ji·had·ica

Battlefield Yemen: The Islamic State’s Challenge to AQAP

Cole Bunzel December 12, 2014

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

Preemptive bay‘a

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

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

Yemen’s Islamic State supporters

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

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

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

Bay‘a for bay‘a

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

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

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

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

Refuting AQAP

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

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

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

Dueling approaches in Yemen

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

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

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

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

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

The Yemeni third way

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

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

Cole Bunzel October 21, 2014

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

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

The Newcomer and the old-timer

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

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

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

Shari‘a councils of war

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

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

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

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

Mutual recriminations

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

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

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

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

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

Raging on

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

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

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

 

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

Al-Qaeda Revives Its Beef with the Islamic State

Kévin Jackson October 15, 2014

With the formal disavowal of the Islamic State by al-Qa`ida last February, the two groups have vied with each other for leadership of the global jihad. Combining military victories with an effective use of social media, the Islamic State has been able to gain  traction among both grassroots sympathizers and militant outfits. This has led to the emergence of a number of splinter factions that left their original groups to align with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s forces. These defections have been witnessed not only among al-Qa`ida’s affiliates but by the al-Qa`ida mothership itself in Waziristan. In light of this relative but noteworthy reshaping, some people have raised the question of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ability to maintain loyalty among his subsidiaries or even a future union between his group and al-Baghdadi’s.

While it is too early to determine who will eventually call the shots, a telling audio message recently released by Abu Dujana al-Basha, a high-ranking al-Qa`ida leader, hints at where the organization currently stands on a rapprochement with the Islamic State.

Who is Abu Dujana al-Basha?

Owing to the demise of the historical leadership of al-Qa`ida over the past ten years, the organization has witnessed the rise of more recently arrived, yet seasoned figures in its top hierarchy. Among these has been Abu Dujana al-Basha, also known as Abu Dujana al-Misri, one of the most senior al-Qa`ida leaders today. Named as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in mid-January 2009, al-Basha has nevertheless a long history in jihadi militancy.

Born Muhammad bin Mahmud al-Bahtiti in al-Sharqiyya, Egypt, al-Basha initially belonged to the cluster of cadres around Ayman al-Zawahiri in the Egyptian Islamic al-Jihad group (EIJ). During the first half of the 1980s, he traveled to the Afghanistan-Pakistan area. Al-Basha operated with Jalaluddin Haqqani’s mujahidin in southeastern Afghanistan, though his dogmatism led to strained relations with his local counterparts. Part of his activity entailed giving religiously-oriented lessons to trainees. For example, Fadil Harun relates that when he attended al-Qa`ida’s al-Faruq camp in Khost, Afghanistan, he was lectured by al-Basha on “the history of the Prophet Muhammad” and the early Islamic battles.

However, it appears that al-Basha was mainly involved in military action and training. During combat in Gardez, Afghanistan, Harun remembers, he and “Shaykh Abu Dujana al-Misri” closely worked together in the monitoring of the enemy lines near the city. This lends credence to the U.S. authorities’ claim that al-Basha penned “a book on security that was used as a template for al Qaida’s surveillance operations”. Also, al-Basha played a substantial role in the “Tajikistan Project” headed by Abu al-Walid al-Misri at al-Faruq, which consisted of training members of the Tajik Islamist party al-Nahda. Despite the EIJ refusing to participate in these efforts, al-Basha became one its “stars”, in Abu al-Walid’s words, as both an instructor and military commander. It was at that time that Abu Dujana came to be known as “al-Basha” (the Pasha), a rank given to him by his comrades as a private joke.

In the first half of the 1990s, al-Basha relocated to Sudan along with the EIJ. Based on Harun’s memoirs, al-Basha settled in Khartum together with other fellow Arab-Afghans, including al-Qa`ida members such as Sayf al-`Adl, the organization’s then head of security. Al-Basha seems to have operated in the Sudanese capital until at least late 1997. Indeed, when al-Gama`a al-Islamiyya attacked tourists in Luxor in November 1997, Khartum-based jihadis debated the lawfulness of this operation and, Harun contends, al-Basha was “strongly opposed” to it. Yet, it should be noted that al-Basha is said to have been involved in the Egyptian Embassy bombing in Islamabad in 1995.

After his Sudanese interlude, al-Basha moved to Afghanistan, joining the few remaining personnel in al-Zawahiri’s group. Evoking the EIJ’s staff in Afghanistan, the Jordanian militant Shadi `Abdallah described al-Basha as one of its main figures, adding that he wore a prosthesis after he had a foot amputated. Around 1999-2000, al-Basha cemented his ties with al-Zawahiri by becoming his son-in-law, having married Umayma, the daughter al-Zawahiri had with `Azza bin Nuwayr (Umm Muhammad), his first wife. Though depicted as a “trusted aide to [al-Zawahiri]”, it is noticeable that al-Basha differed from his amir’s plan to align EIJ’s national-revolutionary agenda with al-Qa`ida’s global ambitions. According to `Abdallah, al-Basha was part of the EIJ’s faction which broke away from al-Zawahiri when the latter formally joined al-Qa`ida in mid-2001. This means that al-Basha only rallied to Usama bin Ladin’s group during the post-2001 period.

In the aftermath of the Taliban downfall in late 2001, al-Basha is reported to have acted as the caretaker of al-Zawahiri’s family and settled with it in Iran, before being arrested by Iranian authorities in 2003. Over the past few years, al-Basha began surfacing publicly by authoring a number of audio messages and writings via major jihadi media outlets, mostly al-Qa`ida’s. His work comprises theologically-oriented releases such as his paper “The Institution of Shari`a is a Shari`a Obligation and a Realistic Necessity” for al-Qa`ida’s magazine Tala`i’ Khurasan or his “Summary of Sahih al-Bukhari” published by the organization’s media department al-Sahab in September 2013. As to topical issues, al-Basha wrote down some interesting “Reflections on the Term al-Salafiyya al-Jihadiyya” in 2012 and also discussed the crackdown against the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in December 2013.

Amending the Path of Jihad in Syria

Abu Dujana al-Basha is said to have anticipated the onset of the Syrian conflict. Indeed, when recalling discussions on the “Arab Spring” in al-Qa`ida, `Azzam al-Amriki (Adam Gadahn), a major al-Sahab’s figure, claims that al-Basha portended that Syria would follow the Libyan uprising. “I recall that I was with one of the noble brothers, Shaykh Abu Dujana al-Basha”, al-Amriki recounts, “and [he] predicted […] without hesitation that the next stop for the revolutionary express would be Syria”.

If al-Basha had been hopeful for the future of the jihadist project in Syria, his hope gave way to uneasiness in the light of the infighting among militant groups in Syria. This was first reflected by his “’Message from the Opening of Khurasan to the Opening of al-Sham” which he penned in January 2014. Unsurprisingly, his missive conveys an aspect of “love and support” for the Syria-based fighters. For instance, al-Basha opens his missive by emphatically stating that “it would be not exaggerated to say that we feel that our bodies and hearts here in Khurasan hang with you in the Levant”.

Of greater importance it his advice (nasiha) for the Levantine militant spectrum aimed at preventing further dissensions. The Egyptian jihadi veteran emphasizes the concept of “jama`a” (group) and the danger of internal division, using Qur`anic verses and hadiths to support his argument. Acting as one unified body, al-Basha explains, is not only mandatory from an Islamic perspective but would also allow the mujahidin to achieve victory, no matter the hardships. Al-Basha thus bemoans the Syrian strife and urges his mujahidin brethren to uphold the sanctity of the Muslim blood, further outlining the dire consequences of those transgressing this ruling.

On September 26, 2014, al-Basha released “This Is our Message”, focusing yet again on the militant Syrian arena. In it, the Egyptian outlines the plight that has befallen the umma, with “the nations of disbelief and parties of apostasy […] inflicting its population with humiliation”. Faced with such circumstances, al-Basha continues, the only course of action to “cure the disease” lies in taking arms against the “oppressors”, be they from the “crusaders” or the “Nusayris”. He goes on to call to “the rejection of false gods, and disassociation from polytheism” and “the judgment of the Sharia”. Al-Basha warns that, unless this individual duty is performed, “[the umma] will be overcome by weakness [and] humiliation”.

Of greater importance in the message is al-Basha’s concerns regarding the threat of what he terms as “people of excess” (ahl al-ghuluw). The al-Qa`ida leader charges them with having “declared the worshipers as disbelievers …and undermined the jihad and distorted the message of the mujahidin”. Although the Islamic State is never mentioned, it is clear that the “extremists” al-Basha refers to pertain to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s loyalists. Among the most explicit references is al-Basha’s rant against “the caliphate on the path of deviation and lies and violations of treaties and breaking of pledges”. Similarly, al-Basha admonishes this “deviant” caliphate “built on oppression, takfir, killing the people of tawhid and splitting the rows of the mujahidin”. Finally, al-Basha  highlights the continuity in al-Qaida’s philosophy, declaring that “your mujahidin brothers in Khurasan … have not changed nor turned” despite “the injustice of slander, fabrications, distortions and lies”. This line reads as a response to the allegations spread by the the pro-Islamic State’s camp that the current leadership of al-Qa`ida no longer acts upon Bin Ladin’s program.

With the spread of the Islamic State’s virulent ideology and the broader discord in Syria, al-Basha considers that the Levantine cause has deviated from its “righteous path”, tarnishing the image of the global jihad movement. As a consequence, he offers guidance to “rescue the boat of jihad in Syria”. He notably exhorts militants groups “to strive to rectify what has been corrupted” and “to repel every form of perversion”. He also calls on the “people of knowledge and expertise”, namely veterans with a long jihadi experience, to “clarify to the umma and to the mujahidin the correct way […] in the various issues of disputes”. Conversely, he warns his audience against the “greatly ignorant” behind the “increase in issuance of verdicts [declaring] the Muslims as unbelievers, rather the best of the mujahidin”. This likely alludes to the pro-Islamic State ideologues often decried by al-Qa`ida’s supporters as lacking experience and religious knowledge.

Bad Timing?

Though the schism between al-Qa`ida and the Islamic State is nothing new, Abu Dujana al-Basha’s latest release is still worthwhile noting if properly contextualized.

Among all al-Qa`ida’s statements addressing ISIS in 2014, only two really stand out in terms of open hostility towards ISIS’s conduct. These two were both related to the assassination of Abu Khalid al-Suri in February 2014. The first was in late March when `Azzam al-Amriki blamed al-Suri’s murder on ISIS, which he accused of “excess” (ghuluw) and “extremism” (tashaddud). The second quickly followed with Ayman al-Zawahiri drawing a parallel between the Khawarij who had stabbed `Ali and their “grand-children … in the Levant” responsible for al-Suri’s demise, a veiled reference to ISIS. While this period has witnessed the publication of other critical statements, overall, it was al-Suri’s murder which elicited the organization’s most corrosive comments against ISIS.

The caliphate’s foundation in late June 2014 saw a reorientation in al-Qa`ida’s media strategy, with a less straightforward approach to this new challenge. Instead of bluntly rejecting the Islamic State’s unilateralism, al-Zawahiri’s outfit chose to confront its powerful rival more obliquely. As a result, al-Qa`ida stressed its continuing loyalty to the Taliban leader Mullah `Umar, hence notifying Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that, despite his caliphal pretension, he would not hold sway over his elders in jihad. This message was passed through both new materials, like al-Qa`ida’s newsletter al-Nafir and old archives, like a 2001 speech by Bin Ladin explaining the nature of his oath to Mullah `Umar.

With that in mind, al-Basha’s latest speech deserves attention. It is the first al-Qa`ida message to rebuff the Islamic State’s caliphate since its founding. Al-Qa`ida had not even responded to Abu Muhammad al-Adnani’s message in May taunting Ayman al-Zawahiri. On that note, it is most likely that al-Basha was alluding to this when he stated that the “Shaykh [Ayman al-Zawahiri] had ordered his brothers to remain silent and to not respond over his honour”. Al-Basha’s audio message is arguably one of the most aggressive that al-Qa`ida has released in its conflict with the Islamic State, in line with the two above-mentioned statements eulogizing Abu Khalid al-Suri.

The rationale for releasing al-Basha’s tape is worthwhile discussing. Judging by al-Basha’s words, there might have been a sense of growing frustration among al-Qa`ida’s senior leadership, unsatisfied with al-Zawahiri’s directive to stay quiet. Besides, this sentiment has been echoed in the broader militant milieu, including by al-Qa`ida’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. In late August, the latter’s former general shar`i (legal) official, Abu Mariyya al-Qahtani, authored an open letter to al-Zawahiri complaining about al-Qa`ida’s lack of a clear position against Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s bold move. This long silence, in al-Qahtani’s view, has bolstered the Islamic State while it perpetuated its “injustice and crimes” in Syria. Perhaps al-Basha was referring to these objections when, while explaining the reason for this silence, he mentioned “those who love us have blamed us by them thinking that we have betrayed our Shaykh [al-Zawahiri]”.

Still, one would wonder why al-Zawahiri eventually allowed one of his top aides to speak out against al-Baghdadi’s caliphate now. Indeed, the release occurred while the U.S.-led military coalition began its airstrikes against the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria and Iraq. While the Western-backed offensive did not resolve the core factors driving the strife in the region, it at least prompted a vast array of condemnations from militant groups operating in the region and beyond, including al-Qa`ida affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. In this perspective, al-Qa`ida may have been preoccupied by its competition with the Islamic State for leadership of the global jihad.

In any case, the audio message fueled hostility between the proponents and opponents of al-Qa`ida. The well-known English-speaking Islamic State’s sympathizer Shami Witness, for instance, scolded al-Basha’s speech as “the worst [al-Qa`ida] message till date”, ending his comment by the following: “May Allaah give these partisan tandhim [organization] scum what they deserve”. It is clear that the issue was not only related to al-Basha’s strongly-worded tone, but also because his speech was released in a time of increasing adversity. As Shami Witness rhetorically asked, “So al Qaeda chooses NOW to continue with its BS partisan politics […]?” Pro-al-Qa`ida’s supporters tried to downplay this criticism notably by remarking that Abu Muhammad al-Adnani had attacked al-Qa`ida “while [the group has] been bombed by the US and much larger coalition then now since 2001!!”

Whether Abu Dujana al-Basha’s audio message marks the beginning of a prolonged media campaign by al-Qa`ida aimed at countering the Islamic State’s influence remains to be seen. More certain is that by coming out yet again against Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s caliphate, al-Qa`ida has signified that unity in the jihadist ranks would not come at any price, even in the face of an international military campaign. Unless the Islamic State reforms its stringent policies and returns to the fold, al-Qa`ida implies, any talk of reconciliation would equate to a chimera. This latest rant serves also as a reminder of how deeply entrenched the rupture with its former Iraqi affiliate is among al-Qa`ida’s senior leadership.

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.

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.

Caliphate Now: Jihadis Debate the Islamic State

Cole Bunzel November 25, 2013

Since the mid-November beheading in Aleppo of allied commander Muhammad Faris of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham, a barrage of negative media attention has afflicted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). ISIS was concerned by its public image problem even before this signal mistake. In a September statement, Islamic State official spokesman Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani defended his emirate from a perceived media onslaught, thought to be led by “the unbelieving West” and its regional allies and aimed at discrediting ISIS: playing up its feuds with other mujahidin in Syria and playing down its battlefield accomplishments. Another campaign to discredit the Islamic State, however, cannot be attributed to Western origin. It arises from within the jihadi community itself.

In November the two most high-profile jihadi ideologues alive today issued searing critiques of ISIS and its emir, al-Baghdadi. Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filistini, imprisoned in Jordan in the Umm al-Lu‘lu‘ facility in Zarqa‘ and the Muwaqqar prison outside Amman, respectively, came out in quick succession against the underlying premise of the Islamic State: namely, that it constitutes the reemergence of the original Islamic state, or caliphate, and that its leader, who adopts the title amir al-mu’minin (Commander of the Faithful), is the putative head of this renascent caliphate. ISIS has argued that it cooperates with other mujahidin in Syria, which is true. Yet it also quite clearly aspires to absorbing them all within its state structure. (On the political ideology of ISIS, see here.)

Over the past year most jihadi literature seems to have supported ISIS and its implied caliphal claims (see here and here for previous analysis). The double-headed rebuke from al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada marks a departure from this praise chorus, possibly with painful consequences for the Islamic State.

Abu Qatada’s letter

Abu Qatada al-Filistini’s critique was the first to surface, appearing online on November 1. Born in 1960, Abu Qatada is a Jordanian of Palestinian background whose real name is ‘Umar ibn Mahmud Abu ‘Umar. Forcibly repatriated to Jordan in July 2013 after a decade-long detention in the United Kingdom, where he received asylum in 1994, he currently stands accused of supporting terrorist activities in his home country.

His short rebuke of ISIS and al-Baghdadi takes the form of an open letter to the mujahidin in Syria, advising them as a veteran jihadi and witness to countless battlefield gains squandered by infighting. The mistakes of “previous experiences,” he warns, ought to be heeded, for the current “disunity and disputation” among Syrian mujahidin “terrify and horrify every admirer.”

This division he attributes first of all to jihadi “leaders” enamored of power and leadership. The context suggests that he has al-Baghdadi foremost in mind. Challenging his title of amir al-mu’minin, Abu Qatada avers: “There exists no emir firmly established such that he should be treated as the caliph—or with similar names and titles.” Jihadi groups today are fighting to achieve strength for establishing “the Islamic state.” But no organization is yet worthy of that name. It is an error for mujahidin to fight for their organization “as if it is an end in itself and not a means [to an end].” In the harshest words of his letter, Abu Qatada accuses anyone who would call himself “caliph” or “amir al-mu’minin” of espousing Shi‘i political doctrine, wherein “commanders and leaders are seen as divinely appointed rather than chosen by human beings.”

Abu Qatada also attacks fellow jihadi ideologues for lending support to ISIS. Their fatwas, he says, reflect “naïveté and childishness,” and their authors are “elementary students” or “pretenders to religious knowledge.” By categorically supporting one side in Syria they make unity and reconciliation ever more difficult. Abu Qatada advises the formation of a “shari‘a elite” composed of learned religious scholars with authority to issue binding judgments on political disputes.

The “Zarqawi” wing responds

Five days after it was published, a leading jihadi ideologue in Jordan, the Irbid-based shaykh ‘Umar Mahdi Zaydan, issued a five-page rebuttal of Abu Qatada’s letter. While Zaydan is a lesser-name figure compared to Abu Qatada or al-Maqdisi, he has according to two recent media reports (see here and here) played a key ideological role in supporting ISIS against its jihadi detractors. A former acquaintance of both al-Maqdisi and Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, Zaydan, about 40 years old, represents the latter’s more intransigent political tendency.

Jordanian researcher Mohammad Abu Rumman recently identified “two principal trends” in the jihadi movement in Jordan and Syria: “The first is the more pragmatic wing, represented by al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada; it adopts a position favorable to Jabhat al-Nusra, considering it a corrective to the path of al-Qa`ida in Iraq. The second trend is the extremist wing, represented by the followers of al-Zarqawi, or those who have been called neo-Zarqawis. One of their most prominent leaders is ‘Umar Mahdi [Zaydan], who has called publicly for allegiance to be given to the [Islamic] State [of Iraq and Sham] and al-Baghdadi.” In Jordan, Abu Rumman notes, the pragmatic wing of jihadism is the intellectually and culturally more powerful. The Zarqawi wing, however, has had more influence on the ground; far more Jordanians fight for ISIS than for Jabhat al-Nusra.

Zaydan’s rejoinder to Abu Qatada is entitled “Refuting the Statement of the One Who Considered the Islamic Caliphate a Part of the Shi‘i Religion.” According to Zaydan, Abu Qatada’s comparison of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham to the Sh’i imamate is offensive. This letter, he notes, despite its oblique language not specifying names or groups, is doubtless an attack on ISIS and al-Baghdadi: “a clear accusation against him, his leaders, and his soldiers of ignorance, capriciousness, and love of power.”

Abu Qatada goes wrong, according to Zaydan, by refusing to recognize the special significance of the Islamic State, which is not just one jihadi “group” among others. It is the reborn Islamic state. Quoting Osama bin Laden, Zaydan asserts that ISIS is an “imara shar‘iyya” (lawful emirate) or “imara kubra” (supreme command). It is not, as Abu Qatada claimed, an “imarat jihad” or “imarat harb” (battlefield command). Zaydan makes clear elsewhere that he views al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State as nothing else but “the Islamic Caliphate.”

Zaydan is clearly offended by Abu Qatada’s further claim, which is that ISIS’s supporters are invariably “childish and naïve.” Listing the names of twelve jihadi ideologues and their works supporting ISIS, Zaydan asks, “Are all of these naïve…and childish?” The list of supporters includes Abu al-Mundhir al-Shinqiti, Abu Sa‘d al-‘Amili, Abu Humam al-Athari, Abu al-Hasan al-Azdi, and Abu Ja‘far al-Hattab. (All of them have been discussed previously on Jihadica.)

In his conclusion, Zaydan suggests that al-Maqdisi, his former teacher, would agree that Abu Qatada chose an inappropriate time to “attack the mujahidin” of ISIS. Unfortunately, Zaydan was unaware that on November 5 al-Maqdisi too had authored a short rebuke of ISIS. (On al-Maqdisi, see here, and see Joas Wagemakers’s new book.)

Al-Maqdisi’s letter

Al-Maqdisi’s critique of ISIS appeared twelve days later on November 17 as a short memorandum to certain mujahidin in Syria soliciting his advice: “They informed me that they attach importance to my advice and are not heedless of my guidance; indeed they teach my books to their soldiers.” Calling for greater unity among the mujahidin in Syria, al-Maqdisi’s letter is more measured and less admonishing than Abu Qatada’s. It likewise denies, however, the Islamic State’s claim to emirate or proto-caliphate status.

Al-Maqdisi stresses “the clear difference between battlefield commands…and the politically capable [Islamic] state.” The path to proper Islamic statehood, he affirms, follows certain “stages” that lead to “political capability.” Skipping any of these stages—i.e., declaring a state prematurely as ISIS has done—is dangerous as it foments internal warfare. Addressing “our brothers in Jabhat al-Nusra and our brothers in the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham,” al-Maqdisi advises that they fight “under one banner and under one emir.” That emir is obviously not al-Baghdadi, for he also advises that before this they “seek unity under the aegis of a shura council.” In a more explicit rejection of al-Baghdadi’s status as emir, he emphasizes that Syria’s jihadi leadership ought to be of Syrian origin, the better to appeal to the Syrian people. Al-Baghdadi is of course Iraqi.

Al-Maqdisi ends his letter with an appeal to fellow jihadi scholars to support the banner of tawhid (unity) in Syria and not show partiality to one group or another. With these words he seems intent on curbing junior jihadi ideologues’ excitement over ISIS. The implication is that they should refrain from calls for bay‘a, or the pledge of allegiance, to be given to al-Baghdadi.

An enduring debate

The debate over the Islamic State’s readiness for statehood, or its “political capability” (tamkin), is by no means new. In 2006 the Islamic State of Iraq’s shari‘a council issued a 90-page document addressing just this issue. It noted that the original state of the Prophet Muhammad was founded on much less territory and with far less capability than the new Islamic state in Iraq.

This is just one of a number of points of contention over ISIS that has generated a daunting amount of disputatious literature. One jihadi author, claiming to represent Jabhat al-Nusra, recently produced several hundred pages of rebuttal to the three pro-ISIS works of Abu Humam al-Athari, Abu al-Hasan al-Azdi, and Abu Ja‘far al-Hattab (see here, here, and here). This in turn inspired a counter-refutation—a merciful 25 pages—by yet another pseudonymous author.

Until now the momentum in this debate has favored ISIS and al-Baghdadi, but the new contributions from Abu Qatada and al-Maqdisi may prove a serious obstacle in their advance. At the very least they highlight the stark divide in the jihadi movement today between supporters of a hardline, “caliphate now” strategy and those of more pragmatic mind.

The Islamic State of Disobedience: al-Baghdadi Triumphant

Cole Bunzel October 5, 2013

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

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

Anguished forums

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

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

A case decided

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

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

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

2549 days and counting

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

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

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

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

Problem child

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

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

Rupture

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

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

Ayman who?

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

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

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

Bay‘a for al-Baghdadi

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

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

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

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

Al-Baghdadi triumphant

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

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

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