Abū Muhammad al-Maqdisī

Abū Muhammad ʿĀsim ibn Muhammad al-Maqdisī ( Arabic أبو محمد عاصم بن محمد المقدسي, DMG Abū Muḥammad ʿĀṣim ibn Muḥammad al-Maqdisī , actually ʿIsām al-Barqāwīعصام البرقاوي / ʿIṣām al-Barqāwī ; born 1959 in the village of Barqā near Nablus ) is a Palestinian-Jordanian ideologue of jihadist Salafism . In 1989 he declared Saudi Arabia an "unbelieving state". From 1992 he worked with Abū Musʿab al -Zarqāwī , who later became the leader of the al-Qaeda organization in Iraq , and together with him he built up a jihadist organization called at-Tawheed wa-l-Jihād . In 2004, however, he publicly distanced himself from him when az-Zarqāwī began to use violence against Shiites in Iraq . Also towards the organizationIslamic State (IS) , the beginnings of which go back to az-Zarqāwī, he expressed himself critically on several occasions. Since the beginning of 2014, al-Maqdisī has been calling on jihad fighters worldwide to show loyalty to al-Qaeda leader Aiman ​​az-Zawahiri .

The Combating Terrorism Center in West Point (New York) described al-Maqdisī in a 2006 study as the Muslim scholar with the greatest influence within the militant Islamist field worldwide. Since his first arrest in 1994, al-Maqdisī has spent most of his time in Jordanian prisons. In October 2014 he was involved in efforts to release the American hostage Peter Kassig , but was arrested again for spreading jihadist propaganda on the Internet. He has been free again since February 5th, 2015. It is believed that his release, which followed the murder of the Jordanian pilot Muʿādh al-Kasāsba by the ISIS militia, aimed to encourage al-Maqdisī to make new statements critical of ISIS.

Name and origin

The Nisba al-Barqāwī in al-Maqdisī's original name refers to the village of al-Barqā in the West Bank where he was born. He later changed his first name to ʿĀsim, because ʿIsām is also a female first name and he wanted to orient himself with sim on the model of various companions of the prophets who were called that way. He also accepted the Nisba al-Maqdisī, which refers to Jerusalem, only later.

Al-Maqdisī has also repeatedly emphasized that he belongs to the so-called Hāfī, a branch of the central Arab tribe of the ʿUtaiba. This explains why he also uses the Nisba al-ʿUtaibī for himself. The ʿUtaiba were an important element in the militant Wahhabi Ichwān movement, which reached its peak between 1912 and 1930.

Early years in Kuwait and Mosul

When Abū Muhammad al-Maqdisī was three or four years old, he moved with his parents to Kuwait , where he received his school education. Towards the end of his visit, the secondary school, he joined an Islamist group known as Jama'at Ahl al-Hadith ( "the people of the community hadeeth ") was known and juhayman al-otaybi was inspired the busy 1979, the Great Mosque of Mecca had . In the early 1980s, al-Maqdisī came into contact with the Kuwaiti branch of al-Jamāʿa al-Salafīya al-Muhtasiba ("The Salafi, Hisba- Practicing Community"), formerly led by al-ʿUtaibī, and strict observance of the Sharia demanded.

At his father's request, he began studying natural sciences at the University of Mosul . As he later described in an essay, he felt very uncomfortable there because of the coeducational teaching system, which he detested as un-Islamic.

Saudi Arabia, "Millat Ibrāhīm"

After three years, al-Maqdisī dropped out of his studies in Mosul and went to Saudi Arabia to study Sharia sciences at the Islamic University of Medina . During his studies in Medina in the early 1980s, he dealt a lot with the issue of takfīr and became a fierce critic of Arab regimes. He also worked on his first major book "The Fellowship of Abraham and the Daʿwa of the Prophets and Messengers" ( Millat Ibrāhīm wa-daʿwat al-Anbiyāʾ wa-l-mursalīn ), which he published in 1984. The book, in which he developed ideas of al-ʿUtaibī, emphasizes the need for Muslims to apply the principle of al-Walā 'wa-l-barā' ("loyalty and defection") in their lives , which he believes means that Muslims must be loyal and faithful to God in every possible way, while conversely they renounce all forms of shirk and its followers. Al-Maqdisī based his teaching in this regard in particular on the Qur'anic word in Sura 60 : 4, in which it says: “You have a beautiful example in Abraham and in those who were with him. Back when they said, 'We are not responsible for you and for what you still worship except God. We don't want to know anything about you. Enmity and hatred between us and you became manifest until you believe in God only and only '”(Translator H. Bobzin ). At the political level, al-Maqdisī deduced from this principle that Muslims must break away from the rulers of their countries and overthrow them.

Pakistan and Afghanistan, Takfīr versus Saudi Arabia

From Saudi Arabia, al-Maqdisī went to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, where Afghans and other Muslim volunteers were waging war against the Soviet Union at that time. Al-Maqdisī did not take part in the fighting himself, but used the time to spread his book Millat Ibrāhīm and his teachings among the local Arab jihad fighters . In between he traveled back to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where he wrote new books. In 1987/88 he wrote a book in Kuwait in which he dealt with the Koran commentary Fī ẓilāl al -qur qān by Sayyid Qutb , which had been criticized as flawed by Saudi scholars such as ʿAbdallāh ad-Duwaish.

During a six-month stay in Afghanistan in 1989, al-Maqdisī used the principle of al-Walā 'wa-l-barā' to show that the Saudi leadership should also be regarded as an infidel, and referred to numerous decrees valid in Saudi Arabia which are not based on Sharia law, as well as letters from the former mufti of the kingdom, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim . The book in which he presented these thoughts was titled "The Clear Revelations of the Unbelief of the Saudi State" ( Al-Kawāšif al-ǧalīya fī kufr ad-daula al-Suʿūdīya ), and was even considered by Osama bin Laden to be radical for use in al-Qaeda circles.

In the early 1990s, al-Maqdisī traveled to Pakistan again. There he met Abū Musʿab al-Zarqāwī for the first time in Peshawar in the house of the jihadist ideologist Abū l-Walīd al-Ansārī. A polemic that he published in 1991/92 was directed against scholars who did not apply the principle of al-Walā 'wa-l-barā' and whom he therefore called the " Murji'a of the present" ( Murǧiʾat al-ʿaṣr ) looked at.

Jordan: Criticism of the Political System

Since al-Maqdisī could not return to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after the Second Gulf War , he moved his main residence to Jordan in 1992. Here he founded in 1993 with az-Zarqāwī the organization at-Tawhīd wa-l-Jihād (" Confession of Unity and Jihad") and in the following years became the most important spiritual leader of the radical Islamist community. While al -Zarqāwī was helping him to spread his writings in Jordan, another jihadist ideologue of Palestinian origin, Abū Qatāda al-Filastīnī , moved to Great Britain in 1993 and popularized al-Maqdisī's writings there.

Before the Jordanian parliamentary elections in 1993, al-Maqdisī published a book entitled " Democracy is a Religion" ( ad-Dīmuqrāṭīya dīn ). In it he advocated the thesis that democracy and monotheism are incompatible and that democracy in this respect equates to unbelief and seduces believers to fitna . Due to the nature of a democracy - the rule of the people ( ḥukm aš-šaʿb ) - the majority can always agree on what they currently believe is right. Al-Maqdisī, however, sees the point of sending the Koran down to teach people a system in which everything is geared towards the worship of God. In a democracy, the enemies of Islam could rule and replace God as the rightful ruler. So God's laws would be superseded by a constitution. The secularism make democracy so to a poor system that no longer God's laws ( Sharia was governed). As soon as this is the case, another religion rules the people.

In a paper from 1996 he dealt with the Jordanian constitution and tried to show that it was incompatible with Islam because it was based on positive law instead of Sharia law and also provided for things like freedom of the press, equality before the law and freedom of speech that would be contrary to Islam. The script was later used by az-Zarqāwī and al-Qaeda to discredit the first Iraqi elections in January 2005.

Years of imprisonment, arguments over takfīr

After the massacre of Muslim prayers in the Abraham Mosque in Hebron in February 1994 by Baruch Goldstein , al-Maqdisī published a fatwa in which he endorsed suicide bombings in Israel. He and several of his supporters were arrested in March / April 1994 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The Jordanian authorities used the name Bai dieat al-Imām ("oath of allegiance for the Imam") for his group . Al-Maqdisī, however, denies that his organization was ever called that.

While his followers were initially housed in different prisons, they were brought together in April 1995 in Suwāqa Prison. While in prison, al-Maqdisī and az-Zarqāwī rivaled for ideological leadership within the community, which made their relationship very tense.

One of the most important issues during the years in prison was the question of takfīr , on which al-Maqdisī has repeatedly found it necessary to clarify. As early as 1992/1993 he had written a letter to "some brothers", warning them of misinterpretation of his teaching. In the letter he made it clear that he did not regard Muslim societies as a whole as “unbelievers”, but only those rulers who did not apply Sharia law. That is why one should not conduct jihad against other Muslims in general. Al-Maqdisī's concern that he might be misunderstood had to do with the fact that during this time jihadist groups in Egypt and Algeria declared entire societies to be unbelievers and accordingly saw themselves entitled to massacre the population.

Al-Maqdisīs Takfīr teachings were also attacked at this time by Muhammad Nāsir ad-Dīn al-Albānī , a scholar who, like himself, belongs to the Salafīya. He had in his book "warning of the discord of Takfir " ( at-Taḥḏīr min Fitnat at-Takfir criticized indirectly) al-Maqdisi and warned that for Infidel declaration could lead to the ruling chaos and bloodshed. Al-Maqdisī responded with his writing Tabṣīr al-uqalāʾ , in which he accused al-Albānī of Murji'aism . Alluding to the title of al-Albānī's book, he wrote there: "Verily, the fitna of unbelief , apostasy and polytheism is worse than the fitna of bloodshed and killing." Al-Maqdisī went into this in his writing particularly extensively Meaning of the Koran word: "Those who do not decide according to what God has revealed are the unbelievers." ( Sura 5 : 44) one which he regarded as proof that it was lawful, politicians who did not comply with Sharia law apply to disbelieve.

Al-Maqdisī reiterated his position on takfīr in October 1997 in his book "This Is Our Confession" ( Hāḏihī ʿaqīdatu-nā ), in which he systematically summarized his beliefs. According to his own statement, the trigger for this was that people had attributed teachings to him that he had never represented. In his writing, al-Maqdisī again opposed a blanket takfīr of Muslim societies, but also emphasized that jihad was a duty against “unbelieving” rulers and non-Muslims.

When Abdullah became the new king of Jordan in 1999 , he declared an amnesty for a number of political prisoners, which also benefited al-Maqdisī and his longtime companion al-Zarqāwī. While az-Zarqāwī then went to Afghanistan with other jihadists and opened a training camp for Arab jihadists there with the permission of the Taliban near Herat , al-Maqdisī stayed in Jordan and continued his publishing activities. In 1999 he published a pamphlet with the title "Thirties treatise to warn against exaggeration in Takfīr" ( ar-Risāla aṯ-Ṯalāṯīnīya fī t-taḥḏīr min al-ġulūw fī takfīr ), in which he again warned others against it Blindly declaring Muslims "infidels". In contrast, al-Maqdisī publicly praised the attacks of September 11, 2001 .

In 2002, al-Maqdisī set up a website on which he not only posted his own books, but also the writings of other jihadists. In November of the same year he was arrested again on suspicion of being involved in a plot to attack American soldiers in al-Mafraq and held in custody until December 2004.

Break with az-Zarqāwī, accusation of revisionism

In 2004, Abū Musʿab al-Zarqāwī began terrorist activities in Iraq, using the same name for his group at-Tawheed wa-l-jihād that al-Maqdisī used for his website. Al-Maqdisī was very angry about this and wrote a letter to az-Zarqāwī from prison entitled "Help and Advice" ( Munāṣara wa-munāsaḥa ), in which he criticized his brutal actions against the Shiites in Iraq and accused him of his exploiting religious status as a sheikh to give one's group greater religious legitimacy . In this letter, Al-Maqdisī explicitly distanced himself from az-Zarqāwī and described him as "a man who loves jihad and has no patience for (religious) knowledge, teaching and Daʿwa ." He also pointed to the need for az-Zarqāwī looking for a learned advisor who would be at his side in his difficult situation with advice, admonitions and help. Around the same time, in July 2004, al-Maqdisī also wrote a book entitled "Confronting the Fruits of Jihad" ( Waqfāt maʿa ʿamarāt al-Jihād ) in which he made similar accusations to other jihādīs he knew az-Zarqāwī. Az-Zarqāwī responded to the criticism in October 2004 by turning away from al-Maqdisī, taking the oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his organization in "Organization of the Qā Qida of Jihad in Mesopotamia " ( Tanẓīm Qāʿidat al-Jihād fī Bilād ar-Rāfidain ) renamed.

Although al-Maqdisī was found innocent on December 28th, ending his pre-trial detention, his actual release from custody did not take place until June 28, 2005. A few days later, on July 5, 2005, al-Maqdisī gave an interview to the Arab news channel al-Jazeera and in it again condemned az-Zarqāwī's activities in Iraq. He accused him of attacking other Muslims and of damaging the image of Islam with his brutality. The accusation that he had criticized az-Zarqāwī only out of opportunism was rejected by al-Maqdisī with reference to his "Thirties Treatise", in which he had already expressed the same views. Az-Zarqāwī responded to al-Maqdisī's criticism in a public statement in which he accused him of not knowing what was going on in Iraq.

Since al-Maqdisī had been banned from any media contact, the interview with al-Jazeera earned him another prison term. On July 6, 2005, he was arrested again. When he was released from prison in March 2008, his relatives reported that he wanted to withdraw from public life, but from the end of the year he was again embroiled in polemical battles with other jihadists in Jordan, as well as on the Internet. These He accused "extremists of Takfir" ( ġulāt at-Takfir ) and Kharijites to be because they were doing extremely quick to declare fellow Muslims to "infidels." Conversely, the opposing jihadists criticized him for spreading a false ideology as a revisionist and for not having sufficiently distinguished himself as a jihad fighter. Documents circulating in Jordan indicated that al-Maqdisī had only ever called for jihad without participating in it. Jihadist Salafist groups in the Gaza Strip and the North Caucasus continued to recognize him as a religious authority. At that time, al-Maqdisī made a living with a shop selling scented herbs and honey, in which his sons worked. However, on charges of recruiting terrorists, he was arrested again in September 2010 and sentenced to five years in prison in July 2011.

Positioning towards the ISIS organization

In spring 2014, al-Maqdisī expressed himself critical of the organization “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS). In a public statement in January, he condemned ISIS fatwas , according to which Muslims are obliged to swear allegiance to their caliph Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī . He said that such fatwas would lead to bloodshed between Muslims and the disloyalty of the jihadists to al-Qaeda leader Aiman al -Zawahiri . In May 2014, he again expressed himself critical of ISIS, describing it as a “derogatory organization” and calling on jihad fighters in Syria to join the al-Nusra Front . He had personally tried to mediate peace between the various jihadist militias in Syria, but these efforts had been rejected by ISIS. The declaration was also noteworthy because al-Maqdisī referred to al-Zawāhirī as his “beloved brother”, “sheikh” and “commander”.

In June 2014, al-Maqdisī was unexpectedly released from custody. Observers of the Islamist scene put this in a direct connection with his previous statements critical of ISIS. They suspected that by releasing al-Maqdisī, the Jordanian authorities were trying to reduce the influence of the ISIS organization, which is very popular in Jordan. Al-Maqdisī is said to have great authority among the jihadist circles sympathetic to the ISIS organization.

The fact is, however, that since his release, al-Maqdisī has focused his efforts primarily on establishing a balance between the Islamist organizations in Syria. At the end of September 2014, he and other jihadist ideologues published an appeal calling for the jihadists to end their internal disputes “in the face of the Crusader attack on our Muslim brothers in Iraq and Syria”. According to this call, the US attacks on are IS militia "an attack on Islam as a whole, not to a specific organization."

Efforts to get Peter Kassig released

In October 2014 al-Maqdisī was contacted by the New York lawyer Stanley Cohen and asked to campaign for the release of the American hostage Peter Kassig . It was planned that al-Maqdisī should speak out for Kassig with his former student Turki al-Binali , who plays a leading role in the organization "Islamic State" (IS). Al-Maqdisī then actually made contact with al-Binali. Before his mediation efforts were successful, however, he was arrested again by the Jordanian authorities, who accused him of using the Internet to spread the propaganda of jihadist organizations. He was arrested on October 27, 2014. Peter Kassig was beheaded a few days later, on November 16, 2014, by the IS militia.

literature

Writings of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisī

• ad-Dīmuqrāṭīya Dīn , first published in 1993, digitized version of the edition of Minbar at-Tauḥīd wa-l-Ǧihād . - English translation by Abu Muhammad al-Maleki under the title Democracy: A Religion . Al Furqan Islamic Information Center, 2012. Digitized

Secondary literature

• Dirk Baehr: Continuity and change in the ideology of Jihadi Salafism: an ideological analysis of the writings of Abu Mus'ab al-Suri, Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Bakr Naji . Bouvier, Bonn, 2009.
• Orhan Elmaz: A Jihadi-Salafist Creed: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi's Imperatives of Faith . In: Rüdiger Lohlker: New Approaches to the Analysis of Jihadism: Online and Offline. V&R unipress, Göttingen, 2012. pp. 15–37.
• Daurius Figueira: Salafi Jihadi discourse of Sunni Islam in the 21st century: the discourse of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Anwar al-Awlaki. iUniverse, Bloomington, Ind., 2011. pp. 1-77.
• Nibras Kazimi: A Virulent Ideology in Mutation: Zarqawi Upstages Maqdisi . In: Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 2 (2005) 59-73. Online version
• Nelly Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis: Abu Muhammad al ‐ Maqdisi's Jihadi Philosophy . In Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 10 (2009) 205-220.
• Farhad Khosrokhavar: Jihadist ideology: the anthropological perspective. Center for Studies in Islamism and Radicalization, Aarhus, 2011. pp. 38–44.
• Daniel Lav: Radical Islam and the revival of medieval theology . Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2012. pp. 126-140.
• Joas Wagemakers: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, A Counter-Terrorism Asset? in CTC Sentinel 6 (2008) 8-10. Digitized
• Joas Wagemakers: Defining the Enemy: Abū Muḥammad al-Maqdisī's Radical Reading of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥana in Die Welt des Islams 48 (2008) 348-371.
• Joas Wagemakers: The Transformation of a Radical Concept: al-wala 'wa-l-bara' in the Ideology of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi in Roel Meijer (ed.): Global Salafism. Islam's New Religious Movement. Hurst & Company, London, 2009. pp. 81-106.
• Joas Wagemakers: A Purist Jihadi-Salafi: The Ideology of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 36 (2009) 281-297.
• Joas Wagemakers: Reclaiming Scholarly Authority: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi's critique of Jihadi practices in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34 (2011) 523-539.
• Joas Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi: the ideology and influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi . Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge [and a.], 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012. p. 1.
2. ↑ See Jordan releases jihadi cleric and Isis critic after group's murder of pilot ( Memento from February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). The Guardian February 5, 2015
3. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012. p. 29f.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Cf. Kazimi: A Virulent Ideology . 2005.
5. ↑ See H. Kindermann u. CE Bosworth: ʿUtayba in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. X, pp. 942b-944b, here 944b.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Lav: Radical Islam . 2012, SV
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Cf. Wagemakers: A Purist Jihadi-Salafi . 2009, p. 285.
8. ↑ See the biography of al-Maqdisī on his website ( memento of October 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
9. ↑ See Lav: Radical Islam . 2012, p. 131.
10. ↑ See Wagemakers: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi . 2008.
11. ↑ See Wagemakers: Defining the Enemy . 2008, p. 370.
12. ↑ See Lav: Radical Islam . 2012, p. 132.
13. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012, p. 40.
14. ↑ ^{a b} Cf. Lav: Radical Islam . 2012, p. 135.
15. ^ See Wagemakers: Reclaiming Scholarly Authority . 2011, p. 525.
16. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012, p. 202.
17. ↑ See Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis . 2009, p. 206.
18. ↑ al-Maqdisī: ad-Dīmuqrāṭīya Dīn . 1993, p. 3.
19. ↑ al-Maqdisī: ad-Dīmuqrāṭīya Dīn . 1993, pp. 11-13.
20. ↑ See Wagemakers: The Transformation of a Radical Concept . 2009, p. 93.
21. ↑ See Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis . 2009, pp. 206, 209.
22. ↑ ^{a b} Cf. Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012, p. 44.
23. ↑ ^{a b c} Cf. Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012, p. 49.
24. ↑ ^{a b c} See Wagemakers: Reclaiming Scholarly Authority . 2011, p. 527.
25. ↑ See Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis . 2009, p. 219.
26. ↑ See Wagemakers: The Transformation of a Radical Concept . 2009, p. 100f.
27. ↑ See Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis . 2009, pp. 213, 218.
28. ↑ See Wagemakers: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi . 2008.
29. ^ See Wagemakers: Reclaiming Scholarly Authority . 2011, p. 526.
30. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012, p. VIII.
31. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012, p. 46.
32. ↑ See Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis . 2009, p. 207.
33. ↑ See Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis . 2009, p. 215.
34. ^ See Wagemakers: Reclaiming Scholarly Authority . 2011, p. 533.
35. ^ See Wagemakers: Reclaiming Scholarly Authority . 2011, p. 525.
36. ↑ See Wagemakers: A Purist Jihadi-Salafi . 2009, p. 286.
37. ↑ See Lahoud: In Search of Philosopher ‐ Jihadis . 2009, p. 208.
38. ^ See Wagemakers: Reclaiming Scholarly Authority . 2011, p. 530.
39. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012. p. 2.
40. ↑ See Wagemakers: A quietist Jihadi . 2012. p. 30.
41. ↑ See Thomas Joscelyn: Pro al-Qaeda Saudi Cleric calls on ISIS members to defect in The Long War Journal February 3, 2014 ( online )
42. ↑ Thomas Joscelyn: Jailed jihadist ideologue says the ISIS is a 'deviant organization' in The Long War Journal May 28, 2014 ( online )
43. ↑ Cf. Areej Abulqudairi: Jordan releases anti-ISIL Salafi leader in Aljazeera News June 17, 2014 ( online )
44. ↑ See Thomas Joscelyn and Oren Adaki: Pro-al Qaeda ideologues propose truce between Islamic State, rivals in Long War Journal October 2, 2014 ( online )
45. ↑ See Shiv Malik et al. a .: The Race to save Peter Kassig . In: The Guardian, December 18, 2014, online