Ekhlaas member Jibal Afghanistan (“Mountains of Afghanistan”) writes about a dream he had recently about two leaders of the Arab Jihadis in Chechnya, Muhannad and Abu al-Walid al-Ghamidi. Here’s a translation:
This is what I saw today in a dream about Muhannad, Abu al-Walid al-Ghamidi, and Ekhlaas.
I performed the midday prayer.
Then I prayed the sunna.
Then I retired to bed.
While sleeping, I saw…
I am in Chechnya and the snow is thick and harsh.
I was standing beside commander Abu al-Walid al-Ghamidi.
Commander Abu al-Walid was standing over a snow vehicle that was to be driven by one of the brothers. It was a bomb. I said to commander Abu al-Walid, “Is it a martyrdom operation?” He said, “Yes.” Then the brother left with his vehicle.
I turned around and found commander Muhannad sitting simply on elevated ground.
I then walked with commander Abu al-Walid.
I said to him, “Will commander Muhannad hold a meeting with Ekhlaas and answer questions in an audio format?”
He said, “I beg your pardon?”
I asked him some questions, but regrettably I forgot them.
Can someone interpret what I saw?
Dreams of Jihadi leaders are a frequent topic on Jihadi forums and this one follows the general format. What is unusual is to have it tied to a media event. Ekhlaas recently announced that it was accepting questions for the Jihadi leadership in Chechnya, which they will answer online. So the dream seems to be either incredibly prophetic or a PR stunt. Zawahiri, who also recently conducted an online Q&A, should have hired Jibal to promote his event.
dream-of-jihadi-leaders-in-chechnya
5 Responses
I have read every single one of your posts that have been made thus far. My overall opinion is that your writing is excellent and succinct. You, Abu Muqa, and a select few other blogs are on my daily reading list. I highly look forward to studying your thoughts. Please, do your best to update often and keep your thoughts as they are now: objective. You are helping a future Army Infantry (hopefully) officer. Your website is a rare breed. COIN discussion is easy to come by, but a compilation of jihadi thoughts and a skilled analysis is a tremendous boon.
Thank you.
Is there a role or importance for either Jihadists specificity or Arabs in general? I ask because I just read about Juhayman al-Otaibi’s mahdi dream in Yaroslav Trofimov’s “The Siege of Mecca” and another book (I cannot recall which one at the moment).
Hi mah, I don’t quite understand your question. A role in the dreams?
Utaybi is fascinating. Have you read Hegghammer and Lacroix’s article? Just google their last names.
Sorry I went temporarily illiterate. It should have read something like “do dreams have a special role/importance to Jihadists specificity or Arabs in general (more so than in the west)?”
I am now off to google.
Thanks.
mah, dreams had a great deal of importance in medieval Islam. Whole manuals were written to aid in the interpretation of dreams. They were also a key part of Sufi claims to authority. And of course, Muhammad had several dreams or visions, included the ascent through the seven heavens (the miraj).
In the modern period, dreams were an important part of anti-Soviet propaganda among Sunni foreign fighters. And Lawrence Wright records in his most excellent Looming Tower that several Jihadis dreamed of airplane attacks before 9/11, even though they were not privy to the details of the operation.