Sayyid Imam al-Sharif
Fadl wrote in his fax, which was sent from Tora Prison, in Egypt
Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian jail cells?” he asked. “I wonder if they’re connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines.
A lot of people base their work on Fadl’s writings, so he’s very important. When Dr. Fadl speaks, everyone should listen.
Other Islamist organizations had gone through violent phases before deciding that such actions led to a dead end. Was this happening to Al Jihad? Could it happen even to Al Qaeda?
The Sinai Peninsula soon passed to Israeli control. The Arab world was traumatized, and that deepened the appeal of radical Islamists, who argued that Muslims had fallen out of God’s favor, and that only by returning to the religion as it was originally practiced could Islam regain its supremacy in the world.
“Ayman was a charlatan who used secrecy as a pretext,” Imam said. “I discovered that Ayman himself was the emir of this group, and that it didn’t have any sheikhs.”
Zawahiri, who had given up the names of other Al Jihad members as well, was humiliated by this betrayal.
Imam left his real identity behind and became Dr. Fadl.
He would say that anything the government does has to come from God, and if that’s not the case then people should be allowed to topple the ruler by any means necessary.
Fadl devoted himself to formalizing the rules of holy war
“The Essential Guide for Preparation” appeared in 1988
The “Guide” begins with the premise that jihad is the natural state of Islam. Muslims must always be in conflict with nonbelievers, Fadl asserts, resorting to peace only in moments of abject weakness.
Fadl proposed supporting bin Laden with members of Al Jihad. Combining the Saudi’s money with the Egyptians’ expertise, the men who met that day formed a new group, called Al Qaeda. Fadl was part of its inner circle. “For years after the launching of Al Qaeda, they would do nothing without consulting me,” he boasted to Al Hayat.
One of the founders of the Islamic Group was Karam Zuhdy
Members undertook to enforce Islamic values by “compelling good and driving out evil.”
for three years he lived in the same cellblock as Zawahiri
In 1990, the spokesman for the Islamic Group was shot dead in the street in Cairo. There was little doubt that the government was behind the killing, and soon afterward the Islamic Group announced its intention to respond with a terror campaign.
Fadl disagreed; despite his advocacy of endless warfare against unjust rulers, he contended that the Egyptian government was too powerful and that the insurgency would fail.
In retaliation, Zawahiri authorized a suicide bombing that targeted Hasan al-Alfi,
Given Fadl’s critique of Al Jihad’s violent operations as “senseless,” the intransigent and bloodthirsty document that Fadl gave to Zawahiri must have come as a surprise.
Those who labor in government, the police, and the courts are infidels, as is anyone who works for peaceful change; religious war, not political reform, is the sole mandate.
Fadl also expands upon the heresy of takfir
I do not know anyone in the history of Islam prior to Ayman al-Zawahiri who engaged in such lying, cheating, forgery, and betrayal of trust by transgressing against someone else’s book,
“Why are you making the brothers angry?” Zawahiri asked him. Zayyat responded that jihad did not have to be restricted to an armed approach. Zawahiri urged Zayyat to change his mind, even promising that he could secure political asylum for him in London. “I politely rejected his offer,” Zayyat writes.
On November 17, 1997, just four months after the announcement of the nonviolence initiative, six young men entered the magnificent ruins of Queen Hatshepsut’s temple, near Luxor. Hundreds of tourists were strolling through the grounds. For forty-five minutes, the killers shot randomly. A flyer was stuffed inside a mutilated body, identifying them as members of the Islamic Group. Sixty-two people died, not counting the killers, whose bodies were later found in a desert cave. They had apparently committed suicide. It was the worst terrorist incident in Egypt’s bloody political history.
In 1999, the Islamic Group called for an end to all armed action, not only in Egypt but also against America. “The Islamic Group does not believe in the creed of killing by nationality,” one of its representatives later explained.
Since 2003, when Gomaa was appointed Grand Mufti, a top religious post in Egypt, he has become a highly promoted champion of moderate Islam, with his own television show and occasional columns in Al Ahram, a government daily
We accept the revisions conditionally, not as the true teachings of Islam but with the understanding that this process is like medicine for a particular time
The years immediately after 9/11 presented an opportunity for the Islamists to offer their vision of a redeemed political system that brought about real improvements in people’s lives. Instead, they continued to propagate their fantasies of theocracy and a caliphate, which had little chance of ever happening, and did nothing to address the actual problems facing the Egyptians: illiteracy, joblessness, and the desperation that came from watching the rest of the world pass them by. As a result, the young were eager for fresh thinking—a way to escape the dead end of radical Islam.
“From the start until now, the Muslim Brotherhood has been peaceful,” he maintained. “We have only three or four instances of violence in our history, mainly assassinations.”
“Those were individual instances and we condemned them as a group.”
The Muslim Brotherhood also created Hamas, which employs many of the same tactics now condemned by the Islamic Group.
the Brotherhood has embraced political change as the only legitimate means to the goal of achieving an Islamic state.
Dr. Fadl was practicing surgery in Ibb when the 9/11 attacks took place. “We heard the reports first on BBC Radio,
In Fadl’s opinion, the organization had committed “group suicide” by striking America, which was bound to retaliate severely. Indeed, nearly eighty per cent of Al Qaeda’s members in Afghanistan were killed in the final months of 2001.
There may be many inducements for Dr. Fadl’s revisions, torture among them, but his smoldering resentment of Zawahiri’s literary crimes was obviously a factor.
According to his son, Fadl “was not under any pressure to write the new book. He thought it could save the blood of Muslims.”
Fadl then establishes a new set of rules for jihad, which essentially define most forms of terrorism as illegal under Islamic law and restrict the possibility of holy war to extremely rare circumstances.
One must have a place of refuge. There should be adequate financial resources to wage the campaign. Fadl castigates Muslims who resort to theft or kidnapping to finance jihad: “There is no such thing in Islam as ends justifying the means.” Family members must be provided for. “There are those who strike and then escape, leaving their families, dependents, and other Muslims to suffer the consequences,” Fadl points out. “This is in no way religion or jihad. It is not manliness.” Finally, the enemy should be properly identified in order to prevent harm to innocents. “Those who have not followed these principles have committed the gravest of sins,” Fadl writes.
To wage jihad, one must first gain permission from one’s parents and creditors. The potential warrior also needs the blessing of a qualified imam or sheikh; he can’t simply respond to the summons of a charismatic leader acting in the name of Islam.
Even if a person is fit and capable, jihad may not be required of him
rulers can be fought only if they are unbelievers, and even then only to the extent that the battle will improve the situation of Muslims.
forbidden to kill civilians—including Christians and Jews—unless they are actively attacking Muslims.
Indiscriminate bombing—“such as blowing up of hotels, buildings, and public transportation”—is not permitted, because innocents will surely die
The prohibition against killing applies even to foreigners inside Muslim countries, since many of them may be Muslims.
As for foreigners who are non-Muslims, they may have been invited into the country for work, which is a kind of treaty. What’s more, there are many Muslims living in foreign lands considered inimical to Islam, and yet those Muslims are treated fairly; therefore, Muslims should reciprocate in their own countries.
Fadl does not condemn all jihadist activity, however.
He observes that there are various kinds of takfir, and that the matter is so complex that it must be left in the hands of competent Islamic jurists; members of the public are not allowed to enforce the law.
Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy’s buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours? . . . That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11.
I believe it is a big mistake to let this important intellectual transformation be nullified by political suspicion,
Syrian Islamist living in London
More than half of the Koran and hundreds of the Prophet’s sayings call for jihad and fighting those unjust tyrants
London
Do you think any Islamic group will listen to him? No. They are in the middle of a war.
He cites the strikes on 9/11 and the ongoing battles in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, which he says are wearing America down.
They had no means other than suicide attacks to defend themselves.”
Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Egyptian Grand Mufti, has pointed out that literalism is often the prelude to extremism. “We must not oversimplify,” he told me.
He goes on to point out that Palestinian missiles also indiscriminately kill children and the elderly, even Arabs, but no one holds the Palestinians to the same ethical standards as Al Qaeda.
He said that only about a third of the nine thousand fighters who call themselves members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia can be relied upon. “The rest are unreliable, since they keep harming the good name of Al Qaeda.” He concludes, “Our position is very difficult.”
The murder of innocents emerged as the most prominent issue in the exchanges
Zawahiri even had to defend himself for helping to spread the myth that the Israelis carried out the attacks of 9/11.
ut it is clear that radical Islam is confronting a rebellion within its ranks, one that Zawahiri and the leaders of Al Qaeda are poorly equipped to respond to.
According to a recent National Intelligence Estimate, Al Qaeda has been regenerating, and remains the greatest terror threat to America.
The Pakistani government is more accommodating. The number of suicide bombers in both countries is way up, which indicates a steady supply of fighters. Even in Iraq, the flow is slower but continues
I see the pressure building on Al Qaeda to do something enormous this year,” Hoffman said. “The biggest damage that Dr. Fadl has done to Al Qaeda is to bring into question its relevance.”
Al Qaeda has nothing to show for its efforts except blood and grief. The organization was constructed from rotten intellectual bits and pieces—false readings of religion and history—cleverly and deviously fitted together to give the appearance of reason.