ji·had·ica

The role of ideologues

Tore Hamming October 27, 2016

This is the fourth 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. You can find the first Q&A here, the second here and the third here.

Tore Hamming:

Part of the struggle between IS and AQ happens through ideologues either part of or sympathetic to one of the two movements. AQ has consistently been supported by major ideologues like Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada al-Filastini and Hani Siba’i, while IS has relied on younger people, most famously Turki al-Bin’ali. How do you see the role of these ideologues for the broader struggle within Salafi-Jihadism?

Ahmed Al Hamdan:

In fact, this question has been phrased wrongly.

We must realize that the problems of ISIS are no longer confined to a conflict with Al Qaeda in just the Arab region only making the Arabs to be the only influential speakers for Jihad. Rather ISIS has come to every language and nationalities! And they have come into conflict with groups that are not Arabs. These nationalities and groups have speakers that speak in their languages and influence them more than the Arab speakers.  I will give you an example:

Amongst the English speakers, Shaykh Anwar al Awlaki is considered to be one of the main leaders and ideologues of Jihad, while amongst the Arabic speakers he is considered to be a Jihadi commander only. Why? It is because all the Shariah treatises of Shaykh Anwar have been released in the English language. They were not released in the Arabic language with the exception of 4 statements, which were all exhortative statements.

So if we compare for example the influence of Shaykh Anwar al Awlaki amongst the English speakers with that of the influence of the Shaykhs such as Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al Filastini, there is no doubt that Shaykh Anwar al Awlaki would be much more influential. And this can also be seen with the American Shaykh Ahmad Jibril. I myself and some of those occupied with the Arab Jihadi issues had never heard of him at all until recently when communicating with the English Jihadi media. And we came to know that this person has a lot of influence and is widely known, despite us having not heard about him at all before.

And this is a general principle: The more material exists for a person in a specific language, the more will be his influence upon the speakers of that language. How many materials of the ideologues of Jihadi groups in Arabic have been translated into Turkistani language for example? Maybe 2 or 3. So is this sufficient to influence the Turkistanis in the battle against ISIS? The answer is no. However when a person like Mufti Abu Dhar Azzam break away and release a statement criticizing ISIS, this will have a greater effect than translating some articles of al Maqdisi and al Filistini about ISIS into the Turkestan language, even if he is less knowledgeable than them. Why is this so?  Because Abu Dhar is known amongst the Turkistanis and he speaks in their language and he has held lectures and lessons among them. And so, being previously known as well as a common language is what becomes effective for having influence in battles, and not just Shariah knowledge.

Who is the foremost ideologue for Jihad and the Jihadi groups in Europe? We don’t know. Perhaps a Shaykh who is young in age and who speaks French will have a greater influence than Shaykh Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi or Abu Qatada al Filistini upon the Jihadis who speak in French.

So the person who speaks directly to you and who always keeps you at the center of the events will be more effective than a person with Islamic knowledge who does not speak directly to you and who has to use interpreters who may be late in translating his statements or may not translate all of his statements.

However because of the worldwide battle against ISIS, there have emerged communication bridges between groups who are fighting against ISIS who speak different languages. For example, we see that Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri’s words get translated into Russian by the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus (1) or get translated into Turkistani by the Turkistan Islamic Party, (2) and we have seen Shaykh Ayman trying to address these organisations by mentioning their merits. And we have seen how the ideologues and the leaders of the Arab groups have released statements in solidarity with the Islamic Emirate of Caucasus against the attempts of ISIS to split its ranks, (3) and we have seen how when the Turkistan Islamic Party released a speech from its top most leader refuting ISIS, they put the Arab scholars of Jihad in the background. (4)

So I think we are facing a situation known as “the globalization of the Jihadi organisations” in contrast to “the globalization of ISIS.”

And this has resulted in intermingling and openness towards each other due to the existence of a common enemy. Previously the Russians were fighting the Caucasians and the Chinese were fighting the Turkistanis and the Americans were fighting Al Qaeda, most of whom have been Arabs. However these organisations have now found themselves against a united common enemy, which is ISIS, which is trying to dismantle them. And this has led to them eventually coordinating with each other to fight this new enemy which is threatening the fortresses from within, as opposed to the enemy which is not common to them all and threatens the fortresses from the outside.

And this is another principle: Whenever there is a single enemy, there is a larger chance of unity and cooperation.

So due to this, there began to circulate writings which refute ISIS and translated works have begun to spread in different languages about a single issue only, that is refuting the misconceptions caused by ISIS. And I think this is something that has not happened before.

This is one matter. As for the other matter, it is why have younger ideologues inclined towards ISIS, while their teachers have inclined towards Al Qaeda?

I have answered this question in my previous reply, and I have said that the greater a person’s age and the more his experience in life, the greater will be his caution in dealing with any newly occurring matter, as opposed to the one who has no experience and whom you mostly see acting without forethought and who is more emotional rather than being logical.

Secondly, these students took the lead at a time when those Shaykhs were imprisoned- I mean the two Shaykhs Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al Filistini. And I think they said to themselves that “we must fill the vacuum left by our Shaykhs”, and they put themselves on the same level of their Shaykhs, and they began to speak on fresh matters which are very complicated, in a manner which is different from that of their Shaykhs who used to be calm and careful. And here let me write a historical testimony:

Turki Bin’ali had gone to Syria twice. The first time, he claimed, he wanted to send relief aid, and the second time was the one in which he did not return. And before he went for his first time, he was told not to listen to only one side, specifically in the matter of the dispute between Jabhat un-Nusrah and ISIS. But when he returned from Syria, we sat down together, and there was a change in his tone of speech about Jabahat al Nusra and it had become very harsh. (5) And when he was asked and told “Have you tried to hear from Jabhat un-Nusra when you were in Syria to understand their point of view?” he said “No, rather the Islamic State and its representatives are trustworthy and they do not lie!”… And so there is no need to hear both sides…!

This is not something which someone else has told me, rather I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. So all his books and speeches and articles with which he supported ISIS were built upon this foundation, which is hearing only from one side which as per his claim, does not lie. Then it became clear to us with the passage of time that these representatives would lie even in their official publications. So look at what happens when a student takes the place of a teacher while he is not qualified!!

On the other hand, Shaykh Abu Qatada was asked after 20 years, did he benefit from the events in Algeria when he was young. And he said “Yes, I have benefitted greatly, one of the most important of which was to not be deceived by the way how a questioner formulates his question, because sometimes he will lie and deceive and formulate questions which are not in accordance with reality in order to get the Fatwa he wants to support his stance against his opponents. So whenever I feel that a person is doing this, I would ignore his questions so that he does not take my Fatwas to misuse them in an improper manner”. (6)

But the person with little experience will fall into this mistake and he will sympathise with the questioner who has formulated his question showing him being oppressed, and he will issue a Fatwa according to what he likes and desires.

What makes a person forget himself or forget his real position is those around him, especially when they praise and exaggerate in praising the student of knowledge, and when he is addressed as ‘Shaykh’ and ‘scholar’ and with other such names. And when many people repeat these words it causes him to actually think that he has become a Shaykh and a scholar and that he is entitled to speak on the most complex matters. Therefore he should not be misled by such words of praise, and they must not cause him to forget his actual position. And if he knew what his actual position is, he will not be affected by such praises and speak on critical issues while not being qualified for it, because he knows his true worth, and he will not be carried away by these people who praise him as he knows that they are exaggerating or maybe they are exaggerating for other purposes, such as to cause you to fall into this trap, and hence you would be careful. But the one with little experience is often naïve and not cautious or aware.

In the end, how is it possible for the gap between the generations to have an effect in supporting different organisations? There is no doubt that the influence of the teachers is much greater, and the level of their fame and their positions are greater than these students who emerged only through the internet. Shaykh al Maqdisi is a person who is well-known to the most prominent leaders and to all the chiefs of the Jihadi movement, and likewise Shaykh Abu Qatada. They are considered by many as sources of reference on religious matters for Al Qaeda, (7) as opposed to these students who are not famous, because many of the students used to write under pseudonyms and some of them did not reveal who they are even to this day. So some are hesitant in promoting or mentioning people who are unknown, and many of them have stopped writing after joining ISIS.

And this is because of two issues. First, they are busy in teaching and education because ISIS have seized large areas in Iraq and Syria and it needs to fill this vacuum by teachers of Sharia, who hold seminars, speeches and lessons. And the one who becomes busy with that will find it difficult to write replies and research on the internet. The second issue is that which Shaykh Al Maqdisi himself informed me, from his contact with people in ISIS which was that the minister of information who was recently killed had prevented these people from writing under their real names, fearing that they would achieve high status and then split later, which could be used as propaganda to dissuade people from joining ISIS. Apart from that there is no doubt that the teachers are the ones with more influence and credibility than the students and they are ahead of them for the following reasons:

  1. Because their knowledge on religion and awareness on Islamic and religious matters is more than the students.
  2. Because they are well known and are people who had their stances and sacrifices and firmness that are known for over three decades, unlike many of the students who write under pseudonyms and who only jumped towards the forefront in few years and who are actually unknown, except to a small group of people, and their stances, sacrifices and firmness are unknown. And because of previous security issues there was a fear of promoting people who are unknown. (8) Thus many of these people have been ignored. As for those from the students who are known, they are not widely known amongst the Mujahideen and their sacrifices are nothing in front of those of their teachers who suffered trials and tribulations.
  3. Another issue is that the style of the Shaykhs when they respond would remain within the confines of scientific method, as opposed to the response of their students to their teachers. They would respond to their teachers by transgressing the boundaries of scientific method and go in a method which contains insults, rudeness and by using words of filth, derision and mockery, which would make them in a weaker position in the sight of the neutral observer.

ISIS knows that the teachers have a greater influence than their students. Because of that, even if some of the students join them, they would still not be content with that, rather they would be determined to discredit the Shaykhs by tarnishing their image. For example, the publication which was released under the title “Smashing the idol of Al Maqdisi” after Shaykh al Maqdisi became a mediator between them and the Jordanian government in the matter of the Jordanian pilot, Muadh al Kasasbah, they deliberately tried to confuse between “mediation” and “representation”, and they portrayed him as a representative of the government which he makes Takfeer upon. And hence because he has become their ‘representative’ then he has deviated from his path in the matter of disassociating from these governments. This is despite the fact that in the same recording, there are words which confirm that he is not a representative, such as him describing the Jordanian pilot as an apostate..!!

Another matter is that they have gone beyond the stage of confusing and gone into the stage of lying. They stated in one of their magazines, that Shaykh Abu Qatada has alliance to the Tawaghit! (9) This is despite the fact that just one week before the release of the magazine, Shaykh Abu Qatada wrote in a tweet “The Muslims have not stopped falling into the same mistakes which they made before, the crime of allying with the Tawaghit”…!! (10)

But why does ISIS strive so hard to do this? It is because they know that the students are not enough and that it is the teachers who have a greater influence.

ISIS is trying to neutralize the influence of these Shaykhs, and when they will no longer have influence, then their students will at once take a superior position. Shaykh Abu Ahmad al Jazaairi, who is a Shariah leader of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib, has spoken the truth when he said: “Bringing down the symbolic personalities means necessarily the rising of the inferior ones. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said “When there doesn’t remain any scholar then the people will take the ignorant ones as their leaders and they will be asked, and they will give Fatwas without knowledge, thus becoming misguided and misguiding the others”. (11)

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Footnotes:

(1) It is the speech entitled “The scholar in action” which is part of the series “Carry the weapon of the martyr”. It has been translated by the media committee of the State of Dagestan VD.

(2) It is the speech “Turkistan- Patience and then victory” from the series (The Islamic Spring). It has been translated by “Sawt ul Islam” which is the media wing of the Turkistan Islamic Party.

(3) The joint statement “A statement about the recent events in the Causasus” issued on 28 January 2015, which had the participation of a group of Shaykhs the most notable being Shaykh Ibrahim Rubaish, Shaykh Harith al Nadhari, Shaykh Khalid Batarfi, Dr. Sami al Uraidi , Abu Maria al Qahtani and Dr. Abdullah al Muhaysini.

(4) A special interview by Sawt ul-Islam with the leader of the Turkistan Party, Shaykh Abdul Haq, in Feburary 2016

(5) As a fact, the tone of Turki Bin’ali regarding al Nusra was different in the past. I had written a response to one of the opponents, but before publishing it, I sent it to Turki Bin’ali in his Facebook account,  on 20 October 2013. So he replied to me privately and said “May Allah bless you. These are beautiful points, but do not cause differences between JN and ISIS, for we are with JN against the Tawaghit and their lackeys, but we condemn their mistake in leaving ISIS”. But when he returned back from Syria, his stance became different and he no longer even agreed to spread the videos showing the operations carried out by Al Nusrah against the Tawaghit and their stooges. And he would compel you to take your stance and choose to support ISIS and be hostile to everyone who oppose them, the first and foremost being Jabhat al Nusra.

(6) Shaykh Abu Qatada said in his third audio meeting in Al Fajr room on Paltalk on 22 April 2015: “We benefited a lot from the experience in Algeria, and the greatest of them was in the problem of lying and using different technical words. For example, if a Sunni man from one of the Jihadi groups in one of the countries send you a message saying “Oh Shaykh, an innovator has appeared amongst us and we have found with him documents indicating that he will contact the regime to reconcile with them, and we have found with him documents showing that he is planning a coup to overthrow the leadership in order to reconcile with the regime and deviate the Jihad into such and such path etc.”, and you think that he is a Sunni. So what answer will you give him if you are a student of knowledge? The answer would be: He is causing corruption in the land, and the least you can do is stop him, and if you cannot end his innovation without killing him, then kill him. This is what the scholars say. But we would discover later on that the innovation was not like how the questioner had mentioned but it was something else. So is the mistake in your Fatwa, or is the mistake and the lie from the questioner? And because of that, the questions asked by some brothers would remain with me pending for months and I would not reply to them. They are trustworthy brothers but they narrate the incidents as they like and as they see.

(7) Shaykh Ayman Al Zawahiri in his book “The Exoneration” has considered Shaykh Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi as a reference point for Al Qaeda (p.44) as well as Shaykh Abu Qatada (p.47). And Turki bin Ali wrote a book entitled “Al Qawl An-Narjisi Bi Adaalat Sheikhina Al Maqdisi” (a book containing collections of statements from different scholars who spoke about the virtue of Sheikh Maqdisi and praised him) and another book “Al Qilaada Fee Tazkiyath Sheikhina Abu Qatada” and in these two books Bin’ali gathered a collection of testimonies of Jihadi leaders from all the fronts of Jihad regarding these two Shaykhs. The students of these Shaykhs did not gain even a small fraction of the trust that the leaders of Mujahideen have in these Shaykhs.

(8) Leadership status in the Jihadi organisations should only be given to a person who has undergone hardships and trials and has remained firm. Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin says while putting down the condition to qualify for leadership that “It is necessary that the top level leadership be from those who have been tested and examined thoroughly.” [First set of Abbottabad Documents, Index number- SOCOM-2012-0000016] And one of the types of this test is to go to battles and fight, because the spy often sells his principles in exchange for money in order to live, but in the battles there is a very big possibility for him to get killed and so his true nature will be seen. Shaykh Usama bin Ladin says: “For example, here we feel reassured when people go to the front lines and get tested there” [First set of Abbottabad Documents, Index number: SOCOM-2012-0000003]. And from previous experience, the Jihadi groups learnt about the problem of the leadership being taken over by people who are unknown or who did not have any previous experience in the field of trials. Muhammad Suroor Zayn al Abideen (the one to whom the Suroori movement has been ascribed to, which is a Salafi school of thought) who had associated with some people who were involved in the Syrian Jihadi during the Eighties, had mentioned the incident of the infiltration into the leadership by a person named as Abu Abdullah al Jasari who used to read the Quran a lot and offer prayers at night and wake the youth for prayer, and just because of these actions he was made part of the leadership even though he was unknown and no one from the Islamic groups knew him. Then he took part in the arrest of Adnan Al Uqla and the top leadership and in aborting the armed struggle. (Refer to his book: How to protect the Islamic ranks from the hypocrites, p.77) Shaykh Abu Mus’ab al Suri has confirmed this information in his book “The Jihadi Islamic revolution in Syria – Experiences and Lessons” (p.150)

(9) The “Rumiyah” magazine, first issue, page 29-30, September 2016

(10) His personal twitter account is “@sheikhabuqatadh” on 25 August 2016.  Link here

(11) His personal twitter account is “@ahmed_karim25” on 15 May 2016.  Link here

 

Tore Hamming:

In terms of ideologues, the struggle between al-Qaida and the Islamic State could be framed as a struggle between teachers and their students. Have the teachers been rendered irrelevant by the fierce rhetoric or do they continue to influence Jihadi followers in great numbers? Or are new elements, like language, implying that new ideologues are shining in the increasing globalised Jihadi environment?

It is actually all about the language. Or almost. That could easily be the initial conclusion of Al Hamdan in his assessment of the influence of contemporary Jihadi-Salafi ideologues. The prominence of an ideologue is not necessarily dependent on his knowledge, or cultural capital, but to a great extent on his way of connecting with listeners. It is interesting to hear from a keen Jihadi follower like Al Hamdan that Ahmad Jibril was unknown to him until recently although he is a household name in many Jihadi circles in the West.

The above statement about the importance of language is only true to some extent. Despite the fact that most of their statement are in Arabic, the Jordanian ‘teachers’ of Abu Qatada and al-Maqdisi, who have been extensively studied in several articles on Jihadica, continue to be dominant voices among individuals sympathetic to the Jihadi project all over the world.

In a discussion I had with the London-based Abu Mahmoud al-Filistini about the importance of ideologues in the fitna between al-Qaida and the Islamic State, he told me that ideologues are by far the most actors in influencing people. “Even more than any military commander”, Abu Mahmoud said. This is also why it is so interesting to follow how these ideologues intervene in the fitna, who they side with and how they manage to influence ‘the masses’. As a result, it is not surprising that Jihadi groups and media organisations put a lot of effort into translating speeches, statements, videos etc. Almost every time I check my Telegram, there is an update on a new language added to the repertoire of a channel.

The competitive nature of the al-Qaida – Islamic State relationship is affecting the logic of the entire Jihadi field. Lately, this has been very evident in the case of Jund al-Aqsa. This competitive environment and the flexible position of many groups is not only considered a risk from an al-Qaida or an Islamic State perspective, but also as a potential. This is a central issue for Jihadi ideologues and the media supporting them as they seek to warn people against the opposing group, while promoting their own camp. In the case of Maqdisi, Abu Qatada, and Hani Siba’i they all have +50,000 followers on Twitter and their statements are discussed intensively and listened to. This mobilising power continues to be important for al-Qaida and is something the Islamic State is envying.

Initially, the students proved capable substitutes of the teachers, but as time is passing it is my impression that the latter is slowly regaining their importance in the eyes of Jihadis around the world.

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.

Bin‘ali Leaks: Revelations of the Silent Mufti

Cole Bunzel June 15, 2015

To all appearances Turki al-Bin‘ali, the 30-year-old Bahraini scholar presumed to be the Islamic State’s top religious authority, has been silent for nearly a year. Within weeks of being profiled on Jihadica in July 2014, Bin‘ali suddenly went dark, letting his Twitter account go inactive and discontinuing his incessant online writing. Overnight the Islamic State seemed to lose its most prolific protagonist.

Yet Bin‘ali has not actually kept mum over the past 11 months, rather being hard at work in more important—if less prominent—capacities, his responsibilities expanding notwithstanding his withdrawal from the limelight. Meanwhile, pro-al-Qaeda jihadis have stepped up attacks on him as the symbol of all that is wrong with the Islamic State: overzealous, contemptuous of seniority, and lacking in religious knowledge. In May 2015 some of them circulated embarrassing stories about him using the Arabic hashtag #Bin‘ali_leaks. They are not the only revelations of the past year.

Silenced

As will be recalled, Bin‘ali, who moved to Syria around February 2014, was the most high-profile voice within the Islamic State during its run-up to the caliphate declaration of June 2014. He authored glowing biographies of leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and official spokesman Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani, as well as stinging refutations of big-name jihadi critics like Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada al-Filastini, Abu Basir al-Tartusi, and Iyad Qunaybi, among others. Defending the Islamic State’s every move and castigating its every critic, Bin‘ali’s disappearance from the internet marked a dramatic change.

What accounts for the change is not entirely clear, but most likely is that Bin‘ali was silenced by the Islamic State leadership just as he was promoted into it. In November 2014 the Twitter account @wikibaghdady, which periodically leaks Islamic State secrets, noted the group’s new prohibition against its scholars’ writing online without receiving prior approval. Accordingly, Bin‘ali and his cohort seem to have removed themselves from the internet. Rival scholars in Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, by contrast, including Sami al-‘Uraydi and Abu Mariya al-Qahtani, maintain Twitter accounts. The Islamic State’s scholars, for whatever reason, speak not to the outside world.

Promoted

Also in November 2014, @wikibaghdady informed of Bin‘ali’s elevation to the post of chief mufti of the Islamic State, and circumstantial evidence would seem to corroborate the claim. (Contrary to what the Guardian recently reported, “scholar-in-arms” is not Bin‘ali’s official position. And contrary to widespread rumors, it is highly unlikely that Bin‘ali is in Libya, though he did visit there in 2013 and may play a special role in outreach to the country.)

The most detailed information about Bin‘ali’s role in daily Islamic State operations came in a recent four-part special (see here, here, here, and here) for Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat by journalist ‘Abd al-Sattar Hatita, who interviewed five former Islamic State shari‘a officials. In each installment Bin‘ali plays the role of supreme shari‘a authority.

The former officials, all young men in their 20s, described Bin‘ali as “the head of the apparatus for commanding right and forbidding wrong.” They also described him as charged with providing “books, pamphlets, and fatwas” for Islamic State training camps, literature that is published by “the Council for Research and Fatwa Issuing.” Much of this, they said, is written by Bin‘ali himself, and some of the works are for some reason exclusive to the training camps, including three booklets on theology, jurisprudence, and governance, respectively. The latter, titled “Informing the Flock about Public Law,” is almost certainly written by Bin‘ali. (I managed to obtain a copy only when a low-level Islamic State member on Twitter uploaded it in a series of photos in February.)

Policing extremism

In addition to his work as mufti and author, Bin‘ali appears from Hatita’s account to be intimately involved in settling religious disputes in the fledgling caliphate: namely, toning down some shari‘a officials’ more extremist tendencies.

In one instance last summer, Bin‘ali summoned several of the shari‘a officials in question from their battlefield posts in Aleppo to Raqqa for a talk. The men stood accused of spouting views too extreme for the Islamic State on certain doctrinal matters, particularly takfir—the excommunication of fellow Muslims. The young officials deemed al-Qaeda leader Zawahiri an unbeliever and considered al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra a group of unbelievers through and through. On a more theoretical level, they adopted an uncompromising stance on the theological principle of al-‘udhr bi’l-jahl (lit. “excusing on the basis of ignorance”), whereby Muslims can be excused certain errors of belief on account of not knowing better. These officials went so far as to insist that anyone engaged in such “excusing” was himself an unbeliever. In a two-and-a-half hour conversation in Raqqa, Bin‘ali, “anger and malevolence pouring from his face,” failed to make any headway with his interlocutors.

Ultimately the shari‘a officials reached the point of excommunicating the Islamic State itself and very carefully escaped to their home countries. Not all officials of their bent have been so fortunate. As Hatita relates from his sources, dozens of these Islamic State uber-extremists have been imprisoned, and some even executed. One of those killed was the prominent Tunisian scholar Abu Ja‘far al-Hattab, who penned the first extensive defense of Baghdadi’s expansion to Syria in 2013. Twitter jihadis were discussing rumors of his death back in September 2014.

All in the family

None of this is to downplay the extent of Bin‘ali’s own extremism. Indeed, the radical tendency seems to run deep in his branch of the Bin‘ali family in Bahrain (though the larger Bin‘ali clan seems to be moderate and close to the government.)

In late January 2015 Bahrain issued a decree stripping 72 Bahrainis of their citizenship, citing numerous reasons all to do with jihadism. On the list were four Bin‘alis, including Turki (#17) and two of his full brothers, ‘Ali (#50) and Muhammad (#60). On the backgrounds and whereabouts of the two brothers there seems to be little information, though the second brother is on Twitter and clearly supports the Islamic State. So too do Turki al-Bin‘ali’s father, Mubarak, and a third full brother, ‘Abdallah.

In April 2015 Bahraini authorities arrested the third brother, who is also on Twitter, at Bahrain International Airport attempting to flee the country for the Islamic State. (Ahlam al-Nasr, the so-called “poetess of the Islamic State,” wrote a poem to mark the occassion.) Upon learning the news, Bin‘ali père himself started a Twitter account, from which he began decrying the arrest, even complaining that the Bahraini kingdom was preventing his son from “emigrating for the sake of God.” The father’s caliphal sympathies are manifest in other Tweets as well. On April 25 he wrote: “May God reward you well, my sons, for your honorable stance”—i.e., the four sons’ stance on the Islamic State.

In March Turki al-Bin‘ali was pictured holding what is assumed to be his infant son, thus apparently beginning the third generation of Bin‘ali extremism.

Making a peep

On Feburary 15, 2015 Bin‘ali broke his silence, releasing a short, angry refutation of his former teacher, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, written under the pseudonym Abu Khuzayma al-Mudari (on which more below). While Bin‘ali had inveighed against Maqdisi before in a lengthy essay from mid-2014, the friendly ties between the two had not yet completely unraveled. In fall 2014 Maqdisi had reached out to Bin‘ali in hopes of securing the release of American hostage Peter Kassig, as the Guardian reported, and although the effort failed the pair seemed to enjoy a “warm exchange” over the phone.

Not to be disheartened, Maqdisi again reached out to the Islamic State in January 2015 in an effort to secure the release of Jordanian pilot Mu‘adh al-Kasasiba, whose plane had gone down over Raqqa in late December. As Joas Wagemakers discussed in detail, Maqdisi proposed a prisoner swap: Kasasiba for failed female suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi. In the course of these efforts Maqdisi dispatched a voice message to someone in the Islamic State, subsequently made public, hoping that there remained a semblance of “brotherhood” between himself and Bin‘ali. “I still expect there to be mutual esteem between us,” he said, “notwithstanding the severe criticism and exchange of words that has gone before.”

But when the Islamic State released the video of Kasasiba’s immolation on February 3, an infuriated Maqdisi took to Jordanian airwaves to denounce the Islamic State yet again. “They lied to me,” he complained. “They are beheading (lit. slaughtering) mujahidin!” He continued: “Immolation!? The Prophet said: ‘No one punishes by fire except the Lord of Fire.’” “Jihadi-Salafism is innocent of these acts!” “What caliphate is this?” “They have distorted the jihadi current.”

12 days later Bin‘ali issued his response, a five-page polemic titled “Maqdisi: Falling in the Mud and Abandoning the Religion.” The take-down is intensely personal, the author at one point addressing Maqdisi with the name Abu Muhammad al-Sururi, associating Maqdisi with an early teacher of his, Muhammad Surur Zayn al-‘Abidin, notorious for opposing the jihadis. The rest of the refutation is concerned with Maqdisi’s failure to condemn the title of the television program on which he appeared—“Pilot Mu‘adh al-Kasasiba the Martyr”—and with the merely “legal matters” of ransoming apostates, beheading, and immolation.

On the subject of ransoming and immolation, Bin‘ali’s opinions are nearly identical to those given in the fatwas that I translated in March (see no. 52 and no. 60). In short, his argument is that ransoming apostates (i.e., Kasasiba) is only permissible when absolutely necessary. Punishment by immolation, he says, was approved by the Hanafi and Shafi‘i schools of law in addition to being approved by all four schools in the case of reciprocal punishment. As to beheading, Bin‘ali cites the standard prooftexts invoked by jihadis supporting the practice, including the Prophet’s statement, “O people of Quraysh, by God, I have come to you with slaughter,” and several reports in which the Prophet seems to approve of those carrying severed heads.

A month and a half later, a member of the Shari‘a Council of Maqdisi’s website published a 30-page critique of Bin‘ali’s refutation, subtitled “a refutation of the lying shari‘ia official of the [Islamic] State hiding behind ‘Abu Khuzayma al-Mudari, and a defense of our Shaykh Maqdisi in the matter of the Jordanian Pilot.” The work is too detailed to summarize, but the author makes two noteworthy charges. One is that Bin‘ali is the author of the essay in question and is “hiding behind” the pseudonym Abu Khuzayma al-Mudari, which information he says came from “two reliable sources” close to Bin‘ali. Second is that Bin‘ali’s subtitle, “abandoning the religion,” unmistakably amounts to takfir, or excommunication, of Maqdisi. In other words, the chief shari‘a authority for the Islamic State has excommunicated Jihadi-Salafism’s most preeminent ideologue. Two counter-refutations (see here and here) supporting Bin‘ali appeared in the succeeding months. Neither disputed either charge.

The Other pseudonym

Oddly enough, Bin‘ali’s critics failed to mention that he had written under the name Abu Khuzayma al-Mudari before. Searching online, I found 12 essays under the name from the period March-May 2014, and in terms of style and content (and even formatting) they are unmistakably his work. Their appearance furthermore coincides with the period in which the Bahraini was extraordinarily active online, writing under two other pseudonyms and also under his own name.

In April 2014 Bin‘ali confessed to being behind the two pen names Abu Human al-Athari and Abu Sufyan al-Sulami but did not mention Abu Khuzayma al-Mudari. Perhaps he wanted to leave one name unacknowledged for future use. At all events, what further confirms the pseudonym’s belonging to Bin‘al’i is his statement that he only chooses pseudonyms that accurately reflect who he is. And according to his biography, he descends from the Mudar clan (Mudari is the ascriptive).

Adding Mudari to the count, one finds that Bin‘ali wrote some 45 works between October 2013 and May 2014 (see the “Inventory of Bin‘ali Writings” below.) In some cases he published more than one work on the same day. Possibly he wanted to give the impression that more jihadi scholars supported the Islamic State than was actually the case. Thomas Hegghammer has observed “how single media-savvy individuals can dramatically increase the perceived size and strength of [a jihadi] organisation.”

The 12 Mudari writings are not otherwise particularly noteworthy. Here Bin‘ali is occasionally more pointed than usual (he identifies 16 grammatical errors in a statement by Jabhat al-Nusra scholar Abu Mariya al-Qahtani), but generally they are just more of the same: the Islamic State is great, al-Qaeda is flawed, the Taliban is flawed, Jabhat al-Nusra consists of traitors, etc

Dreaming about Hani al-Siba‘i

In May 2015 a certain jihadi opposed to the Islamic State released 19 emails from Bin‘ali to jihadi scholar Hani al-Siba‘i, dated between 2009 and 2012. Siba‘i, a London-based Egyptian in the top tier of jihadi scholars along with Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filastini, has like his peers stood firmly opposed to the Islamic State and supported al-Qaeda.

According to Siba‘i, who later spoke about the email affair in a recording, Bin‘ali sent him some 40 to 50 emails over the years, using various pseudonyms. Siba‘i had circulated 19 of these to fellow jihadi scholars, one of whose students subsequently posted them to Twitter without permission. Though surprised, Siba‘i did not regret the leaks, using #Bin‘ali_leaks to poke fun at his one-time pupil. Most of the emails were mundane, with Bin‘ali flattering “my teacher” and calling himself “your pious student.” Several bore requests for Siba‘i to contribute forwards to his books.

Others were stranger. In one from October 2011, Bin‘ali said that he recently dreamed about Siba‘i. “I dreamed about you several days ago,” he wrote. “I dreamed that I had traveled to you intending to study under you. I came to London and arrived at your house. I went inside, seeing there a great verdant garden, and I proceeded till I came to you. I sat with you and spoke with you at length.” In the same email Bin‘ali asked Siba‘i to send him personal photographs, “like you behind your desk and the like.” In his comments Siba‘i, laughing, admitted to sending one photograph. He also said that there were other emails with some “very personal things” that “I did not publish.”

In addition to jeering at him, Siba‘i expressed serious regret about Bin‘ali, a mere “youth” who was soliciting fatwas from his seniors just years ago and now deigns to “give fatwas to the entire Muslim community.” “I hope that he turns in penitence to God,” he said, but unfortunately “he cannot come back. He would be shot.” Indeed, the Islamic State does not permit its members to leave.

Siba‘i went on: “This community is the graveyard of extremists…and only the truth shall prevail…You will know, succeeding generations in the future will know, that what I am saying is right.” Yet in all likelihood it is Siba‘i and his ilk who are headed for the graveyard first. Perhaps symbolically, Siba‘i’s once-acclaimed website was permanently deleted within days of his comments. Impressively, the silent mufti seems to be quietly winning.

 

Inventory of Binʿalī writings since August 2013:

The name used by the author is indicated in parentheses. Binʿalī=Turkī ibn Mubārak al-Binʿalī, Atharī =Abū Humām Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Atharī, Sulamī=Abū Sufyān al-Sulamī, and Muḍarī=Abū Khuzayma al-Muḍarī.

August 5, 2013           Mudd al-ayādī li-bayʿat al-Baghdādī (Atharī)

October 16, 2013        al-Maʿānī qabl al-tahānī (Sulamī)

November 13, 2013    Nawāfidh ʿalā ʿālam al-jinn (Binʿalī)

November 17, 2013    al-Mutaʿassir fī kalām al-munaẓẓir (Sulamī)

November 25, 2013    al-Ikhṭiṣār fī ḥukm qaṭʿ al-ashjār (Sulamī)

December 4, 2013       Ruʾyā gharība fī mawāṭin ʿaṣība (Binʿalī)

December 11, 2013     Rafʿ al-labs fī ḥukm madḥ al-nafs (Binʿalī)

December 15, 2013     Khaṭṭ al-midād fī ʾl-radd ʿalā ʾl-duktūr Iyād (Atharī)

December 22, 2013     Taḥbīr al-dawāh ḥawl ḥadīth “wa-mā lam taḥkum aʾimmatuhum bi-kitāb Allāh” (Sulamī)

January 5, 2014          Risālat naṣh wa-ʿatb li-ahl Ḥalab (Atharī)

January 8, 2014          al-Thamar al-dānī fī ʾl-radd ʿalā khiṭāb al-Jawlānī (Atharī)

January 19, 2014        Tabṣīr al-maḥājij biʾl-farq bayn rijāl al-Dawla al-Islāmiyya waʾl-Khawārij (Atharī)

January 29, 2014        Risāla ilā ʾl-ʿulamāʾ waʾl-duʿāt li-nuṣrat al-mujāhidīn al-ubāt (audio; Sulamī)

February 18, 2014      Bayān al-ukhuwwa al-īmāniyya fī nuṣrat al-Dawla al-Islāmiyya (signatory; Atharī)

February 28, 2014      al-Naṣāʾiḥ al-ʿaṭira li-junūd Jabhat al-Nuṣra (Binʿalī)

March 4, 2014            Mukhtaṣar al-suṭūr fī ḥiwārī maʿa ʿAdnān al-ʿArʿūr (Binʿalī)

March 13, 2014          Mufāraqāt bayn al-imāratayn (Muḍarī)

March 16, 2014          Mukhtaṣar kalāmī fī ʾl-radd ʿalā Abī ʿAbdallāh al-Shāmī (Binʿalī)

March 16, 2014          Bayn al-umma waʾl-Dawla al-Muslima (Muḍarī)

March 17, 2014          al-Dawla al-Islāmiyya fī ʾl-ʿIrāq waʾl-Shām maʿahā siqāʾuhā wa-ḥidhāʾuhā: fa-mā lakum wa-lahā? (Muḍarī)

March 20, 2014          Waqafāt maʿa khiṭāb Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sūrī (Binʿalī)

March 24, 2014          Kullukum rāʿin: risāla ilā shaykhinā Ayman al-Ẓawāhirī (Muḍarī)

March 26, 2014          A-laysa fīhim rajul rashīd? (Muḍarī)

March 29, 2014          Hal al-jihād ghāya am wasīla? (Binʿalī)

March 29, 2014          al-Duktūr Ayman al-Ẓawāhirī wa-biṭānatuhu (Muḍarī)

March 31, 2014          ʿAyyina min jahl al-ʿArʿūr (Binʿalī)

April 2, 2014              Hal al-jihād farḍ ʿayn am kifāya? (Binʿalī)

April 4, 2014              Zubālat al-milal waʾl-niḥal (reissue with new introduction; Binʿalī)

April 5, 2014              Tanẓīm al-Qāʿida al-sharʿī wa-Tanẓīm al-Qāʿida al-shaʿbī (Muḍarī)

April 11, 2014            al-Qaṣīda al-Binʿaliyya fī dhamm al-jinsiyya (Binʿalī)

April 15, 2014            Mukhtaṣar al-lafẓ fī masʾalat dawarān al-arḍ (reissue with new introduction; Binʿalī)

April 16, 2014            al-Dawla al-Islāmiyya waʾl-tajdīd (Muḍarī)

April 18, 2014            Hal yuqās ḥālunā ʿalā ʾl-marḥala al-Makkiyya am al-Madaniyya? (Binʿalī)

April 19, 2014            Waqfa maʿa baʿḍ al-alqāb (Muḍarī)

April 25, 2014            Hal al-maṣlaḥa fī ʾl-jihād am fī tarkihi? (Binʿalī)

April 29, 2014            al-Ifāda fī ʾl-radd ʿalā Abī Qatāda (Binʿalī)

April 30, 2014            al-Qiyāfa fī ʿadam ishṭirāṭ al-tamkīn al-kāmil lil-khilāfa (Binʿalī)

April 30, 2014            Jadwal muʿayyan lil-mubtadiʾ fī ṭalab al-ʿilm fī ʾl-dīn (reissue with new introduction; Binʿalī)

May 1, 2014               La-qad ṣadaqa ʾl-Ẓawāhirī (Muḍarī)

May 3, 2014               Taʿlīq awwalī ʿalā kalimat al-duktūr Ayman al-Ẓawāhirī (Binʿalī)

May 10, 2014             Hal yajūz lil-Baghdādī an yatarājaʿ? (Muḍarī)

May 18, 2014             Sībawayh Harāra (Muḍarī)

May 19, 2014             Waqafāt sarīʿa maʿa mā yusammā zūran wa-buhtānan bi-quḍāt al-sharīʿa (reissue with new introduction; Binʿalī)

May 26, 2014             al-Lafẓ al-sānī fī tarjamat al-ʿAdnānī (Binʿalī)

May 31, 2014             Shaykī ʾl-asbaq (Binʿalī)

February 15, 2015      al-Maqdisī: suqūṭ fī ʾl-ṭīn waʾnsilākh ʿan al-dīn (Muḍarī)

 

IS’s beheadings of Western hostages: Jihadi ideologues speak out

Joas Wagemakers September 22, 2014

The recent beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and the British aid worker David Haines by the Islamic State (IS) have been the subject of much media attention. Some of this attention has focussed on the question of whether IS is actually “Islamic” or not. World leaders like the American President Barack Obama and the British Prime Minister David Cameron have weighed in on this question by stating, respectively, that “[IS] is not Islamic” and “they are not Muslims; they are monsters”. The shock of seeing one’s countrymen being beheaded, Obama and Cameron’s wish to distinguish between the Islamic State and Islam as a religion and the fact that it is Muslims themselves who are often the victims of IS’s policies make such statements seem obvious. Still, one may wonder whether the question “Is IS Islamic?” is really one that non-Muslim politicians such as Obama and Cameron should answer. Although their reasons for doing so may be admirable, one could argue that the problem of whether IS is Islamic is fundamentally one for Muslims themselves to solve.

In any case, Muslims have spoken out frequently and clearly against IS and, more specifically, against the recent beheadings. To give a few examples: a group of Salafi scholars from Britain called on IS to release the British aid worker Alan Henning – who may be the next person IS is going to behead – just a few days ago and the famous Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen has similarly condemned IS’s beheadings in no uncertain terms. Such statements – and many others – would suggest that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are against IS and their beheadings of journalists and aid workers, which is most probably true. Yet how about radical Islamic scholars? Doesn’t their method of interpreting the Qur’an dictate that they should not only take the scripture literally when there is talk of cutting off people’s heads (e.g., Q. 8: 12), but also view such verses as applicable in this day and age against the people they frequently refer to as “the enemies of Islam”? This post looks at three relevant statements and writings by radical Islamic ideologues on the legitimacy of abducting and beheading James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines and (potentially) Alan Henning.

Messengers

The first radical Islamic scholar who spoke out clearly against the beheadings was the Jordanian Abu Qatada al-Filastini, who is still in prison at the time of writing and limited his comments on this issue to statements to the press. He rejected IS as “Khawarij” and described them as “a bubble that will end soon” and also specifically condemned “the killing and slaughtering (al-qatl wa-l-dhabh) of the [American] journalists”. The reason of his being against this is that journalists are messengers, Abu Qatada states (here, here, here and here), and as such – he appears to imply – they should not be treated as combatants who should be killed, let alone slaughtered the way they were.

Interestingly, Abu Qatada does not state that the members of IS are non-Muslims. While he makes it crystal clear that he disagrees with IS’s policies and has done so for quite some time, he does not apply excommunication (takfir) to them. In fact, despite his severe criticism of IS, Abu Qatada simultaneously speaks out against the international coalition that is being built against IS, stating that “I am not in favour of an alliance against any Muslim. It is not allowed to agree with the alliance [against IS].” This seems to be an expression of the concept of al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ (loyalty and disavowal, see here, here, here, here and here for more on this topic), which dictates that one should have absolute allegiance to fellow Muslims and disassociate from non-Muslims. It also shows that Abu Qatada, in spite of his rejection of IS and its beheadings of journalists, cannot be counted on as a cheerleader for international action against that organisation.

Aid workers

A similar conclusion is reached by Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, another Jordanian radical Islamic ideologue who has often spoken out against IS but who, in his latest writing, also concludes that IS “is still in the ship of the Muslim community. It has not left it, despite its [own] striving to expel many Muslims from [the Muslim community through takfir].” The reason for al-Maqdisi’s latest article is not, however, to criticise the international anti-IS coalition, but to refute the idea that abducting and killing aid workers is Islamically legitimate. While David Haines had not been killed yet when Abu Qatada made his statements, al-Maqdisi focuses entirely on him and other aid workers.

Al-Maqdisi states that, in general, non-Muslims who enter Muslim lands to engage in charitable activities are not spies and should be treated as musta’minun (people who request and are given aman, an assurance of protection). As such, these aid workers should be protected and respected, al-Maqdisi writes, just as the Prophet Muhammad did with polytheists who helped him. Instead of abducting and killing them, al-Maqdisi states that they should be thanked for their help, citing a hadith stating that “he who does not thank people does not thank God”.

This is not the first time al-Maqdisi has defended aid workers. In an additional chapter for his book Waqfat ma’a Thamarat al-Jihad, written specifically after the bombing of the Baghdad headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2003, he defends that organisation as truly humanitarian, respectful of Muslims and as having helped him personally by getting him books and magazines while he was in prison. He also condemns abducting or killing aid workers in that chapter and he does so again in his latest article with regard to David Haines and Alan Henning. Al-Maqdisi stresses that both men’s British nationality is quite irrelevant to this issue. While he states that “Britain has killed thousands of Muslims and has oppressed milions of them by its planting of the Jewish entity in the heart of the Muslim land”, the important thing here is that – referring to Alan Henning – “this British man came voluntarily with a charity organisation on which Muslims depend”. Jihadis, he claims, should distinguish between people instead of sullying jihad by killing everyone.

Call for release

Interestingly, al-Maqdisi writes that Qatada, Abu Qatada’s son, told him that his father had written to IS eight months ago to tell them to release Alan Henning, but that IS denied having abducted him at the time. Al-Maqdisi therefore admits to having been surprised when he saw Alan Henning as a hostage in one of IS’s videos. If this story is true, this appears to mean either that IS lied to Abu Qatada about this or captured Henning after Abu Qatada demanded his release. In any case, al-Maqdisi seconds his fellow scholar’s sentiment by calling for the release of Alan Henning and aid workers in general.

It is doubtful whether IS will heed al-Maqdisi’s call to release Henning, although there seems to be a precedent here. It was recently reported in the Jordanian press that al-Maqdisi had directly requested the mufti of Syrian al-Qa’ida-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) to release over 40 UN peacekeepers they had captured, which actually happened, as JN’s mufti, Sami al-‘Uraydi, stated in a video message. Importantly, however, al-Maqdisi ideologically supports JN, has spoken highly of the group’s leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, and is personally very close to fellow Jordanian Sami al-‘Uraydi. Since none of this applies to IS or its leadership – although al-Maqdisi used to be on very good terms with Abu Humam Bakr b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Athari, “the caliphate’s scholar in arms” – his calls for releasing hostages is less likely to have the same effect on IS as it had on JN.

Slaughtering

Perhaps the most important contribution to the debate on the (il)legitimacy of the recent beheading of Western captives (and certainly the most interesting) was written by Abu Mahmud al-Filastini, a lesser-known radical shaykh than the previous two mentioned. In a recent article, al-Filastini starts with a long citation from al-Maqdisi, but then moves on to give a much more comprehensive treatment of the permissibility of “slaughtering” someone than Abu Qatada and al-Maqdisi did. He starts his argument by stating that God has sent mercy (rahma) to people and that this idea does not square with ferocity in dealing with “the criminal enemies of God”. Even in killing, one should treat one’s enemies well, al-Filastini writes. The fact that some groups – he doesn’t mention names, but it’s clear who he’s talking about – do not apply this principle, al-Filastini writes, shows how little they understand. They act as if it is recommended or even compulsory to slaughter enemies, he states, while there is no evidence in the Qur’an that one should kill people by slaughtering them. Moreover, they also sully the image of jihad.

Al-Filastini writes that the classical Islamic scholarly rulings on slaughtering, which he seems to equate with killing someone in an unnecessarily painful way, or beheading someone range from “forbidden” (haram) and “reprehensible” (makruh) to allowed under certain conditions. No classical scholars, however, consider either slaughtering or beheading part of the Prophet’s Sunna. He goes on to list nearly universal scholarly condemnations of such practices and related acts, such as hurling away enemies’ heads through the use of mangonels.

The author then goes on to refute the arguments in favour of slaughtering and beheading. He cites verses from the Qur’an in which the believers are called upon to (in Arberry’s translation) “smite above the necks” (fa-dribu fawqa l-a’naq, Q. 8: 12) or to “smite their necks” (darb al-riqab, Q. 47: 4). Although such verses seem to justify what IS did to the Western captives they beheaded, al-Filastini points out that beheading people was simply the way people fought in the days of the companions of the Prophet because it was the easiest way to kill someone and the least painful method for the person being killed. This differs sharply from “acts of slaughter” like “the cutting of the neck and the prolonging of dying [as applied to the Western hostages]”, al-Filastini writes. He emphasises that there was no torture involved in the two verses mentioned above and that the word used in the Qur’an is “to smite” (daraba), not “to slaughter” (dhabaha). As such, the beheadings called for in the Qur’an cannot be compared with what we see today.

All hadiths presented as counter evidence supposedly proving that slaughtering is allowed are dismissed by al-Filastini as weak and unauthentic. As such, the author concludes, like Abu Qatada and al-Maqdisi before him, that the beheadings the world has witnessed in the past few months were not only damaging to the image of jihad but also contrary to the rulings of Islam. To be sure, none of the scholars cited goes so far as to label IS “not Islamic” or to refer to the group’s members as “monsters”, as President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron did, but taking into consideration that these are radical scholars who support al-Qa’ida, this is about as explicit a condemnation of the recent beheadings as one is likely to get from these ideologues.

A purity contest: Abu Basir and al-Maqdisi slug it out

Joas Wagemakers September 12, 2014

The policies of the Islamic State (IS) have already led to some fierce debates and scholarly disputes among radical Islamic ideologues. This post looks at one of these disputes that is interesting for various reasons, one of them being that it takes place not between proponents and opponents of IS, but between two men who are both critics of IS.

Regular readers of Jihadica will recall that one of the latest developments in the discussions surrounding the Islamic State, as Cole Bunzel recently pointed out, is the Mauritanian scholar Abu l-Mundhir al-Shinqiti’s reversal on IS. Whereas al-Shinqiti used to be a strong supporter of what was then still called the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), the latter’s announcement of the caliphate apparently caused him to switch sides.

As Cole pointed out, there were some doubts about the authenticity of al-Shinqiti’s critical book of the caliphate. These doubts seemed to fade, however, when the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, the website that belongs to Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and whose Shari’a Council‘s question and answer forum was once more or less dominated by al-Shinqiti, published a communiqué on his behalf, stating that another book had falsely been attributed to him. The communiqué also included words from al-Shinqiti, claiming that he had requested the Minbar to publish this message himself.

This renewed connection between the Minbar and al-Shinqiti, who had not issued a fatwa on the Shari’a Council’s behalf since he strongly came out in favour of ISIS – which al-Maqdisi opposed – in 2013, was confirmed in mid-August of this year, when the Minbar issued another communiqué. This time, the Minbar openly stated that al-Shinqiti “will return to answering questions” on behalf of its Shari’a Council “soon, with God’s permission”. The communiqué even went so far as to ask another IS-affiliated ideologue and former member of the Council, the Bahreini Abu Bakr Humam b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Athari, to rejoin them. While the latter has not actually done so, al-Shinqiti’s latest writings can now indeed be found on the Minbar again.

Minbar, minbar on the wall…

So far, so good, one might say if one took a radical Islamist perspective. Not so. Long-time critic of ISIS/IS Abu Basir al-Tartusi, whose views on the group can be seen here and here, is highly critical of this reconciliation between al-Shinqiti and the Minbar. In a recently released communiqué, Abu Basir wonders how al-Maqdisi’s often-expressed “warning against extremism and extremists” (see here, for example) can be reconciled with his website’s renewed acceptance of scholars such as al-Shinqiti and perhaps al-Athari too. How can the Minbar be represented by men who support the Islamic State? The Minbar – whether al-Maqdisi is still in control of it or not – cannot accept this, Abu Basir states.

The subjects of Abu Basir’s ire, the Minbar and al-Maqdisi, kept quiet for some time after this. The latter did, however, publish a letter addressed directly to mujahidun in Syria, in which – “without looking at the faction that you have pledged fealty to or have joined” – he warns fighters against excesses and extremism. Instead, he calls on them to keep jihad pure by not straying into any kind of deviance and says he feels compelled to speak out on this. None of this is particularly strange coming from al-Maqdisi and you might think that especially his emphasis on the purity of jihad should not be controversial with generally like-minded ideologues such as Abu Basir. Well, think again.

…who’s the purest of them all?

In late August, Abu Basir published “remarks” about al-Maqdisi’s letter. Although this is not the first time the two men engaged in an ideological debate – see here for an analysis of their discussion of ignorance as an excuse for committing acts of unbelief – the tone is somewhat harsher this time. Abu Basir seems to make an effort to portray himself as more nuanced in his ideas than al-Maqdisi. In what amounts to a doctrinal purity contest, Abu Basir criticises al-Maqdisi for the latter’s statement that he and his books are “among the most prominent” and “the most famous” in Jihadi-Salafism. If this is true, Abu Basir asks, where does this leave the first three generations of Islam (the pious predecessors (al-salaf al-salih)) and the works of mediaeval scholars like Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and others?

Abu Basir further scolds al-Maqdisi for not naming the jihadi factions he criticises in his letter. “Who are these factions that fight in Syria?”, Abu Basir asks, wondering whether al-Maqdisi sees them as unbelievers or not. Al-Maqdisi’s unwillingness to name these groups, Abu Basir claims, will only confuse the young men in Syria, leading them to excommunicate whoever they wish and ascribe their verdicts to him. This is obviously a stinging attack from Abu Basir on al-Maqdisi, knowing that the latter has often warned against the casual use of excommunication (takfir) and that such behaviour is one of the main reasons that caused al-Maqdisi to speak out against some jihadis.

This line of thinking is taken even further by Abu Basir when he cites al-Maqdisi’s words about there being “deviance” among “most of the fighting factions in Syria today”. Abu Basir wonders who these factions might be and asks whether al-Maqdisi, who apparently sees deviance among most groups in Syria, isn’t doing exactly what “extremists” are doing too, namely criticising others for their doctrinal impurity. He states that al-Maqdisi’s words can only be explained in two ways: al-Maqdisi believes that the “deviance” he discerns among fighting factions is either less serious than unbelief (kufr) or equal to unbelief. In the first case, there is no reason to warn Muslims against them, while in the second case al-Maqdisi is applying takfir to them, which – again – is precisely what the “extremists” against whom al-Maqdisi warns do so often. In effect, Abu Basir is thus suggesting that al-Maqdisi is expressing sentiments that are just as extreme as those of his ideological enemies. Given Abu Basir’s earlier criticism of the Minbar’s re-acceptance of al-Shinqiti, this may well have been intended as an attempt to show how the Minbar and its owner are slowly but surely being drawn into IS’s supposedly extremist camp.

Al-Maqdisi responds

Although al-Maqdisi did not respond to Abu Basir’s earlier criticism of the Minbar’s decision to allow al-Shinqiti back on its Shari’a Council, he did respond to al-Tartusi’s latest critique. In his “Remarks about the remarks of shaykh Abu Basir”, he dismisses his detractor’s words suggesting that he sees himself as greater than Ibn Taymiyya and others. “I’m [merely] talking about the modern trend [of Jihadi-Salafism] in which I and my books have played a prominent role”, al-Maqdisi states, “which even my enemies do not deny”. Al-Maqdisi repeatedly expresses amazement at what he sees as Abu Basir’s apparent unwillingness to understand his choice of words. He lists several issues on which he slightly disagrees with Abu Basir and wonders whether al-Tartusi wants to discuss all of these in detail as well.

Al-Maqdisi’s amazement increases as his letter goes on to the question of fighting factions in Syria. “I’m really astonished about you, Abu Basir”, he writes. “Do you only know, see or believe the perversions of IS and the extremists in religion?” Al-Maqdisi goes on to list several secular factions in Syria that supposedly cooperate with “apostate” regimes. “If these are good to you and deserve respect and support, what purity of method has remained with you and what purity of banner has been left with you!??” Al-Maqdisi further states that he acknowledges that many fighters are good people and that he does not apply takfir to the majority of them at all.

The core of Abu Basir’s problem, al-Maqdisi claims, is that he doesn’t see the positive intentions in his writings. Al-Maqdisi seems to understand Abu Basir’s appartent attempt to portray him as an “extremist” and links this issue to al-Tartusi’s earlier criticism of the Minbar’s decision to allow al-Shinqiti back on the Shari’a Council. “Despite the fact that Abu l-Mundhir [al-Shinqiti] has retracted his words and has corrected his position [on IS], Abu Basir insists on tarnishing him as a Khariji [extremist].” Al-Shinqiti, al-Maqdisi states, has rejected IS and has withdrawn his support for them after he saw what they did. “Is is fair to continue to defame him in spite of this??”, al-Maqdisi asks, only to add sarcastically, “oh, you who writes about good manners of criticism and advice in Islam!!”

Brothers slugging it out

Although both men end their criticism with brotherly words, it is clear that they annoy each other with their statements and actions. This may well continue, since al-Maqdisi penned two more letters related to IS just a few days ago. One of them is “Advice to the Sensible Ones among the Supporters of ISIS”, in which he calls on them to refrain from excessive violence and takfir and focus on the real enemy instead. In the other, al-Maqdisi goes so far as to criticise shaykh Sa’d al-Shithri for the latter’s “extreme” criticism of IS. While al-Maqdisi acknowledges that IS has made many mistakes, he refuses to go so far as to label IS “apostate” and “unbelieving” and to state that they are “greater in unbelief than the Jews, than the Christians and, in fact, than the polytheists”, as al-Shithri apparently stated.

This continued advice to stay away from “extremism”, the willingness to appeal to “the good guys” among IS’s supporters and the rejection of excessive criticism are all vintage al-Maqdisi. To Abu Basir, however, they may be further proof that al-Maqdisi and the Minbar are starting to lose their marbles. Being as it is, one can already conclude that the subject of IS has not only divided radical Islamists but has apparently even divided some of the group’s opponents. This can only increase if this dispute escalates even further.

Al-Qaeda’s Quasi-Caliph: The Recasting of Mullah ‘Umar

Cole Bunzel July 23, 2014

The Islamic State’s June 29 declaration of a caliphate has yet to win mass support among the global jihadi community but it has succeeded in provoking an embattled al-Qaeda leadership to respond—in unforeseen fashion. Rather than immediately denouncing the Islamic State’s new “caliphate” as one would have expected, al-Qaeda has responded in kind: that is, with the proposition of a counter-caliph of sorts.

The mooted quasi-caliph is none other than Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad ‘Umar, head of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since 1996. Like the Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Mullah ‘Umar holds the title amir al-mu’minin (commander of the believers), the traditional title of caliphs in Islamic history. The Afghan amir’s title has rarely seemed more than rhetorical but over the last week al-Qaeda has played up the ambiguity of the title. It has reaffirmed its loyalty to Mullah ‘Umar and distributed a video of Osama bin Laden describing him as essentially caliph. Naturally, Islamic State supporters are up in arms at the suggestion of a challenger to Baghdadi.

Old video, new newsletter

Two developments in mid-July have given the impression that al-Qaeda is attempting to recast Mullah ‘Umar as quasi-caliph. The first of these was the July 13 release by its official al-Sahab Media Foundation of an old video of Osama bin Laden. The poor-quality film, 70 minutes in duration, is from mid-June 2001, and shows Bin Laden delivering a lecture on the significance of a recent meeting between George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Al-Sahab gave no reason for releasing the video, but Islamic State supporters claim to have discovered the motive—to use Bin Laden to dispute Baghdadi’s claim to the caliphate.

In the question-and-answer session following Bin Laden’s lecture, a questioner asks the al-Qaeda leader to clarify the nature of his bay‘a to Taliban leader Mullah ‘Umar. Bay‘a is the traditional Islamic contract of agreement between ruler and ruled, and it is widely known that al-Qaeda members operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan area give bay’a to him. Exactly what the terms of the bay’a are is less certain. The questioner inquires into them: “You have remarked that you gave bay‘a to the Commander of the Believers Mullah ‘Umar. Is this bay’a the supreme bay‘a, or is it [merely] a temporary bay’a leading toward the supreme bay‘a?”

The term “supreme bay’a” (al-bay’a al-‘uzma) here relates to the “supreme imamate” (al-imama al-‘uzma), a synonym for the caliphate. The questioner is thus asking Bin Laden if he has a contract of allegiance to Mullah ‘Umar as putative caliph. His answer is an emphatic yes.

Bin Laden says: “Our bay’a to the commander of the believers is a supreme bay’a. It is founded on Qur’anic prooftexts and prophetic hadith…” After citing scripture, he continues: “It is incumbent upon every Muslim to affirm in his heart that he has given bay’a to the Commander of the Believers Mullah ‘Umar. This is the supreme bay’a.” Although Bin Laden does not use the term caliph or caliphate, he does appear to have the caliphal institution in mind. In the same query the questioner asks: “What are the necessary qualifications that the caliph of the Muslims must meet?” Traditionally one of these qualifications is descent from the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe of Quraysh, and in this regard Mullah ‘Umar does not qualify. But Bin Laden argues that the Taliban leader is not disqualified on this count (“the bay’a is not withheld because he is not of Quraysh”), citing the legal precedent that the qualification can be ignored in the event of necessity or weakness.

The second development came July 19 in al-Qaeda’s release of a new newsletter called al-Nafir, the first words of which reaffirm Mullah ‘Umar as al-Qaeda’s supreme leader. The first sentence reads: “[Al-Nafir] begins its first issue with the renewal of the bay’a to the Commander of the Believers Mullah Muhammad ‘Umar, the jihad warrior (may God protect him), and it affirms that al-Qaeda and its branches in all locales are soldiers in his army, acting under his victorious banner, by God’s help and His grant of success, until the shari’a prevails…until every part of the land of Islam is liberated…until the Islamic conquests again take place…and return all the violated lands of Islam to the coming caliphal state, God willing.”

The message here seems to corroborate Bin Laden’s words to the effect that Mullah ‘Umar is his caliph. Yet if Bin Laden’s words are ambiguous to the extent that he does not use the word caliph, then al-Qaeda’s newsletter is even more ambiguous. While it clearly aims to recast Mullah ‘Umar as the undisputed leader to whom all al-Qaeda branches must ultimately give bay’a, it also speaks of “the coming caliphal state,” suggesting that there is no caliph. Furthermore, the newsletter does not suggest that Muslims beyond al-Qaeda are obligated to give bay’a to Mullah ‘Umar, as Bin Laden’s words do seem to suggest.

Shinqiti’s fatwa

It is not only the Bin Laden video and al-Qaeda newsletter that have pro-Islamic State jihadis in an uproar. On July 18, the day before the newsletter was released, the influential jihadi ideologue Abu al-Mundhir al-Shinqiti released a fatwa disputing the Islamic State’s right to the caliphate and arguing that, in principle, it belongs to Mullah ‘Umar. Shinqiti, who is presumably Mauritanian but otherwise anonymous, is a well-known jihadi authority online, previously affiliated with the Shari’a Council of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s website.

What has made his fatwa so controversial is that he has been one of the Islamic State’s strongest ideological proponents. Three of his essays (see here, here, and here) have been widely promoted by pro-Islamic State media outlets. In them Shinqiti argues that the Islamic State is possessed of a “general bay’a” (bay’a ‘amma) and that all Muslim militant groups in its vicinity are therefore obligated to give bay’a to its leader. Accordingly, he has vehemently attacked Jabhat al-Nusra and all those arguing on its behalf, such as al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filastini, who claim that the Islamic State has only a “war bay’a” (bay’at harb) like any other group fighting jihad.

His latest work, entitled “The Caliphate Announcement in the Balance of the Shari’a,” appears to represent a reversal of his position. Here Shinqiti argues that the Islamic State’s announcement does not have the interests of the Muslim community in mind, aimed as it is at settling a score with Jabhat al-Nusra, a ploy that will only deepen the rivalry between the two groups. He furthermore criticizes the Islamic State for failing to consult with the Taliban’s Mullah ‘Umar in making its declaration. This failure is particularly negligent since, according to Shinqiti, the Taliban leader has been the Islamic world’s caliph since 1996, when he was given bay’a in Afghanistan. Shinqiti holds that his caliphate has obtained since then, at least in theory if not in practice, and whether Mullah ‘Umar has claimed the title for himself or not. This is because, in his thinking, the shari’a does not strictly speaking distinguish between amir and caliph. Therefore the first Muslim leader to be given bay’a ipso facto becomes caliph, with priority claim to the title. Like Bin Laden, Shinqiti also counters the charge that Mullah ‘Umar is disqualified on grounds of not descending from Quraysh, drawing on the same legal precedent.

Some jihadis have disputed the authenticity of Shinqiti’s latest fatwa, but they are almost certainly in error. In May 2013, in a fatwa for al-Maqdisi’s Shari’a Council, Shinqiti actually reached the same conclusion: that Mullah ‘Umar is the “commander of the believers” into whose bay’a “all Muslims must enter.” The only difference was that he did not explicitly call him “caliph.”

Defending Baghdadi

Shinqiti’s fatwa and al-Qaeda’s recent moves have inspired a rash of refutations from the pro-Islamic State jihadi community. The first of these, by a certain Abu Maysara al-Shami, quotes numerous statements of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders explicitly rejecting the idea that Mullah ‘Umar is caliph.

In a 2008 forum, for example, now-al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was asked the same question posed to Bin Laden above: “Is Mullah ‘Umar the commander of all believers, or is he [merely] the amir of an Islamic emirate in the land of Khurasan?” Zawahiri responds: “Mullah Muhammad ‘Umar (may God protect him) is the amir of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and whoever joins it, Shaykh Osama bin Laden (may God protect him) being one of his soldiers. As for the commander of the believers across the world, this is the leader of the caliphal state that we, along with every faithful Muslim, are striving to restore, God willing.” Here Zawahiri clearly denies that all Muslims must give bay’a to Mullah ‘Umar, the global commander of the believers having as yet not emerged.

The statements from Mullah ‘Umar himself likewise show the Taliban to have a restricted political vision. He is quoted as saying that “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has strategic and political objectives related to Afghanistan only…as it wants to establish good relations with all the world’s countries in the spirit of mutual respect.” Indeed, as Shami notes, jihadi scholars have been extremely critical of Mullah ‘Umar for seeking normal relations with the international community, as in its holding a seat at the United Nations.

The several refutations of Shinqiti’s fatwa (see here, here, here, here, here, and here) give even more reasons why the Taliban leader cannot possibly be caliph. In addition to criticizing Mullah ‘Umar for participating in the international community, they dwell on the following points: the caliph cannot exist only in theory but must enjoy real political power; the terms of his bay’a as caliph must be clearly understood by all concerned (“How can Mullah ‘Umar be caliph and no one has known this until now?”); the caliph has to be from Quraysh, as is Baghdadi but not Mullah ‘Umar; and the caliph must espouse proper salafi theology as jihadis do, not the Maturidism of the Taliban.

Fostering ambiguity

In assessing the motives of al-Qaeda’s recent recasting of Mullah ‘Umar, one anonymous jihadi writer pointed to the insight of the 14th-century North African Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun, who wrote: “The vanquished always want to imitate the victor in his distinctive characteristics, his dress, his occupation, and all his other conditions and customs.” The jihadi author hereby suggests that al-Qaeda, having been vanquished by the ascendant Islamic State, feels the need to imitate the victorious Caliphate’s strategy. There may indeed be some truth to this. The noted anti-Islamic State jihadi scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi recently stated, in an essay rejecting Baghdadi’s caliphate: “Had we been looking to win the favor of the people…we would have ridden the wave of the [Islamic] State.” The implication of his words is that the caliphate strategy is an increasingly popular one in the jihadi community, at least in al-Maqdisi’s Jordan.

Yet al-Qaeda clearly has more subtle aims than outright declaring a counter-caliphate. Its two statements, in the video and newsletter, indeed concentrate an unusual amount of attention on the Taliban leader, apparently intending to recast him in a more caliphal role. Yet al-Qaeda also seems intent on preserving a certain ambiguity in its embrace of Mullah ‘Umar, as if he is at once caliph and yet not quite so. This is just the kind of ambiguous role that the Islamic State’s Baghdadi used to play before declaring the caliphate last month. He was the “commander of the believers,” but not necessarily the commander of all believers. This ambiguous role, which had proven so popular in Baghdadi’s case, now appears the preserve of Mullah ‘Umar. Or at least the al-Qaeda leadership is testing it out.

The Caliphate’s Scholar-in-Arms

Cole Bunzel July 9, 2014

With the Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or Caliph Ibrahim, seeking to displace al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri as the leader of the global jihadi movement, a parallel displacement effort is taking place in the more recondite realm of jihadi ideology. The old guard of jihadi intellectuals—Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada al-Filastini, and Hani al-Siba‘i, among others—has come out unanimously against the Islamic State and its caliphal pretensions, denouncing the “organization” as hopelessly extremist and out of touch with reality. Their reproach has left a younger generation of pro-Islamic State jihadis no choice but to take up their mantle. One in particular, decrying his jihadi elders and their fierce opposition to his beloved caliphate, appears to be peerless in this effort. He is also the Islamic State’s most prominent and prolific resident scholar, based in Syria since at least February 2014.

Known previously to Jihadica readers by his pseudonym, Abu Humam al-Athari, this young ideologue from Bahrain now uses his given name, Turki al-Bin‘ali (@turky_albinali), or kunya, Abu Sufyan al-Sulami.

The Caliph’s cause

While few outside jihadi circles have probably heard of the young Turki al-Bin‘ali, the twenty-nine-year old Bahraini has played the role of ideological lodestar for the Islamic State since at least 2013. In April of last year, for instance, when Baghdadi announced the expansion of his emirate to Syria, it was Bin‘ali who penned the first monograph in support of his move. Entitled “Extend Your Hands to Give Bay‘a [loyalty] to Baghdadi,” it called on all Muslims in the vicinity of the Islamic State to pledge loyalty to its emir. Moreover, the work anticipated Baghdadi’s caliphate in no uncertain terms: “We ask God for the day to come when we will see our shaykh seated upon the throne of the caliphate!” In addition, Bin‘ali’s biography of Baghdadi, included in this tract, is the most frequently cited by jihadis; already in July of last year he had detailed the future caliph’s lineage going back to the Prophet Muhammad, establishing the crucial caliphal qualification of descent from the Prophet’s tribe.

More recently, at the end of April 2014, Bin‘ali authored another essay portending the Islamic State’s caliphate announcement of June 29, 2014 (Ramadan 1, 1435). In this work, on the permissibility of declaring the caliphate before the achievement of full political capability (al-tamkin al-kamil), Bin‘ali set forth the very legal arguments and scriptural evidence that the Islamic State’s official spokesman would use in his Ramadan announcement—most importantly, the gloss of Q. 24:55 by the Andalusian scholar Abu ‘Abdallah al-Qurtubi (d. 1275). Bin‘ali had identified the Islamic State as “the kernel of the anticipated, rightly guided caliphate.” “Doubtless,” he wrote, “the caliphate requires some measure of power, might, and political capability, and this is present in the Islamic State.” Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Bin‘ali’s former teacher, claims to have remarked upon hearing the title of his pupil’s work: “The announcement declaring their organization the caliphate must be imminent.”

From Bahrain, with jihad

According to a short biography written by one of his students, Turki ibn Mubarak al-Bin‘ali was born in September 1984 in Bahrain, where he began his religious education at an early age. At some point he moved to Dubai for higher education in Islamic studies, but was arrested and deported for jihadi inclinations. Thereafter he studied in Beirut and again in Bahrain. The biography mentions numerous other detentions, both within and without Bahrain, and the fact that the shaykh has been banned from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, and others.

The greater part of the work aims to inscribe Bin‘ali within the larger Salafi and smaller Jihadi-Salafi networks, detailing his studies with both quietest scholars like the Saudi ‘Abdallah ibn Jibrin (d. 2009) and Syrian Zuhayr al-Shawish (d. 2013) and jihadis like the Palestinian-Jordanian al-Maqdisi and Moroccan ‘Umar al-Haddushi. A whole other biography is dedicated solely to detailing these scholarly connections.

The most celebrated of these is by far Bin‘ali’s link with al-Maqdisi, the biggest-name jihadi scholar alive. While the details of their relationship are not given, the two scholars’ writings bear witness to what was once a profound mutual affinity and extensive collaboration. Bin‘ali has several books in defense and praise of al-Maqdisi, while the latter has returned the favor by certifying his student’s religious knowledge. Al-Maqdisi provided Bin‘ali with a general ijaza authorizing him to teach all of his works. As he wrote in 2009 in the introduction to one of Bin‘ali’s books, “I provided him with an ijaza to teach all of my books when I saw in him extraordinary passion and support for the religion, for God’s unity (tawhid), for jihad, and for the mujahidin. Such passion as this ought not to be met but with backing and support and encouragement. If a shaykh has the right to take pride in any of his students, I am proud of this beloved brother.” In terms of collaboration, when al-Maqdisi set up a Shari ‘a Council on his website in fall 2009, he appointed Bin‘ali one of its muftis. And according to Bin‘ali’s own testimony, al-Maqdisi made him his successor at the council’s helm, presumably when al-Maqdisi was in prison.

In most of his writings for al-Maqdisi’s website Bin‘ali has used the name Abu Human Bakr ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Athari. Only in April 2014 did he finally clarify the matter of his pseudonym, noting that he has used several others as well (including Abu Hudhayfa al-Bahrayni and Abu Hazm al-Salafi), all with the intention of hiding his true identity from the “tyrants and oppressors” of Arab states. As the Islamic State has gathered strength, Bin‘ali has dispensed with the aliases. According to press reports, he arrived in Syria in late February 2014, though he may have been living there even earlier.

In April Bin‘ali wrote that the Bahraini government was threatening to withdraw the citizenship of all Bahraini citizens fighting in Syria unless they return home within two weeks. His response was to compose a poem disparaging the very notion of citizenship, and vowing to stay on in the Islamic State. “Is it reasonable,” he asked, “that we would return, having arrived in the Sham of epic battles and warfare?… A land wherein the rule is Islam is my home; there is my dwelling and there do I belong.”

The Refuter

Bin‘ali’s signature public role for the Islamic State has been to refute its many enemies, his refutations being the most wide-ranging and most publicized of any Islamic State shar‘i (shari‘a specialist). The sharpening of the pen began in December of last year, just before the January 2014 uprising against the Islamic State in northern Syria led by fellow Islamist groups angry at its refusal to submit disputes to third-party arbitration. The accusation—which seems to have been fair—inspired a number of key Islamist and jihadi thinkers to incite their followers against the Islamic State, on the grounds that it refused to submit to God’s law. Bin‘ali, leading the charge against this allegation, argued that the Islamic State was a sovereign polity with courts and a legal system sufficient for such matters.

Between December 2013 and March 2014, Bin‘ali took aim at fellow jihadi ideologues like the Jordanian Iyad Qunaybi and Syrian Abu Basir al-Tartusi, at Jabhat al-Nusra leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, and at more mainstream Islamists like the Saudi-based ‘Adnan al-‘Ar‘ur and a member of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham’s Shura Council. In the period April-June 2014 he put even larger targets in his crosshairs, refuting al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and the two biggest-name jihadi ideologues, al-Maqdisi and the Palestinian Abu Qatada al-Filastini. It is his refutation of al-Maqdisi that is most significant.

Issued June 7 and entitled “My Former Shaykh,” this refutation is Bin‘ali’s last in a busy six-month period. It came in response to a long document published on al-Maqdisi’s website on May 26 detailing the many efforts of the senior shaykh to mediate between the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Maqdisi’s plan was to sponsor a reconciliation initiative that would involve a third-party arbiter, much like other initiatives being proposed by different shaykhs at the time. Bin‘ali acted as his intermediary with the Islamic State leadership, whom al-Maqdisi threatened with dire consequences should they fail to participate.

In the event, his message to the Islamic State went unheeded, and so the shaykh did as threatened. His statement on “the obligatory position” to be adopted toward the Islamic State was harsh, describing it as “deviating from the path of divine truth, being unjust to the mujahidin, following the road of extremism…refusing arbitration, declining reform, [and] disobeying the commands of its senior leaders and shaykhs.” This last comment concerns the Islamic State’s disputed status as a former al-Qaeda affiliate. In the document, al-Maqdisi follows al-Zawahiri in claiming that it was indeed an affiliate and thus obligated to obey its leaders’ commands.

What really piqued Bin‘ali was the insulting approach his former teacher had suddenly adopted toward him. Al-Maqdisi had included in this document long excerpts from emails between himself, Bin’ali, and the administrator of the website, and thrown occasional grammatical errors into Bin‘ali’s excerpted writing. In his discussion of the correspondence al-Maqdisi had furthermore referred disparagingly to his Bahraini pupil as the Islamic State’s “most vaunted mufti” or “most vaunted shar‘i.”

The content of Bin‘ali’s response is not worth examining in great detail. The main points of contention are the Islamic State’s stubbornness in refusing arbitration—which they both acknowledge—and its alleged insubordination against al-Qaeda—which they do not agree on. What is noteworthy is Bin‘ali’s authorship of such a refutation to begin with.

Rejecting seniority

In another statement from early May 2014, al-Maqdisi had written critically of younger jihadi shaykhs dismissing their elders, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Qatada al-Filastini. “Take heed of seniority,” he warned his juniors, accusing them of “wanting to stand upon the shoulders of our best and brightest and then discredit their intellects.” Indeed, just days before this statement was issued, Bin‘ali had written that age was a likely cause of Abu Qatada’s “confusion” surrounding the Islamic State.

Bin‘ali’s refutation of “my former shaykh” (shaykhi ‘l-asbaq) is in its very title a rejection of the idea of “seniority” (asbaqiyya). It represents the assured spirit of a younger generation of jihadis ready and willing to break with an established cadre of jihadi intellectuals and carve their own path. It also represents the assured spirit of Bin‘ali himself, who for years has disputed the notion that he is too young to be a religious authority. Visited in prison some six years ago in Bahrain by a Saudi religious official, who was shocked that a twenty-three-year old was issuing religious opinions, Bin‘ali retorted with an essay on the inadmissibility of age restrictions on such practice in Islam.

Whether Bin‘ali can succeed in leading this younger generation of pro-Islamic State jihadi thinkers is yet to be seen. For the moment he remains the closest thing that the caliphate has, after the caliph himself, to a big-name religious authority.

Is this the most successful release of a jihadist video ever? Part 2 The release of صليل الصوارم الرابع‬‏

Nico Prucha May 21, 2014

As we outlined in a brief analysis in our first post, Ali Fisher and I will head into a more deeper analysis of our findings regarding the release of “The Clanging of the Swords, part 4”. In the next posting we will discuss and analyse the most important accounts that we will introduce in this part.

We do stress, however, that the reader should keep in mind that one of the key phenoma of jihadi Twitter activism in Syria is that most users engaged online are using mainly mobile platforms. This accounts for people inside Syria as much as outside – the preferred device to interact and Tweets are devices running Android  followed by iPhone, as we had detailed in this graph in the last post. This shows that word of the video on YouTube, and archive.org was spread using a range of different digital technologies, but mainly mobile devices.

The video was also reflected upon on by sympathizers on tumblr, with users in one case posting a picture of the title of the video on a big flat screen while holding a Dutch labelled pop corn bag in front of the camera. This affirms the users claim to be “just one of your beloved brothers from The Netherlands.” Tumblr has become another social media outlet used by Jihadists in the past years. A pioneer short study on this phenomena – “Tumbling along the straight path” – was published by Rüdiger Lohlker, available here.

The effect of jihadi videos in the past years, due to their outreach and the popularity showcasing real men who act and stand up against frames of injustice is thus further highlighted – with the audience trying to actively particpate by the very least of expressing sympathy and spreading the word of the video by all of their means possible – and thus they consider themselves as a media-Mujahid. This is a role model not only sanctioned by senior jihadist ideologues, but also highly approved since the death of bin Laden.

Most Important Users

The information sharing about the video created a network of 6,428 Twitter users and 19,601 edges, some users were mentioned frequently. The graph below shows the frequency prominent users were mentioned.

To extend the analysis of prominent members of the network we created a representation of the network sharing the video via Twitter. It contains 6,428 Twitter users and 19,601 edges. The network had an average path length of 5.7 and a diameter of 15.

 

From the visual representation it is evident that there are a number of different users that were prominent in different sections of the network. Rather than the majority of the network orbiting one of a few influential accounts, in a series of hub and spoke structures, this network has multiple interconnected hubs through which information flows in multiple directions. This creates a level or redundancy providing the network with a degree of resilience that allows information to continue to flow in the event that some Twitter accounts may be suspended. This is because the interconnected hubs provide a level of redundancy so there are a number of other pathways through which information can flow. As Paul Baran’s calculations showed, distributed communications systems need a relatively low level of redundancy for the majority of the network to maintain communication in the event of major network disruption.

Viewing the network map in greater detail can show which users communicated with each other, which reached the same communities, and which were a bridge to specific communities. For example, in the network representation nodes of the same colour are within the same interconnected community. This means they are more likely to interact with other members of that community than the rest of the network. These can be assessed in greater detail in the online version where connections between specific nodes can be examined.

Through a refinement of the network image, to show only those users who have at least one mutual connection – meaning they have mentioned someone who has also mentioned them, a core group of users becomes visible.

This network of mutual connections contains 165 Twitter accounts (2.5% of the total network) including all of the top twenty five most mentioned users and on average a node in this core group has slightly more than five connections to other accounts in this group. This means the network has a density of 0.031 – meaning 3% of all possible connections exist. This is sufficient to provide the network with a level of resilience.

Resilience in this context is shown by impact on the network of losing important nodes, in the form of account suspensions.

With the loss of the five most connected nodes (ranked by times mentioned by others) every remaining node would still be connected to this network, with only a slight reduction in graph density to 0.027.  Similarly, the removal of the five most important nodes (ranked by Pagerank) leaves the graph density unchanged at 0.031 and again, every remaining node would still be connected to the network.  This means that the current occasional account suspensions are unlikely to have any practical impact on the ability of users to share information.

The identification of key actors in the network can provide greater insight into the way information travelled. For example, this can differentiate between those users that are important for reaching specific communities, from those users that are part of the core of the network. This analysis is important as not all users are influential in the same way. For example some will be influential within the core of the network while others are important as they form a bridge to wider communities.

Position on the scatter plot below is based on two network metrics pagerank and betweenness. Size is the number of times the account was retweeted or mentioned. Nodes with the same colour are in the same statistical community. If you are viewing the online version of this graph, mouse over dots to show each label, controls in the bottom left corner allow the user to zoom in on specific area of the chart.

When viewing the chart:

• Users in the bottom left of the graph tend to have no particular role and can be thought of as general users, although they may have high value to an often small and very specific group.

• Those in the top left of the graph tend to be in the core (or one of the cores) of the network. This indicates they are often those most invested in the network and have access to privileged information.

• Those in the bottom right of the graph fulfil the role of bridging between the core content producers and a specific community. The value of this role often comes from tailoring information to a specific ‘audience’ and as such these users are more valuable to that group but less important to everyone else.

• Users in the top right are rare. They have a dual function, as they have the same trusted status as those in the top left of the graph. They also fulfil the same ‘bridge’ role as users in the bottom right of the graph, reaching areas of the network which others do not.

In the case of the network disseminating information about the release Sas 4 the pagerank scores are particularly low which backs the earlier visual observation that the network is dispersed and has multiple interconnected hubs. The graph shows that @Minbar_s,  @Aahat9, and @kwatem0 were important conduits for the spread of information to communities that other accounts could not reach. Conversely, @furkan_om and @MoTweetry were hubs which were a core part of the information sharing about this video. Most importantly, @ISIS_1111 was the single node that was able to fulfil both core and bridging functions simultaneously, with other accounts such as @AberatAlkarat_5 fulfilling a similar role to a lesser degree.

In addition to the roles users played in the network, the time at which they were influential is also an important aspect of the analysis. This is known as their engagement profile, the extent to which other twitter users engaged with them over a given time period.

Taking the top five most mentioned users in the network the engagement profiles shows that there were two periods of particularly intense activity. It also shows that different accounts were prominent at different times. For example, @wa3tasimu and @turky_albinali were prominent in the first peak but not the second, while @AL3gneg and @Minbar_S were prominent during the second peak.

 

This analysis demonstrates the need for counter-strategies to be agile as accounts become important at different times during the dissemination of content. In addition, it provides additional context to the key actor graph as @Minbar_s was an important conduit for information to a particular community, and the engagement profile shows that this role was likely to have been fulfilled later in period in which the video was being actively shared.

 

Interim Conclusions

 ·      Jihadist groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media and mobile technologies. 

·       The release of 4  صليل الصوارم was announced through a resilient and dispersed network. This network has sufficient interconnection and redundancy to continue to operate indefinitely in spite of the current level of account suspensions.

o   On each platform there are clusters of mutually reinforcing accounts which create a level of resilience that allows jihadists to have a persistent presence on the platform.

·       The release of the 4 صليل الصوارم video highlights the multiplatform zeitgeist which has become a feature of the Jihadist social media phenomenon.

o   Accounts on one social media platform are used to reinforce the content on other social media platforms, creating mutually reinforcing connections across platforms. This means users could turn to Facebook or Google+ if a specific Twitter account is suspended to locate the replacement Twitter account. In reality most jihadists that take the propagation element of their activity seriously have back-up accounts already set up with users following their primary account directed to also follow the back-up in case of an account suspension. 

·       The release of the video on a Saturday may have been a deliberate strategy to pick the day when those employed to challenge or disrupt the propagation of information about the video were least likely to be available. 

This is a network based challenge – identifying groups rather than individual accounts.

Is this the most successful release of a jihadist video ever?

Nico Prucha May 19, 2014

The release of the video Salil al-sawarim (SaS) by ISIS’s media department al-Furqan over the weekend demonstrated the sophistication of the jihadist use of social media to disseminate their video content. Al-Furqan’s sister department, al-I’tasimu had announced the release of the fourth instalment of Sas on Twitter on Saturday noon, March 17, 2014. A few hours later, it was published via al-I’tasimu’s high-profile Twitter account and the tier-one jihadist forums. The first three Salil al-sawarim videos had been very popular, high quality edited and showed a mix of extreme obscene violence and ideology at play.

This is the first part of the brief glimpse into the data collected on Twitter revolving around the  #صليل_الصوارم_الرابع Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha explore the data networks and outline in brief terms the ideological bearings at play. For a second post we will provide the readers with a more in depth analysis, outlining the context of this video in the jihadist virtual as well as the greater ideological cluster at play.

In the first twenty four hours after Sas (“The Clanging of the Swords”) was posted on YouTube the was viewed 56,998 times with an average user watching a little over 17 minutes of the hour long film. This means that collectively YouTube users spent the equivalent of 686 days watching this one video. It has subsequently been reposted a number of times on YouTube, and was published on other file sharing sites such as archive.org and links for download were broadcast via justpaste.it. It was published in different sizes and formats. A high-definition format, about one gigabyte in size, carries death and mayhem to the home and portable cinemas worldwide.

As of writing this post, the YouTube video has been viewed 124,704 times with 4,204 likes and 491 dislikes.

Delivering high levels of views in the first day after publication takes coordination across a range of social media channels. This briefing analyses that spread of information, and shows:

  • The volume of tweets about the video release.
  • An estimate of the size of the network which shared word of the video release.
  • The users most frequently mentioned in connection with the video.
  • The key actors in the Twitter network that allowed word of the video release to spread rapidly.
  • The platforms that users utilised to tweet.
  • The prominent languages used to spread word of the video release.

 

This shows:

  • Jihadist groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media and mobile technologies.
  • The release of the video on a Saturday may have been a deliberate strategy to pick the day when those employed to challenge or disrupt the propagation of information about the video were least likely to be available.
  • Information is shared through a resilient and dispersed network. This network has sufficient interconnection and redundancy to continue to operate despite the current level of account suspensions.

The video

In short the approximate one-hour long video is a mix of implementing ideological principles and executing framed enemies. The film starts with several ISIS Mujahideen who tear up their Kosovar passports and burn these. A ring leader outlines the principles of the true Islamic state citizenry in fluent Arabic – an element that was just recently broadcast in two al-Furqan videos where several international fighters tore up their passports to declare their identity and belonging to the Islamic State and not to some vassal or Crusader state entity. The opening of the video enforces the connection of Syria and Iraq: ISIS armed car convoys parading in cities such as Homs, Raqqa, switching to Fallujah where a drone, possibly an Parrot AR.Drone iPad controlled remote aircraft, is flown above the convoy, proving the audience with a 360 angle view of the city and the jihadi boots on the ground.

All operations in the video are allegedly in Iraq, in the notorious al-Anbar province, including the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah where the most severe attacks against the U.S. forces at the time occurred. Iraqi governmental officials are sought out at fake checkpoints and executed, off-duty soldiers are hunted down on the streets and killed for reasons varying from being an apostate of Sunni Islam to being a Shiite or of collaborating with the U.S. funded Sunni Sahwa councils at the time. ISIS, by these specific search-and-destroy missions claims to have insider information and conveys to the audience that all assassination operations are meticulously planned and carried out. Part of these cleansing operations include ISIS units searching the private houses of Iraqi governmental soldiers and officers, who often are visibly confused as ISIS dresses up just like legitimate governmental units. The surprised individuals are then tied up and shot, or beheaded, guilty based on TV-reports and uniforms etc. found in their house – a typical modus operandi often seen in this type of video.

Other parts of the video show how the element of repentance (tawba) is enforced on the local Sunni population of al-Anbar. This is a lesson learned that is already at play in Syria: why alienate the local Sunni people when they can be coerced into inclusion, forcing them to repent their former affiliation or sympathies with the local governments. ISIS gathered what appears to be several hundred men to mosques where preachers declare the Mujahideen are fighting for the Sunni people, demanding that those present dissociate themselves from worldly or Shiite rule etc. ISIS seeks to recruit and integrate by killing off individuals framed as responsible for grievances while empowering the ‘former victims’ by granting them forgiveness and a place among them.

 

Distribution

Word of the video release spread via Twitter with two distinct peaks in Tweeting. One peak occurred on the day of release (17th May) and a second during the following day (18th May).

Between the 17th May and 8am on the 19th May we observed a total of 32,313 tweets carrying the name of the video. There was an average of 807.825 tweets per hour, the median being 736.5.

Tweets contained a range of #tags in addition to the title of the video, the most common of which are shown below.

The first hash tag on the left is the Arabic reference to Salil_al-sawarim_four, followed by The_Islamic_State_in_Iraq_and al-Sham, and the al-Furqan Media department.

However, while all the prominent tags are in Arabic, not all the tweets were in Arabic. This demonstrates the reach of the video and shows that some multilingual users were proactively translating content allowing users to access the information in a range of languages.

Users were also using a range of different technologies through which to tweet but mobile technologies and particularly phones are dominant. The most common ways users tweeted about the video was an app on an Android mobile phone, (Twitter for Android) followed by an iPhone app, (Twitter for iPhone). The web and tablets are also important but to a lesser extent.

As the graph shows, word of the video on YouTube, and archive.org was spread using a range of different digital technologies, including mobile phones, desktop (web), and via other social media including Facebook. This last case emphasises the importance of understanding the jihadist social media phenomenon as a cross platform zeitgeist, as users were using Facebook to tweet about a video posted on YouTube.

The Islamic State of Disunity: Jihadism Divided

Cole Bunzel January 30, 2014

The rebel offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) in northern Syria, which broke out on January 3, 2014, has dramatically heightened tensions between Jihadi-Salafi thinkers. As noted previously, two tendencies predominate among jihadis insofar as the Syrian war is concerned: one favoring the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) and cooperation with all rebel groups, and another favoring ISIS and its exclusionary political designs as the reborn Islamic state, or proto-caliphate.

On the ground at least, the uprising against ISIS has not for the most part opposed the more pragmatic JN backers to the more ideological ISIS devotees. Although driven violently out of Raqqa by the Islamic State in mid-January, JN has largely stood aloof during this confrontation. Rather those arrayed against ISIS—what one jihadi author has termed “the tripartite aggression”—consist of two upstart groups, the Syria Revolutionaries’ Front and the Mujahidin Army, and the Islamic Front (IF), an Islamist umbrella organization founded in November 2013. Nonetheless, the fighting has aggravated intra-jihadi tensions as the ongoing hostilities focus attention on ISIS’s unique claim to statehood and the inviolable sovereignty that this implies.

The Maskana prelude

It was an escalating dispute between ISIS and IF affiliates in December in the town of Maskana, located on the eastern outskirts of Aleppo, which precipitated the present crisis. The Islamic State’s refusal to submit the dispute to arbitration pushed its rivals over the edge. The same recalcitrance in the current conflict has forestalled any progress in reaching a solution.

On January 1, the Islamic Front announced that one of its revered commanders, Abu Rayyan of Ahrar al-Sham, had been brutally tortured and killed by ISIS in Maskana. Abu Rayyan had headed to the town to mediate the month-long conflict there, which had led to tens killed and many prisoners taken by each side. For weeks Ahrar al-Sham had asked ISIS to allow a third-party—“an independent shar’ia court”—to make an independent ruling on the conflict, but a response was never forthcoming. In mid-December a shari’a consultant (shar’i) of Ahrar al-Sham issued a stern warning to ISIS: “I call openly on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: restrain your soldiers and reconsider your policy. We are in one ship and will all drown if it sinks. May he perish who refuses to submit to the judgment of the shari’a!” Following the death of Abu Rayyan, the Islamic Front’s political committee issued a further warning: “We warn the Islamic State organization not to follow in its its regular manner by standing in the way of…an independent court.” In an interview five days later, the local leader of ISIS in Maskana, one Abu Dujana al-Kuwaiti, blamed the Islamic Front for instigating the current anti-ISIS uprising, seen as part of a larger “global conspiracy” aimed at uprooting the Islamic State.

Before the death of Abu Rayyan, the events in Maskana drew the attention of two prominent jihadi thinkers, the pro-JN Iyad Qunaybi (@EYADQUNAIBI), a Jordanian and U.S.-trained pharmacologist who served in prison with Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, and Abu Humam al-Athari, a well-known Bahraini member of the pro-ISIS camp. Qunaybi condemned what he saw as the Islamic State’s refusal to answer requests for third-party arbitration. Addressing ISIS leaders, he wrote: “You command the people to submit to the ruling of God’s book…Then when you yourselves are called upon to do so, you say, ‘We have our own courts’… If the Islamic State organization only pays heed to itself, is its agenda really the agenda of the Islamic community?” Al-Athari responded with a refutation of Qunaybi’s “bizarre judgments.”[i] These he chalked up to Qunaybi’s irrelevant background in pharmacology. Qunaybi’s first mistake, said al-Athari, was his mischaracterization of the Islamic State as an “organization” (jama’a), as in reality it is a sovereign state (dawla). As such it cannot accept external legal supervision or mediation (except in coordination with an ISIS court), for that would “infringe on the right of the Muslim sovereign and his state.” Since the offensive against ISIS began, the question whether the Islamic State should accept arbitration has remained a central feature of the expanding intra-jihadi debate.

Initiatives

A series of initiatives has since called on the belligerent parties to authorize an independent tribunal to arbitrate the conflict. Predictably, ISIS has proved unwilling to accept any such thing.

The first initiative, presented by JN leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani in an audio message on January 7, proposed that a “legal commission” be formed by “all concerned parties” with a mandate to impose a solution. ISIS gave no public response to Jawlani, who in the same statement had blamed the Islamic State’s “wrongheaded policy” for “a large role in instigating the confrontation.” The pro-ISIS Abu Humam al-Athari, for his part, quickly came out with an aggressive refutation of Jawlani—“the renegade leader.” The real cause of rebel infighting in Syria, as he saw it, was not ISIS’s policy but rather Jawlani’s original defection from the ISIS ranks, a precedent for further revolt.

On January 19, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi presented a counter-initiative, essentially a plea for an unconditional ceasefire. In an audio statement he explained that his state was only fighting in self-defense, and so anyone who desisted from fighting would not be harmed.

Two days later a second initiatve was proposed by two jihadi thinkers of Egyptian origin, the London-based Hani al-Siba‘i and the Canadian-based Tariq ‘Abd al-Halim. While both have tended to favor JN over ISIS—they do not recognize ISIS as a state—their proposal praised Baghdadi’s ostensible offer of peace. Yet like Jawlani, they too premised their initiative on the formation of an independent shari‘a court empowered to issue a binding judgment. The result: no response.

The Siba‘i-‘Abd al-Halim gambit soon gave way to the so-called “Community Initiative” of prominent Saudi preacher ‘Abd Allah al-Muhaysani. The latter called on all concerned parties “to place the interest of the Islamic community ahead of the interest of the group.” Al-Muhaysani presented a detailed reconciliation plan again involving an independent tribunal of sorts. It required all parties to assent to the terms of the initiative within five days, which all but the Islamic State did (see here and here). At the last moment, as the initiative expired on January 27, ISIS published a statement informing that it would participate if all parties first agreed on what position to take on cooperating with the Syrian National Coalition, its Supreme Military Council, and the neighboring governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. Since ISIS rejects cooperation with all of them (ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani has essentially hereticized them) while the other parties do not (even Jawlani has indicated a willingness to work with the Gulf countries) the statement served to preempt all discussion of mutual arbitration. In closing, ISIS reminded its adversaries that “the initiative of the commander of the believers”—that is, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s peace offering—remained on the table.

A pro-IF jihadi

While most jihadi thinkers have tended to support either ISIS or JN as the epitome of the jihadi movement in Syria, one prominent jihadi ideologue, the Syrian Abu Basir al-Tartusi, has instead favored the Islamic Front and particularly Ahrar al-Sham, accusing the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra of representing foreign interests. In mid-January, Abu Basir took his criticism of ISIS to another level, issuing a fatwa branding the Islamic State a band of “extremist Kharijites,” a reference to the violent exclusionary sect in early Islamic history. Among other things, he accused ISIS of unduly hereticizing other Muslim rebels in Syria, torturing its prisoners, targeting fellow Muslims with suicide tactics, and  exploiting the phrase “the Islamic State.” “Their state,” he wrote, “exists only in their imaginations and feeble minds.” Jihad against ISIS is thus warranted till such time as they desist from their “injustice, oppression, and aggression.” Some IF members, including the leadership of Liwa’ al-Islam and the Suqur al-Sham Brigades, have recently made similar remarks comparing ISIS to the Kharijites.

While Abu Basir’s stature in jihadi discourse has suffered since last year when he denounced Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Athari apparently found that this fatwa merited a detailed response. This he delivered in a booklet intended to explain “the difference between the men of the [Islamic] State and the Kharijites.” Its main argument is that the accusations brought against ISIS today—especially that of excessive hereticization (takfir)—were precisely those leveled against the first Saudi state inspired by Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab.

Pro-JN jihadis

The jihadi thinkers favoring JN have not gone so far as to brand the Islamic State a group of Kharijites. Rather their critique consists in a rejection—sometimes subtle, sometimes not—of ISIS’s claim to constitute a state with unimpeachable sovereignty. Iyad Qunaybi is an example of a pro-JN jihadi who has been outspoken in this rejection. Those who used to make it more subtly have started to join him.

Whereas two months ago Abu Qatada al-Filastini and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the two best-known jihadi thinkers alive, erred on the side of subtlety in  criticizing ISIS, since the offensive started they have quite noticeably sharpened their tone. During a court hearing in Amman in mid-January, Abu Qatada called on al-Baghdadi to scrap the “Islamic State” name and fight under Jabhat al-Nusra’s banner. He thereafter made his views clearer in an open letter, advising ISIS members in Syria to join JN and pleading with Baghdadi to follow the orders of Ayman al-Zawahiri and retreat to Iraq. According to Abu Qatada, while it is unlawful for Muslims to fight ISIS, the causes of the war against it lie in its stubborn insistence on statehood and in its unwarranted killing of other Islamist groups’ members. In his letter he is pessimistic that the conflict can be peacefully resolved, noting that since it “refuses to accept arbitration” of disputes, the Islamic State will not likely lend “receptive ears” to any call for reconciliation. That seems a pretty accurate prognosis.

In a leaked message from mid-January, al-Maqdisi likewise voiced his frustration with ISIS’s stubbornness. Additionally, he chided fellow jihadi ideologues al-Athari and Abu al-Mundhir al-Shinqiti, both of whom have contributed extensively to his popular website, for lending their support to the Islamic State’s radical policies. “I hope,” he is reported to have said, “that my anger reaches them.” Subsequently, in an open letter online, he struck a more conciliatory tone, though still managing to ridicule the idea that any jihadi group had become something “like the caliphate.” Reportedly al-Maqdisi was supportive of al-Muhaysani’s “community initiative.”

Pro-ISIS jihadis

Apart from al-Athari, two other noteworthy exemplars of the pro-ISIS jihadi camp are the Mauritanian al-Shinqiti (named by al-Maqdisi) and the Jordanian ‘Umar Mahdi Zaydan. Recently, neither has exhibited much restraint in criticizing ideologues of the competing camp. In an essay from early January, al-Shinqiti took aim at the argument of some thinkers (including Abu Qatada and al-Maqdisi) that the Islamic State is not a “lawful emirate” but rather a mere “battlefield command.” “O you who have made war on the [Islamic] State with your fatwas,” he said, “you have created this state of division (fitna).” The proper course for all Muslim fighters in Syria, in his view, and the only way to avoid dissension, is that they give allegiance (bay‘a) to ISIS leader Baghdadi. In a mid-January audio address, Zaydan praised al-Athari and al-Shinqiti for defying “their shaykh” al-Maqdisi, “with whom they are associated” and to whose website they once contributed. Instead of heeding the wrongheaded opinion of their teacher, they had obeyed God and His messenger.

A deepening divide

The protests of the pro-JN camp, which includes those thinkers generally considered most influential within the jihadi movement at large, seem unable to shake the resolution of the partisans of the Islamic State. Over the last month the latter have only grown more resolute, even mustering the courage to refute their presumed elders. The Islamic State, which was meant to unify jihadis and expand their base of support, has in Syria created a stark division. As the ideological divide in jihadi discourse becomes more and more pronounced, the likelihood grows that the consequences for jihadi unity will be dire.

 

[i] According to unverifiable information from @wikibaghdady (on which see here), Abu Humam al-Athari is the pseudonym for Bahraini religious scholar Turki al-Bin’ali and has considerable ties to ISIS.

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