A Major Jihadi Ideologist Rethinks His Positions

This from IPS News:

The Al-Jihad Group, partly responsible for killing former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and the nest for some of most aggressive smaller violent groups, has begun publishing a "review of its positions" in two Arabic language newspapers.

The leading al Qaeda faction -- once led by al Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahri -- has altered its traditional course by publishing this series of critiques of the religious justifications long relied on in calling for followers to take up arms against ruling regimes and foreign powers.

In the new "document", al-Jihad Group's founder and leading ideologue, Sayed Imam, renounces violent activities and calls for ceasing all armed operations in Egypt and in other Arab or Muslim countries.

Imam -- al-Zawahri's teacher and long time friend -- is currently in custody at a high-security Egyptian prison.

. . . "This al-Jihad initiative is very important, it is directed mostly to the outside world and more explicitly to the leaders of al-Jihad Group and al Qaeda because the author of those reviews is Sayed Imamal-Sharief, the very same person whose former writings are the point of reference for the al-Jihad members," said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamic groups at al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo.

Imam was the first Amir, or leader, for the al-Jihad Group in 1968 and the first leader of an armed cell who ever decided to fight fellow Muslims.

Imam also authored, "The Principle Book for Preparations", a reference book that al Qaeda uses to justify its operations and win new recruits on religious grounds.

. . . For decades, Imam's writings have also formed the backbone for the philosophical arguments touted by several other armed groups to validate their attacks.

But in the new review he now says his group "erred enormously from an Islamic point of view" by allowing "killing based on nationality, color of skin and hair or based on religious doctrine".

"Those are actually the methods of secular revolutionaries and not the methods of Islam. There's no such a thing as the goal justifies the means in Islam, even when the goals are noble are legitimate. Muslims worship God by using legitimate methods too," he wrote.

. . . The review calls for an end to targeting of "all civilians", and "tourists of all races".

The al-Jihad Group and its offshoots have in the past targeted local police and military officers, foreign tourists and other Muslims who disagree with their philosophy.

Imam says he was prompted to write the review after noticing persistent "violations" by members of the al-Jihad Group in its decades-long fight with authorities that has included excessive bloodshed, random killings and targeting of civilians.

. . . The documents that are being serialized simultaneously in a local newspaper and a Kuwait newspaper are also important because they are expected to rekindle a debate in the Muslim world that is likely to include academic scholars, religious scholars and political activists over the methods employed by some of the militant groups and the true meaning of armed Jihad in Islam.

"A huge debate will happen after those documents are finished," said Kamal Habib, an independent expert on Islamic groups who was formerly a member of Islamic militant groups.

A member of al-Gamaa al-Islamia, Essam Derbala, said the initiative was welcome news for all active Islamic groups, especially those who took up arms in the past, because it helps Muslim groups "work peacefully to strengthen their societies" against what he called Western "attempts to dissolve the Islamic nation" and against "the state of occupation we are experiencing" -- referring to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Israeli occupation of Arab land.

Read the entire article here. This news is the type of thing we need to see from Salafi Islam, though its impossible to tell from the article how much of a reform to jihadist ideology is actually being suggested by the author, Imam Sayed. That judgment will have to wait more information and review by people smarter than me. Having said that, it sounds as if the Imam's writings are limited to stopping Muslim on Muslim violence. Also, it is also questionable how much significance will be given his writings in the jihadi circles, as he is composing from an Egyptian prison cell. Nonetheless, this news has the potential to be significant.