ji·had·ica

Al-Qaida Advises the Arab Spring: Egypt

The number of jihadi publications on the Arab Spring is increasing dramatically as the months go by and my time has – as always – been very limited, hence my recent absence from Jihadica. I have several posts about al-Qaida’s advice to the Arab Spring lined up, however, including this one about Egypt. Scepticism When one thinks of Egypt and jihadis, the first person that comes to mind is probably Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Qaida’s leader has issued many a “letter of hope and good tidings to our people in Egypt” since the beginning of the Arab Spring and although that title may sound as if these epistles contain Christmas greetings to the country’s Coptic community, they offer nothing of the sort. In part three of his series of letters to the Egyptian people, al-Zawahiri spends most of his time warning his countrymen about the supposedly evil intentions of the United States

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Joas Wagemakers April 22, 2012

Against Palestinian Reconciliation

With the recent news of a Palestinian deal between Fatah and Hamas, which is supposed to result in a unity government in which both are represented, a long-standing feud between the two organisations looks like it is coming to an end. (Having said that, the prospects of Palestinian reconciliation have looked hopeful before, only to end in disappointment later on.) Whatever the outcome may be, it seems obvious that, from a Palestinian point of view at least, the process of reconciliation is a good thing. One might think that this even applies to more radical Islamic groups in the Gaza Strip. Sure, these groups don’t exactly like Hamas and they probably hate the secular Fatah even more, but you might think that even they would agree that Palestinian infighting serves no purpose and that a united opposition against Israel is certainly better. Well, think again. In this post, I will look at a document called

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Joas Wagemakers February 12, 2012

Al-Qaida advises the Arab Spring: Libya

Unlike the Arab uprising in Syria, which was the subject of my previous post, the one in Libya seems to have reached its end. The regime has been overthrown and Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi and some of his sons are dead. Although it is by no means certain that Libya is on its way to becoming a fully-fledged liberal democracy, the Libyan people have achieved things that most Syrians can still only dream of. In this post, I will look at how some scholars and ideologues associated with al-Qaida responded to the situation in Libya. The West One member of al-Qaida Central who responds to the situation in Libya is, perhaps unsurprisingly since he is a Libyan himself, Abu Yahya al-Libi. His comments stress that the United States is “the idol (taghut) of the age” (i.e., the country that other countries “serve”) and “the source of terrorism”. He asks rhetorically: “Isn’t America the one

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Joas Wagemakers January 9, 2012

Al-Qaida advises the Arab Spring: Syria

With the Arab Spring going strong in several countries, al-Qaida (in a broad sense, so including ideologues and scholars supportive of the organisation) still finds it necessary to comment on what is happening. In a series of posts, I will deal with the advice al-Qaida is giving the people of several countries, starting with Syria. Praise One of the men “advising” the Syrians currently revolting against the regime of President al-Asad is Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaida. In an epistle meant solely to greet, encourage and heap praise on the people he is addressing, al-Zawahiri spends one of the first paragraphs of his letter saying “salamun ‘alaykum” to his audience no fewer than eight times. He addresses them as “the mujahidun who command good and forbid evil”. This seems to be an attempt to claim that al-Qaida-like people are the ones trying to overthrow the Syrian regime, which is a good

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Joas Wagemakers November 19, 2011

Defending Failure in Gaza (Part 2)

As we saw in the previous installment of this short series on jihadis in the Gaza Strip, the leader of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi, was pretty defensive about his organization’s actions in his answers to questions from visitors of the Shumukh al-Islam forum. The rest of his answers indicate that the group may have grandiose plans and plenty of enemies against whom these may be applied but that in the end they are not really capable of living up to their own rhetoric. Interestingly, one of the things Abu al-Walid mentions as – unfortunately – being an impossibility is expanding his activities to the Sinai desert in order to give his organization more strategic depth. This is the case because of “the heavy security oppression on everyone who is thought to have even the slightest link to Jihadi-Salafism” (question no. 16). Recent attacks on Israel possibly coming

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Joas Wagemakers September 9, 2011

Defending Failure in Gaza (Part 1)

Will’s latest post suggested that at least one jihadi is quite critical of what al-Qa’ida is doing regarding the Palestinian question. Well, he’s not the only one. Late last year, the Shumukh al-Islam forum published a book of its Q&A sessions with a jihadi leader from Gaza, namely Abu l-Walid al-Maqdisi, the amir of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad and a member of the Shari’a Council of the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad. While most questioners praised Abu l-Walid and wished him well, many also asked critical questions that forced Abu l-Walid to defend what essentially boils down to his group’s failure to achieve any substantial successes. In a short series of posts, I intend to work my way through this book, thereby providing insight into the problems that jihadis in the Gaza Strip face. Unity The book has about 160 pages (there’s no pagination) and contains 292 questions. What is interesting is that

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Joas Wagemakers August 18, 2011

Jihadi Dilemmas in Syria

A few days ago, it was reported that Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the radical Jordanian ideologue, had issued a fatwa supporting the revolts in Syria (see here, here and here, for instance). This struck me as odd, since al-Maqdisi has been in prison since September 2010 and has been quiet ever since, presumably because the prison authorities do not allow him to write anything. A quick look at the relevant page on his website, however, reveals that it was not al-Maqdisi himself who wrote the fatwa, but Abu l-Mundhir al-Shinqiti, a member of the Shari’a Council of al-Maqdisi’s website. Despite the obvious mix-up by several media, the fatwa itself is nevertheless quite interesting and worth another look. Syria Al-Shinqiti has already expressed his enthusiasm for the recent protests in Egypt (see for example Brynjar’s post) but, as the revolutions keep on coming, the questions posed to scholars such as al-Shinqiti become

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Joas Wagemakers May 3, 2011

A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 4)

As we saw in the previous parts of this series, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza wrote a book that can be described as a “crash course” in jihadi theory. In part 1, I described how the council used the term taghut (idol, pl. tawaghit) to accuse the rulers of the Muslim world of unbelief and why they were adamantly against both democracy and secularism. In part 2, we saw that the council believes Muslim rulers should be overthrown because of their man-made legislation but that something beneficial for Muslims should replace them, with the obvious favourite being a truly Islamic imamate of course. Finally, in part 3 it became clear that, its radicalism notwithstanding, the council did not believe any sinful Muslim should simply be fought by means of jihad but that one should be careful in applying takfir (excommunication). The “infidel” rulers, though, should

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Joas Wagemakers February 14, 2011

From the Pen to the Sword

One of the things that struck me about the Stockholm bomber, Taimour Abdalwahhab, was that he was apparently active on the internet as a radical before he decided to engage in actual terrorism (see Thomas’ posts below for more details). This transition reminded me of a similar but much more serious process by someone who also moved from “jihad by the pen” to “jihad by the sword”: Abu Dujana al-Khurasani, the Jordanian former internet-jihadi turned suicide bomber who killed several CIA-agents in his attack on an American base in Khost, Afghanistan, on 30 December 2009. The attack in Khost, which took place exactly a year ago, led many to praise al-Khurasani for his supposed heroism, his willingness to move from cyber-jihadism to an actual suicide bombing and his loyalty to the cause. A few months ago, an e-book was released by the Jihadi Media Elite (Nukhbat al-I’lam al-Jihadi) that not only

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Joas Wagemakers January 3, 2011

A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 3)

In the first part of this series on a book written by the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza, we saw that its authors were highly critical of the rulers of the Muslim world and employed their Islamist terminology to accuse these rulers of kufr (unbelief), the details of which are dealt with in the second part of this series. Knowing this, you might expect the Council’s treatment of excommunication (takfir) to deal entirely with the legitimacy of excommunicating Muslim rulers and why they may be called “infidels” and expelled from Islam. Well, this is actually not the case. Apparently, the authors believed they had made a strong enough case against Muslim rulers in the previous chapters because chapter 4 is virtually entirely dedicated to giving a theoretical description of what takfir is, what its conditions and obstacles are and when it may or may not be

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Joas Wagemakers November 24, 2010
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