: “This state of Islam has arisen anew to strike down its roots in the region, as was the religion’s past one of strength and glory.” As to its claimed jurisdiction, the author wrote: “There exists no legal proof-text from the Qur’an or sunna stipulating a decreed limit to the territorial expanse on which the Islamic state ought to be erected.”

Zawahiri, for his part, spoke similarly of the Islamic State’s unique role as the proto-caliphate. In a 2009 question-and-answer forum he stated: “The State [i.e., ISI] is a step on the path to establishing the caliphate. It is superior to mujahid groups. These organizations [in Iraq] must give allegiance to the State, not vice versa.”

Problem child

Beyond public pronouncements, AQC and ISI do not seem to have ever enjoyed happy relations. The Abbottabad documents in fact indicate that AQC never approved of the Islamic State’s establishment and that a leadership-to-leadership relationship hardly ever existed. This is at least according to American al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, who in 2011 recommended that al-Qaeda publicly “sever its ties with the Islamic State of Iraq.” Gadahn feared that ISI’s engagement in sectarian violence had tarnished al-Qaeda’s reputation.

While AQC leaders did not follow his advice, ties between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were indeed to become practically severed—on the initiative, however, of the Islamic State.

Rupture

Some three weeks following Zawahiri’s leaked decree, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who in mid-2010 succeeded Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi as emir of the Islamic State with the latter’s death in an American bombing, signaled the rupture with AQC. In a seven-minute audio statement issued June 15, al-Baghdadi decried “the document attributed to Shaykh Ayman al-Zawahiri.” He declared defiantly: “The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham shall endure, so long as we have a vein that pulses and an eye that bats.” He added, in a nod to its expansionist nature, that “[the Islamic State] shall not retreat from any spot of land to which it has expanded, and it shall not diminish after enlarging.” Zawahiri’s was a “command at variance with the command of God,” unacceptable on account of “numerous legal and methodological objections.” The decision to defy Zawahiri, he said, was made not by him alone but rather in consultation with the Islamic State’s Shura Council and in accordance with the ruling of its Shari‘a Council.

Al-Baghdadi was firm yet respectful in this rejoinder. It was left to another ISIS leader, Islamic State “official spokesman” Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani, a Syrian, to sharpen the tone.

Ayman who?

The Syrian al-‘Adnani, in a follow-up audio message to al-Baghdadi’s, denounced Zawahiri’s edict more aggressively and systematically. “No one,” he thundered, “will stop us from aiding our brethren in Syria! No one will stop us from fighting the ‘Alawis and waging jihad in Syria! No one will stop us from remaining in Syria! Iraq and Syria will remain one theater, one front, one command!” “Car bombs,” he threatened, “will strike the shi‘a (rawafid), from Diyala to Beirut…and we will repel the ‘Alawis and Hizballah.”

Al-‘Adnani elaborated on seven “objections” to Zawahiri’s order. First, it was an order to commit a sin (ma‘siya) in the form of dividing the ranks of the mujahidin: splitting a united fighting force into an Iraqi and a Syrian force and thus weakening the community. Second, it affirmed the Sykes-Picot division of the Arab Middle East into artificial nation-states like “Iraq” and “Syria,” a division without basis in Islam. Third, it validated those “disobedient renegades” in the JN leadership who split, unlawfully, from the Islamic State by withdrawing bay’a from al-Baghdadi. Fourth, it set a precedent for other factions within the Islamic State to branch off and declare their independence. Fifth, Zawahiri’s judgment was made without properly consulting either party to the dispute, not to mention that the JN leadership’s testimony would be invalid on account of their sinning. Sixth, JN’s public rejection of al-Baghdadi’s ISIS announcement had gratified the enemies of the mujahidin and divided the community; this was not on par with the error Zawahiri attributed to the Islamic State of mistiming the announcement of its expansion to Syria. Seventh, Zawahiri was demanding that the mujahidin and their leadership withdraw from Syria at a time when all the mujahidin in the world were trying to join the fight there—a senseless demand.

The Islamic State, it would appear, does not recognize—at least for the moment—the higher authority of AQC. On July 29, the seventh anniversary of the Islamic State’s founding according to the Islamic calendar, al-‘Adnani issued yet another audio address reaffirming its expansionist doctrine in contravention of Zawahiri’s decree. “Our objective,” he averred, “is the formation of an Islamic state on the prophetic model that acknowledges no boundaries, distinguishes not between Arab and non-Arab, easterner and westerner, but on the basis of piety. Its loyalty is exclusively to God: it relies on only Him and fears Him alone.”

Bay‘a for al-Baghdadi

Apart from repudiating Zawahiri, ISIS’s recent media efforts have focused on promoting bay‘a, or the pledge of allegiance, to al-Baghdadi. In large measure this seems aimed at discrediting JN’s al-Jawlani, but it is also a more general effort to attract new Islamic State loyalists. One example of the effort is a widely publicized nashid (religiously sanctioned chant or anthem) calling on listeners to “close ranks and give allegiance to al-Baghdadi,” described as “our emir of Iraq and Sham.” Another item of interest is a short essay by a Syrian ISIS member explaining to readers “why I chose the State,” and why they should too. In short, the reason is that its leader dealt a severe blow to the Sykes-Picot division of the Middle East by expanding to Syria and that his Islamic State has the momentum to carry it to Jerusalem.

Even greater effort in promoting bay‘a for al-Baghdadi has come from beyond ISIS’s media organs in the form of lengthy treatises by big-name jihadi scholars like the Jordanian Abu Humam al-Athari. Joas Wagemakers has detailed al-Athari’s arguments, which center on al-Baghdadi’s peerless credentials as a scholar and warrior. Two other jihadi scholars worth noting here are the Tunisian Abu Ja‘far al-Hattab, a member of the Shari‘a Council of Ansar al-Shari‘a in Tunisia, and the more anonymous Abu al-Hasan al-Azdi, who appears connected to the Shumukh forum.

In his treatise, al-Hattab discusses at length the institution of bay‘a in Islamic law as a prelude to declaring invalid any bay‘a directed to JN leader al-Jawlani. The thrust of the argument is that al-Baghdadi had received bay‘a first and so al-Jawlani was outside his prerogative in receiving a competing bay’a. Moreover, because al-Jawlani had originally pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi as a member of ISI, his retraction of that pledge constituted a betrayal and a “grave sin.” The only legitimate bay‘a can be to al-Baghdadi.

In “Obligations for Joining the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham: Objections and Responses,” al-Azdi also stresses the gravity of al-Jawlani’s withdrawal of bay’a from al-Baghdadi. He summarizes his support for al-Baghdadi in a number of points: his eminent qualifications as emir, the legal inadmissibility of giving additional bay‘as, and the Islamic State’s evident superior strength compared with mujahid groups. Finally, al-Azdi argues, even if al-Baghdadi erred in declaring the expansion of the Islamic State to Syria, that State had become a reality that must be accepted in light of the harm that multiple bay‘as in Syria would do to jihadi unity.

Al-Baghdadi triumphant

To be sure, there are jihadi ideologues who have supported JN or taken a more neutral stance on the ISIS-AQC-JN debacle. Journalist Hussein Jamo has identified some of them. The momentum, however, both material and intellectual, appears to favor the Islamic State, al-Baghdadi, and his contempt for Zawahiri’s effort to restrain him.

The sudden ascendancy of al-Baghdadi marks a signal achievement for the defiantly reborn Islamic State. Contrary to popular perceptions, this achievement is in no way a triumph for AQC but rather comes at its expense. Al-Baghdadi, the rising standard-bearer of the jihadi ideology traditionally undergirding al-Qaeda, appears for the moment the triumphant leader of something quite distinct from an “al-Qaeda group.”

Usama bin Laden Called Yunus Khalis “the Father Sheikh:” Weird But Possibly True

Kevin May 21, 2013

Many authors have tried to fill in the gaps in the historical account of how al-Qa’ida’s central leadership came to reside in Jalalabad for part of 1996, with mixed results. Yunus Khalis has become a fixture in these narratives largely because he was the best known person that Bin Laden interacted with in the summer after al-Qa’ida’s leadership fled Sudan for Nangarhar. For many authors, Khalis’s fame and prominence in the region combined with his known interactions with Bin Laden provide an adequate explanation: al-Qa’ida must have come to Nangarhar in 1996 because of the importance of the Khalis-Bin Laden relationship.

This is, of course, a vast oversimplification, and I hope that the report I recently published for West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center will go some way towards exposing the most obviously untenable parts of this narrative. But as part of the research for this monograph, I have also found a primary source which upholds what I had long believed to be the most unlikely component of the accepted account of al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan: the idea that Usama bin Laden called Yunus Khalis a father.

The biographical material on Yunus Khalis is extensive and appears to be growing relatively rapidly. Some of his biographers, like Haji Din Muhammad, are still aligned with the government in Kabul and so have clear reasons for downplaying the connections between Yunus Khalis and the erstwhile al-Qa’ida leader. Other biographers, like Puhnamal Ahmadzai, take a different approach by either ignoring the issue entirely or by actually playing up Khalis’s contact with Bin Laden for one political purpose or another. One of these latter biographers, ‘Abd al-Kabir Talai, states explicitly what has heretofore only been the subject of speculation and hearsay: that Usama bin Laden called Yunus Khalis “the Father Sheikh.”

Although this is so far the only known primary source that makes such an argument about the relationship between these two, Talai gives a clear and believable reason for why Usama bin Laden had such a warm view of Khalis. I encourage anyone interested in the specifics of this exchange to read my report, but for now I’ll simply say that apparently Bin Laden appreciated that Khalis was not a “fair weather friend.”

In any event, there was nothing particularly exceptional about someone calling Khalis by such a familiar name; the titles of two of his biographies refer to him as “Khalis Baba.” In Pashto and Persian “baba” can be either “papa,” “granddad,” or simply a term of respect for an older man, and it is entirely possible that Bin Laden was just following the practice of Khalis’s Pashtun friends by using this term of endearment.

Although I was frankly surprised to find a confirmation of this particular historical tidbit about Bin Laden’s fondness for Yunus Khalis in my primary source research, there are a number of excellent reasons to believe Old Man Khalis was peripheral to the growth of al-Qa’ida as a major terrorist organization. So far there is every indication that Yunus Khalis was dismissive of Bin Laden’s calls for jihad against the American presence in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. And in any event, by 1996 when the al-Qa’ida leadership returned to Afghanistan, Khalis was nearing the end of his productive working life. Although he remained engaged in attempts to promote negotiations between the Taliban movement and various mujahidin factions, he would soon be too ill to have much effect on the operations of groups like al-Qa’ida even if he had wanted to.

The exciting thing about discovering these kinds of historical nuggets in the biographical material of mujahidin leaders like Yunus Khalis is that it reminds us how little we still know about both Khalis and other, much more famous people like Usama bin Laden. And as more sources become available in print, I suspect that we can look forward to all kinds of unexpected adjustments to the current mujahidin myth cycle.

Abbottabad Documents

Will McCants May 3, 2012

The US government has released some of the documents it captured during its raid on Bin Laden’s compound. The documents have been released through West Point’s CTC, which has provided an excellent overview and hand list. Since the documents are being circulated in a .zip file, I thought it’d be useful to put them online in an easy-to-access format.

Date: Unknown, From: Unknown, To: Unknown (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000009]
Date: Unknown, From: Unknown, To: Unknown (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000017]
Date: Unknown, From: Unknown (probably Bin Laden or `Atiyya), To: Nasir al-Wuhayshi (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000016]
Date: 14 Sept 2006, From: Unknown, To: Bin Laden (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000018]
Date: Between 24 Oct and 22 Nov 2006, From: `Atiyya, To: Jaysh al-Islam (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000008]
Date: after Jan 2007, From: Unknown, To: `Atiyya (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000014]
Date: 28 Mar 2007, From: Unknown (an Egyptian), To: Hafiz Sultan (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000011]
Date: 11 June 2009, From: `Atiyya, To: Unknown (possibly Bin Laden) (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000012]
Date: late May 2010, From: Bin Laden, To: `Atiyya (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000019]
Date: 7 Aug 2010, From: Bin Laden, To: Mukhtar Abu al-Zubayr (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000005]
Date: 27 Aug 2010, From: Bin Laden, To: `Atiyya (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000003]
Date: 21 Oct 2010, From: Bin Laden, To: `Atiyya (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000015]
Date: 3 Dec 2010, From: `Atiyya and Abu Yahya al-Libi, To: Hakimullah Mahsud (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000007]
Date: Dec 2010, From: Unknown (possibly Zawahiri), To: Bin Laden (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000006]
Date: Late Jan 2011, From: Adam Gadahn, To: Unknown (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000004]
Date: 26 April 2011, From: Bin Laden, To: `Atiyya (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000010]
Date: Unknown (probably 2011), From: Unknown, To: Unknown (Eng) (Ar) [SOCOM-2012-0000013]

Al-Qaida Advises the Arab Spring: Egypt

Joas Wagemakers April 22, 2012

The number of jihadi publications on the Arab Spring is increasing dramatically as the months go by and my time has – as always – been very limited, hence my recent absence from Jihadica. I have several posts about al-Qaida’s advice to the Arab Spring lined up, however, including this one about Egypt.

Scepticism

When one thinks of Egypt and jihadis, the first person that comes to mind is probably Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Qaida’s leader has issued many a “letter of hope and good tidings to our people in Egypt” since the beginning of the Arab Spring and although that title may sound as if these epistles contain Christmas greetings to the country’s Coptic community, they offer nothing of the sort.

In part three of his series of letters to the Egyptian people, al-Zawahiri spends most of his time warning his countrymen about the supposedly evil intentions of the United States and their Arab henchmen (“the Arab Zionist rulers of injustice and betrayal”). The US, al-Zawahiri claims, conspires with the rulers of the Arab world to “wage war on Islam and its sharia”, expressed in banning the headscarf, spreading evil and besieging the people of Gaza. All of this happens, of course, under the guise of the “war on terrorism”, al-Zawahiri explains.

Such talk about strong ties between the US and Arab regimes sounds quite familiar, but al-Zawahiri needs it to make his point, which is that current events in Egypt are not going to give Egyptians what they really want: “These international powers and particularly the US”, al-Zawahiri writes, want to “change the old faces for new faces to deceive the people with some reforms and freedoms”. Such token gestures will give people the idea that things are changing but this will actually only serve “the interests of the world powers of arrogance and injustice”. Egypt, al-Zawahiri maintains, “will remain the basis of the Crusader attack and a founding partner in the American war on Islam”.

Al-Zawahiri thus offers nothing but the same old arguments. One could argue that his scepticism is somewhat understandable. Having grown up under the repressive regime of Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir (Nasser), whose revolution was als0 hailed as a liberation of Egypt at the time, having seen several Egyptian dictators come and go and having suffered from brutal torture in prisons in his own country, one could forgive him from not immediately jumping up and down with glee at seeing the first signs of a revolt. Al-Zawahiri has seen it all before and has been disappointed too many times to believe it all.

Agenda

There may be some truth to the above. Reading the fourth part of his series of letters to the Egyptian people, however, should convince anyone that al-Zawahiri is not so much a sceptic, but rather someone with his own agenda aimed at claiming credit for overthrowing Mubarak. In this letter, he repeats the same stuff mentioned above and then claims that “your mujahidun brothers are with you fighting the same enemy and confronting America and its Western allies that have made [Egyptian President] Husni Mubarak rule over you”. America, he says, is now trying to reverse its previous policy of supporting dictators and currently wants to co-operate with the people. This policy change, he claims, “only came as a direct result of the blessed raids in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania”.

So apparently the Arab Spring came about as a direct result of 9/11 and the US is now on the people’s side. Yet doesn’t that last bit clash with his earlier statement that the US only cares about token reforms and “changing the old faces for new faces” while retaining its own interests? Yes it does, and al-Zawahiri is therefore quick to point out that this revised US policy is something that “is not enough and does not satisfy any noble and free Muslim”. In a seemingly reassuring way, he adds that “your mujahidun brothers […] will continue to strike America and its partners and hurt them until they leave – with God’s permission – the lands of the Muslims and have had enough of supporting the tyrants in these countries”.

Al-Zawahiri pushes his own agenda a bit further by claiming that the problem with Egypt lies in the secularism of its state: “This was not the choice of the Egyptian people”, he states. “On the contrary, the Egyptian people have demanded and have repeated their demand numerous times to have the Islamic sharia as the source of laws and legislation so that Islam is the ruling system in Egypt.” This call for being ruled by Islamic law, al-Zawahiri claims, “is still and has been the demand of the overwhelming majority of the people of Egypt since the 1940s”.

Democracy

Al-Zawahiri’s reasoning is obviously meant to show that the US, by waging a “war on Islam” is going against the will of Egyptians but that he and al-Qaida are actually on the people’s side. In this sense, al-Zawahiri appears to be the real supporter of democracy. He quickly dispels this idea, however, since he explicitly rejects the “democracy that America wants for us, a special democracy for the Third World in general and the Islamic world in particular”. Such American-sponsored democracy, al-Zawahiri states, could be seen in Algeria, when that country cancelled elections in the early 1990s after they had been won by Islamists, or in Gaza, when the world refused to deal with Hamas after it had won elections there.

Al-Zawahiri does not just object to democracy because he associates it with injustice, however. He also claims it is an idol that is worshipped by its followers since they blindly follow what the majority wants, irrespective of what religion says. The majority thus becomes the object of worship instead of religion. As an alternative, the current Egyptian regime should leave and the country should be ruled by a pious, Islamic regime instead. The people will have the right to choose their leaders, al-Zawahiri claims, but obviously within the bounds of the sharia. The misery of the people should be ended, the West should be confronted and the oppression should be lifted “in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and every corner of the world of Islam”. Jihad should therefore be continued until this goal has been achieved.

Peaceful

Unlike al-Zawahiri, who basically extends his old ideas to the new situation created by the Arab Spring, the Syrian-British jihadi scholar Abu Basir al-Tartusi actually comes up with something new. As we saw in my previous two posts in this series (here and here), Abu Basir is much more nuanced and practical than the likes of al-Zawahiri in what he has to say about the Arab Spring and his advice to Egyptians is no exception.

In a response to questions about political participation by radical Islamists in Tunisia and Egypt, Abu Basir states that Muslim youngsters should ensure that any participation in Egyptian politics should be in accordance with the Qur’an and the Sunna as understood by the first three generations of Muslims (al-salaf al-salih). Establishing a political party is allowed, he says, but only if it does not fall into the trap of acting on behalf of party interests instead of those of the Muslim community as a whole. Such remarks may seem nothing special, but considering the widespread opposition to political participation among jihadis, such answers are quite remarkable.

Also worthy of note is Abu Basir’s advice to Egyptians to use peaceful methods, unlike al-Zawahiri who – as we have seen – actually calls for continued jihad. Abu Basir claims that the current circumstances in Egypt (and Tunisia) are dominated by freedom and tolerance and this calls for peaceful means, not violence. “As long as the conflict with others can be fought by words, communiqués and dialogue […] we don’t have to resort to violence”. Abu Basir gives three reasons for this: firstly, he says, there is no need for violence; secondly, Muslims are the strongest in using words “because they posses the strongest arguments”; and thirdly, he claims, a kind approach is more likely to be accepted by others and yield results.

Humanist

Abu Basir is by no means satisfied with the situation as it is in Egypt right now, but he states that at least everyone can agree that it is better than under the tyrants. Muslims should therefore make use of the possibilities that have opened up for them, as long as it accords with Islamic law. Interestingly, Abu Basir explicitly allows political acts of an executive or bureaucratic type and also believes that things that serve the people and society as a whole are permitted. He draws the line, however, at participating in legislation, since coming up with your own laws instead of leaving this to God is, in effect, polytheism by violating God’s absolute unity in the legislative sphere.

This latter bit is familiar ground for jihadis, but Abu Basir’s explicit endorsement of participation in other branches of politics than the legislative branch is quite astonishing. Without changing his earlier views, he reconsiders his beliefs in light of new circumstances and condemns only those things that he believes really need to be condemned, thereby going quite far in accommodating those Muslims who want to participate in politics after the Arab Spring. Abu Basir ends his epistle by saying: “Know that Islam has come for the protection of man and saving him. Its goal is man.” Although this remark should be read in the context of the rest of his epistle, whose contents do not differ all that much from what al-Zawahiri believes, the phrasing itself is quite different and almost makes Abu Basir sound like a humanist alternative to al-Qaida’s leader. Not bad for a jihadi!

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Usama bin Laden Called Yunus Khalis “the Father Sheikh:” Weird But Possibly True

Abbottabad Documents

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