Jailan Halawi assesses the possible impact of Jihad founder Sayed Emam's revised ideology on the global movement What will be the impact of Jihad leader Sayed Emam's recently published Rationalising Jihad in Egypt and the World on the ideology of extreme Islamist groups, and in particular Al-Qaeda? The importance of Emam's revisions lies not only in the fact that they challenge the core jurisprudence that permits jihadists to carry out certain acts of violence under the banner of religion but that they were authored by Jihad's founder, ideologue and first emir, or commander, the 57-year-old, aka Dr Fadl, whose writings formed the blueprint for the armed struggle adopted not only by Jihad but by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Many of Emam's followers joined Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the struggle against the Soviet occupation and who later formed the nucleus of Al-Qaeda. Emam's Al-Omda fi E'dad Al-Odda (Definitive Text in Making Preparations for Jihad) was quickly adopted as a guide by Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups. A surgeon who once worked closely with Bin Laden's deputy and right-hand man Ayman El-Zawahri, Emam eventually broke ranks with Al-Qaeda, travelling to Yemen where he worked as a medical doctor and distanced himself from any organisational activities. He was arrested in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, interrogated by many security forces, including the CIA, who handed him over to Egypt in 2004 since when he has been serving a life sentence. Emam's split with El-Zawahri in 1993 is reported to have been a result of his opposition to Jihad launching armed attacks in Egypt. The re-questioning of basic tenets that Emam then began to undertake formed the germ of his latest document. Emam's Jihad was among Egypt's most feared terrorist groups, responsible for attacks against state officials, infrastructure and tourist sites. Its members masterminded the 1974 coup attempt in which armed militants attacked the Technical Military Academy. The group forged an alliance with Egypt's Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya before the assassination of president Anwar El-Sadat on 6 October 1981, and two days later its members took over the Assiut Security Department where clashes with the police left dozens dead and close to 100 injured. In 1993, Jihad attempted to assassinate then prime minister Atef Sidki, the minister of information, now head of the Shura Council, Safwat El-Sherif, and former minister of interior Hassan El-Alfi, leaving dozens of innocent civilians dead and injured. Outside Egypt, the group claimed responsibility for the 1995 bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan. Two years later attacks in Egypt claimed the lives of 45 policemen and public figures. In 1998, under the banner of the International Front for Fighting Jews and Crusaders, Jihad forged an alliance with Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda and in the same year the new organisation attacked US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Essalaam. Then came the attacks of 9/11 that left 4,000 dead. According to Islamist sources and experts on the Islamic movement, all these attacks were approved by Salafi scholars and by the ideologue and historic commander of Jihad, Dr Fadl. Now, though, he has recanted his earlier positions. It is the first time in four decades that the ideology and theoretical structures legitimising armed attacks have been questioned by a key jihadist leader. Emam's 100- page document, serialised in the daily independent Al-Masry Al-Yom, provides a new concept of Jihad, most radically by withholding any blessing to armed attacks. Armed operations under the banner of Jihad, Emam now argues, were justified by misinterpretations of a jurisprudence that addressed a totally different era. At the time when the group was established its members were so young, Emam argues, that they willingly followed fatwas "that were either misinterpreted to justify the group's actions or produced in publications whose authors lacked sufficient knowledge of the true essence of religion". Emam's document, in which he addresses the Muslim nation -- warning young people to take care over which edicts they follow lest their actions lead to the downfall, rather than well-being, of the nation -- is also addressed to Jihad leaders, members and affiliates. He foregrounds the "erroneous jurisprudence" on which previous fatwas justifying bloodshed were based, and refutes the legitimacy of armed operations under the pretext of establishing an Islamic state that lead to indiscriminate killing. Emam's revision have been welcomed by Jihad's sister group Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, which launched a unilateral ceasefire initiative 10 years ago, and appears to be supported by some of Emam's expatriate comrades and fellow leaders. The document, though, has been challenged, and those opposed to Emam's new stance say it is no more than a tactic to secure his release. Experts on Islamic movements such as Abdel-Rahman Ali doubt that Emam's ideological shifts will have much impact on global Jihad and/or Al-Qaeda given that the movement is headed by El-Zawahri and Bin Laden. Emam, says Ali, abandoned the leadership of Jihad in the early 1990s and no longer commands authority over jihadist cadres. Emam has stressed that the document was composed not in his capacity as the leader of any group but by a man whose quest in life is to seek religious knowledge. His aim, he writes, is to provide "sincere advice... and pass on knowledge to Muslims keen to understand true Islamic jurisprudence". "Bearing in mind Emam's significance among the Jihad ranks -- he is the sole ideologue of Egyptian Jihad and an important figure in the international movement since it was established in Afghanistan -- his revisions will surely reverberate among the ranks of Al-Qaeda," says Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamist movements at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "The revisions contained in this document constitute an unprecedented move and the biggest challenge yet to the positions adopted by Al-Qaeda. Never before has such radical opposition to the group's jurisprudential underpinnings been expressed by a former leader of the group." "Members of Jihad might have disagreed with their leaders, splits have happened within the ranks and some members have left the group but never before have any of them refuted its ideology or basic concepts." Neither El-Zawahri nor Bin Laden, says Rashwan, possess Emam's theoretical clout. Most of the group's contemporary ideologues, he points out, studied under Emam during his stay in Afghanistan. "It is only logical, then, that Emam's document will spark questions about the global state of Jihad and inevitably these will be heard within Al-Qaeda... Emam's revisions challenge not only the group's theoretical premise, but provide an alternative jurisprudence that refutes violence as a religious duty." (see Ammar Ali Hassan)
