Frank Anderson is an old friend and colleague who offers this additional thought on my earlier post.
Poat Lang
""Takfir wa Hijra" is the extremist splinter from the Egyptian MB whose late 20th century ideological/theological reference is Sayyid Qutb. ("Takfir" refers to Qutb’s "doctrine" that those with whom he disagreed could be/should be declared "kufra" irrespective of their adherance to Islam in any form but that which he defined as genuine.) They are the folk that assassinated Sadat, exported the group that did WTC bombing number, and one gave us the " blind sheikh" Omar Abd Ar-Rahman’s plot to blow up the UN. Their most prominent leader in exile (now that the sheikh lives in the Metropolitan Corrections Center) is Ayman Zawahiri, popularly known as Bin Ladin’s "Number Two." I have hunch that Zawahiri, in fact, has always been the real top man in A-Qa’idah, using Bin Ladin’s name and money to build and motivate the movement. Al-Qa’idah recruiters use Sayyid Qutb’s books/language, not that of any "old fashioned" Najdi ulema, in talking folk into the jihad against jews and crusaders (and Shia’). I think "takfiri" is a more accurate label than "salafi" or "wahabi" for the movement that we now are confronting."
Frank Anderson
“I have hunch that Zawahiri, in fact, has always been the top man in A-Qa’idah”
FWIW, if I were a betting man, I would finger him as being behind Azzam’s death.
I think the Egyptian torture made him a tad blood-thirsty.
Happy Jack –
The torture during imprisionment certainly altered Zawahiri’s life direction…
Many accounts make him a “radically” different man after his jailing. How many times has this same story played out in our sad world history?
And how many Zawahiri’s are being made everyday in our GWOT jails?
SP
Another usage of “takfir,” from the Iraqi Constitution :
Article (7): 1st — Entities or trends that advocate, instigate, justify or propagate racism, terrorism, ‘takfir’, sectarian cleansing, are banned, especially the Saddamist Baath in Iraq and its symbols, under any name.
anyone seen the videos of az-Zawahiri shouting from his jail cell? he’s a pretty freaky-looking dude.
Praktike
How he got out of that cell alive puzzles me. pl