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Striving for Hegemony: The HTS Crackdown on al-Qaida and Friends in Northwest Syria

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The first indication that something was about to happen—again—came on June 17, when Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) security officers arrested Abu Salah al-Uzbeki (Sirajuddin Mukhtarov). Abu Salah, the founder of the mainly Uzbek Katibat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, is a prominent Jihadi commander and ideologue who shortly before his arrest had defected from HTS and, together with approximately 40 fighters, joined Ansar al-Deen, a rival Jihadi faction sympathetic to al-Qaida.

The atmosphere within the rebel landscape in Syria’s northwest was growing increasingly tense even before Abu Salah’s arrest. In a surprise move on June 12, the five groups Hurras al-Deen, Ansar al-Islam, Ansar al-Deen, Tansiqiyat al-Jihad, and Liwa al-Mouqatilin al-Ansar announced the establishment of the new operations room “So Be Steadfast” (Fa-thbutu), much to the displeasure of HTS. According to an insider, the operations room was created in response to the recent losses of territory to the Syrian regime and the implementation of the Sochi agreement.

After the arrest of Abu Salah, a series of events ensued that exacerbated tensions even further, leading to episodes of infighting between HTS and the operations room between June 22 and 27. The true trigger of conflict at this specific time remains unknown. One purported reason is that HTS instigated its crackdown when it became aware that the groups constituting the new “So Be Steadfast” operations room had their eyes set on taking control of Idlib city. Another explanation is that tensions grew due to a combination of (1) the operations room starting to see HTS as a new sahwa (“awakening”) movement on account of HTS’s strengthening of ties with Turkey and (2) HTS’s arrest of prominent commanders of the operations room and the rumours that HTS was involved in the assassination of high-ranking al-Qaida figures in June. A third and related argument is that the HTS crackdown played to Turkey’s desire to fulfil its responsibility as part of the Sochi Agreement to control the M4 highway.

 

Escalating tensions

Throughout June, tensions between HTS and rival al-Qaida-linked groups were mounting. Among al-Qaida sympathisers there is a feeling that HTS continues to defer to Turkey’s interests as part of the political negotiations between Turkey and Russia. This deference, they believe, is not only a transgression of religious principles but a threat to the Jihadi project in Syria. The recent killings of three senior al-Qaida members in US drone strikes have only further aggravated the situation. First, Abu al-Qassam, a military commander and shura council member of Hurras al-Deen, was killed together with Bilal Al-San‘ani, the former amir of Jaysh al-Badiya, on June 14. Eight days later Abu Adnan al-Homsi, Hurras al-Deen’s head of logistics, was similarly killed in a drone strike. According to al-Qaida members (and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi), HTS likely played a role in leaking details about the location of the al-Qaida leaders. Most recently, on August 13, a drone strike killed the al-Qaida military trainer Abu Yahya al-Uzbeki.

Nearly a year earlier, on September 9, 2019, Abu al-Abd Ashida had delivered a stinging critique of HTS in a video entitled “So as Not to Sink the Ship.” Ashida used to be HTS’s head of Aleppo City and the administrator of its Umar bin al-Khattab army, but defected mainly because of the group’s reliance on external actors. At some point during spring 2020, he established Tansiqiyat al-Jihad. When announcing his defection, Ashida complained that HTS was no longer a movement for the ummah since it had been seized by individuals who have made the group their own little kingdom. “Whoever has different opinions, they marginalize him,” he said.

Abu al-Abd Ashida’s ‘So as Not to Sink the Ship’

These tensions between HTS and its more ideologically hardline rivals had been several years in the making. In November 2017, HTS established the Syrian Salvation Government (Hukumat al-Inqadh al-Suriyya) with a view to taking total control of Idlib and western Aleppo. Heavily criticised for not tolerating rival political entities and for implementing contested policies, the Salvation Government quickly came to be viewed as HTS’s exclusive political project. Examples of exclusivist policies include banning the books of al-Maqdisi, restricting communication within areas under its control, and, from December 2018, banning Islamic education unless it was under the Salvation Government’s authority. Prior to its establishment, however, HTS had already made several declarations intended to control the political environment and discipline its own members. First, it prohibited its preachers and ordinary members from proclaiming takfir without an official fatwa from the sharia council (the prohibition for preachers was issued on June 19, 2017; the prohibition for rank-and-file members was issued on July 12, 2017). Then it prohibited its members from watching Islamic State videos and, most controversially of all, forbade the establishment of any new factions in its territory.

 

Infighting begins

On the morning of June 22, HTS moved to arrest Abu Malik al-Tali, a former Jabhat al-Nusra commander in Qalamoun and subsequently a prominent HTS commander in Idlib. A few months earlier, al-Tali had defected from HTS and established Liwa al-Mouqatilin al-Ansar, which later became part of the So Be Steadfast operations room with al-Tali as its leading military commander. This was followed by an official statement from HTS prohibiting its members from leaving the group without getting permission from its “Monitoring and Overseeing Committee.” Even if an HTS member is allowed to leave, according to the statement, he is prohibited from forming a new military faction or joining any existing group in the area.

These events led the So Be Steadfast operations room to issue a statement warning HTS of any further provocations and accusing it of taking actions that pleased the Assad regime and foreign occupiers. Speculating about HTS’s intentions, the statement remarks, “This raises the question about the motives of the arrests, particularly in times when we are witnessing the full implementation of the terms of the Astana process, the latest being the completion of joint patrols on the M4 highway.” The operations room ended the statement by demanding the release of its detained members and the establishment of independent courts to ensure fair trials.

During the night of June 22, the first bout of infighting broke out in Arab Saeed, and over the following days the infighting would spread to several cities and villages in Idlib. The rival parties reacted by mobilizing their fighters and establishing checkpoints around the governorate. (For examples of So Be Steadfast operations room checkpoints outside of Idlib city, see here, here, here and here.) Over the following days, the contending parties began using heavy weapons, with HTS targeting the headquarters of Hurras al-Deen, Ansar al-Deen, and Ansar al-Islam. Apparently in reaction to the HTS leadership’s appeal to the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a prominent Jihadi group in Idlib with longstanding ties to al-Qaida but that sided with HTS in recent years, to set up road blocks in and around Jisr al-Shughour, the So Be Steadfast operation asked TIP to remain neutral.

In terms of numbers, HTS is typically assessed to command between 10,000 and 15,000 fighters, while Hurras al-Deen—the largest of the factions comprising the operations room— numbers approximately 3,000. The numerical advantage of HTS meant that from the beginning the operations room had an interest in ending the conflict quickly. But neither did HTS seek a prolonged conflict as fighting rival Jihadis is not a popular cause among its base. Nonetheless, in this case HTS deemed it necessary in order to cement its local hegemony. Casualty numbers for the period June 22-27 are hard to ascertain. An interview with an operations room member revealed the number of killed fighters from the operations room to be between 10 and 15. This is likely too low, and the combined casualty number probably exceeds 100.

 

Managing conflict

Interest in settling the conflict was visible from the beginning. Already on June 24, Sami al-Uraydi, a senior Hurras al-Deen ideologue, called on the warring parties to halt the violence and implement a judicial process to settle their disagreements. Al-Uraydi has been the fiercest critic of HTS among al-Qaida loyalists in Syria in recent years, so for him to take a leading role in de-escalating tensions indicates that Hurras al-Deen saw no benefit in fighting HTS.

On the same day, in a statement titled “Allah Has Forbidden Me From Killing a Believer,” al-Qaida Central weighed in on the conflict with criticism and advice. Accusing HTS of being the aggressor, al-Qaida writes that it was alarmed to see how the group started targeting the mujahideen, who like al-Qaida are dedicated to jihad, despite continuous calls to settle the parties’ differences through arbitration. Al-Qaida reminds HTS that “unity among the mujahideen is a Quranic duty and an indispensable legal necessity,” one that it is “not permissible to neglect.” Therefore it is “not a legitimate solution to overcome the Muslims and violate the blood of the believers.” In a direct reference to the fact that HTS considers itself the dominant faction in northwestern Syria, al-Qaida writes that not even the strongest groups “have a verse from Allah’s book, a Hadith from the traditions of the Messenger of Allah, or a consensus from the Muslims on considering the blood of their believing brothers permissible.”

Commenting on another issue leading to tensions between HTS and rival Jihadis, al-Qaida affirms that no group has the right to forbid an individual from fighting Jihad under the banner of the group of his choice. This is in direct opposition to HTS’s ruling from two days before that prohibited fighters from leaving and joining other Jihadi groups. The statement continues, “The mujahideen are now preoccupied with fighting each other while the enemy surprises them and prepares to eradicate them (…) For this reason, we call on all the mujahideen to fear Allah for the sake of the blood of their Muslim brothers in all factions, and to apply the language of reason and sharia, and to quickly initiate the application of the rule of Allah the Almighty through an independent judiciary.” Addressing the al-Qaida supporters who still remain within HTS, al-Qaida prohibits them from taking part in the ongoing conflict. An to the “people of pride” within HTS, it says, “so take as your slogan, ‘you are forbidden from killing your mujahideen brothers.’” In a final note, al-Qaida calls on Jihadi scholars to intervene and fulfil their responsibility to end the fitna.

Just one day after, a scholarly peace initiative was proposed by a group of nine scholars, the best known of the group being Abd al-Razzaq al-Mahdi. The initiative called for an immediate ceasefire and a judicial process to rule in the conflict between HTS and the So Be Steadfast operations room. While the latter was quick to accept the proposal, it took HTS several hours to do so (page 1 and 2), and when it eventually did respond it blamed its opponents, and Hurras al-Deen and Ansar al-Deen in particular, for instigating the conflict. HTS specifically mentions the prohibited defections from HTS, the presence of checkpoints set up by the groups operating outside the al-Fatah al-Mubin operations room, and the fact that these groups previously arrested some of HTS’s members. While accepting the scholars’ call to de-escalate tensions, the group placed the responsibility on the So Be Steadfast operations room, arguing that a solution to the conflict depends on dismantling the checkpoints not administered by al-Fatah al-Mubin and the aggressors’ being held accountable in court.

The So Be Steadfast operations room quickly responded, arguing in a statement that HTS’s statement was built on lies and that HTS had in fact rejected the scholarly peace initiative by demanding the disbandment of So Be Steadfast-controlled checkpoints. Nonetheless, the operations room declared itself ready to disband its checkpoints for three days under the supervision of Jund al-Sham and Ajnad al-Kavkaz, to foster an environment where peace negotiations and a judicial process could be initiated. At the top of its list of priorities was the resolution of the situation of Abu Salah al-Uzbeki and Abu Malik al-Tali.

In the end, as both groups were wary about the negative impact of prolonged conflict, it only took a few days to de-escalate tensions through various local ceasefire agreements. The first of these agreements was reached in the village of Arab Saeed in the Sahl al-Rooj area on June 26. Signed by Abu Hafs Binnish (HTS) and Abu Abdullah al-Suri (So Be Steadfast operations room), the agreement stipulated five points: (1) a ceasefire in Arab Saeed and Sahl al-Rooj and the lifting of checkpoints from both sides, (2) that the fighters from the village of Arab Saeed be allowed to remain in the village and keep their weapons, (3) that those required to leave Arab Saeed be allowed to do so and be allowed to bring their weapons, (4) that those fighters accused of crimes be transferred to the Turkistanis (likely TIP) who are to manage the legal proceedings, and (5) that Hurras al-Deen’s headquarter in Arab Saeed be closed and the group not be allowed to establish new checkpoints in the village. Other local ceasefires were also signed in the villages of Yaqubiya and Hamama and in the Harem area.

Despite these various local ceasefire agreements, the infighting did not stop immediately. In the ensuing hours there were several complaints about continued aggression. For instance, it was reported that HTS forces attacked the headquarters of Ansar al-Islam in Sarmada and in the village of Hamama. Later in the day came reports that HTS had launched attacks north of Idlib in Armanaz and that these had been repelled by factions of the So Be Steadfast operations room. This prompted the operations room to issue a statement in the evening of June 26 criticizing HTS for violating the terms of the ceasefires, specifically mentioning the attack in Sarmada.

While tensions did for the most part subside, there would continue to be reports of new episodes over the following days, one example being HTS cracking down on the headquarters of Tansiqiyat al-Jihad in Western Aleppo, leaving the small group on the brink of survival.

 

Who’s the aggressor?

Like he has done so many times before, Abu Abdullah al-Shami, the right-hand man of HTS-leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani, would of course weigh in. As Hassan Hassan explained, al-Shami argued that HTS was not the aggressor. HTS and Hurras al-Deen had, according to al-Shami, signed an agreement regulating the al-Qaida affiliates’ activities in Syria. Following these regulations, Hurras al-Deen would not be allowed to set up checkpoints or conduct intelligence or security operations—yet this was exactly what Hurras al-Deen was doing, al-Shami writes. The purpose of these regulations was for Syria’s northwest to be dominated by a unified militant movement led by HTS. From the perspective of HTS, the establishment of new groups and operations rooms would be counterproductive to unification.

HTS would also issue an official statement through its Ebaa News Network on the conflict, accusing Hurras al-Deen of behaving like the Islamic State— an accusation others have previously directed against HTS. According to the alleged eyewitness account of a certain “Abu Dujana”—an HTS fighter—in one incident a group of fighters from HTS surrounded a Hurras al-Deen checkpoint. Abu Asid, the leader of the HTS contingent, offered the Hurras fighters a safe way out if they surrendered, which they agreed to do. What allegedly happened next was that one of the Hurras fighters approached Abu Asid and, instead of leaving peacefully, fired his weapon, killing Abu Asid and injuring three other HTS fighters. According to the HTS statement, this “treacherous” behavior was a clear reminder of how the Islamic State under al-Baghdadi failed to adhere to such agreements.

In the days following the ceasefire, HTS and the National Salvation Government would issue several new decrees in an attempt to further limit the space and activities of rival Jihadi groups. On June 26, HTS published a highly controversial, if not unprecedented, declaration prohibiting the formation of new groups and operations rooms and requiring any existing group to operate under the authority of HTS’s own al-Fatah al-Mubin operations room. On June 28, the National Salvation Government ordered the closure of all military bases in Idlib city except those under the command of al-Fatah al-Mubin. This was followed later that day by another order to close all Hurras al-Deen bases in and around Jisr al-Shughour, the group’s stronghold. The statement also prohibits any Hurras al-Deen-controlled checkpoints in the area.

 

Arresting critical voices

Alongside its efforts to cement institutional and organizational hegemony, HTS also began to target critical voices in the Idlib region. The first person to be targeted was the former British national Tauqir “Tox” Sharif, better known as Abu Husam al-Britani, who is often described as an “aid worker” but who is also affiliated with Tansiqiyat al-Jihad. His arrest on June 22 led to major protests in several cities throughout Idlib in reaction to the perceived injustice of HTS’s unilateral power projection.

Over the following days, social media was flooded with calls for the release of “Tox.” Most surprising was on June 30 when Hani al-Sibai, a London-based Egyptian Jihadi ideologue, joined the chorus decrying HTS’s arrest of Tox. Since 2018 al-Sibai had sought, unlike his colleagues Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filastini, to take a neutral position in the conflict between HTS and al-Qaida members in Syria. Yet the arrest of Tox appeared to provoke al-Sibai to issue a strong condemnation of HTS’s aggressive behavior.

Al-Sibai wrote that “the aqidah and manners of your brother who is detained in Idlib, Tauqir Sharif otherwise known as Abu Husam al-Britani, have been praised by virtuous & trustworthy non-Arab & Arab brothers in Britain who know him and who I have personally known for years.” “Abu Husam al-Britani,” he continued, “preferred to live in roughness rather than luxury! He preferred to share in the grievances of the people of Shaam, and how many they are! He preferred to share in their joyous occasions, how rare they are! And now he has been arrested for so-called security reasons! The correct thing to do would have been to present him to an impartial Sharia judge who has full right to give permission for an arrest or to deny it! Even if he were to order his arrest based on, for example, the seriousness of the accusations, he [Tox] should be presented to the judge to defend himself!” In a direct message to HTS, al-Sibai ends by saying, “Do not be deluded by your power or numbers! Hasten towards releasing your brother Abu Husam al-Britani and all your brothers detained recently even if they disagreed with you. Let your problems be solved by reform and ruling with Sharia.”

On July 15, Tox was finally released after having been subject to torture during his incarceration according to his wife and himself. This provoked Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American journalist operating in Idlib, to interview Hani al-Sibai on the legality of torture in Islamic law. Unsurprisingly, in the interview, al-Sibai, who has previously written extensively on torture, explained that torture is indeed prohibited. Tox’s freedom would last less than a month. On August 11, HTS security officials once against arrested him, and two days later, the group also moved to arrest Bilal Abdul Kareem at his home in Atmeh.

Finally, on September 1, HTS announced in an official statement that it had also arrested Omar Diaby, better known as Omar Omsen. Originally known as the “French super-recruiter,” Omsen had established the group Firqat al-Ghuraba, a French-dominated faction close to Hurras al-Deen. According to HTSs’ media department, Omsen had on more than one occasion violated the rules in northern Syria and HTS had filed several court cases against him. Specifically, HTS complained that Omsen was running his own administration, bringing charges against people in his local court and incarcerating them in his prison. For HTS, considering itself the ultimate authority in Syria’s northwest, this was intolerable.

 

The future of the Jihadi project in Idlib

Given these recent developments , it appears that the struggle between Jihadi pragmatists—or realists—and purists will continue to define the militant landscape in Syria’s northwest in the coming years.

HTS is likely to continue to pursue a pragmatic approach to the political context in which it operates. The group and its leaders argue that understanding this context, or this “reality” (waqi‘a), is essential, and that the group’s methodology must necessarily be adjusted in order to survive. Importantly, an ideological corpus, mainly authored by Abu Qatada al-Filastini and his student Abu Mahmoud al-Filastini, is slowly emerging to support the direction HTS is taking, thus giving ideological backing to Abu Muhammad al-Julani’s political project.

Similar to its competitor the Islamic State, HTS’s ambition is to establish a state, yet its approach to how such a state should be established and what form it should take is different. This is particularly evident in its relations with external actors—most of all Turkey—with which the group has shown itself willing to engage and negotiate agreements. However, when it comes to internal competitors, HTS’s approach is similar to that of the Islamic State, which tried to suppress and control any competing actors including other Jihadis such as Jabhat al-Nusra.

This dual strategy is likely to continue as recent events testify. HTS will do anything in its power to control the actions and undermine the support of al-Qaida elements in Idlib. In response, al-Qaida supporters will attempt to take advantage of HTS’s pragmatism, which remains controversial in Jihadi circles. On numerous occasions, senior figures have defected from HTS, either becoming “independent” or joining al-Qaida-aligned groups. In addition to these senior figures, HTS still comprises ideological hardliners among its rank and file whose sympathy remains in line with al-Qaida’s ideological project. Thus, when al-Julani makes deals with the Turks and moves away from sporting traditional religious clothing, he repels segments of his own constituency.

In June 2020, in the midst of the infighting between HTS and the So Be Steadfast operations room, al-Maqdisi published an article titled “The Predicament of the Supporters of the Sharia between the Client Factions and the Manipulated Factions.” In it he advises true Jihadis, meaning al-Qaida loyalists, to concede defeat and disband. HTS’s suppression, he says, has become too severe. True Jihad in Syria, in his view, can only be successful when HTS is defeated.

 

Living Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain: The Case of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi

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It has become a trope within the jihadi studies field to describe Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (born ‘Isam Bin Muhammad Bin Tahir al-Barqawi) as being the most important jihadi ideologue alive. Part of this derives from a study written by Will McCants in 2006 that notes he is the most cited living jihadi ideologue within jihadi primary source literature. At the time, in many ways, al-Qaeda (AQ) was also the unipolar leader of the jihadi world. Since then, cracks in the foundation of AQ’s leading role have created alternative visions for the future of the jihadi movement. Most notable has been the case of the Islamic State (IS), but another is that of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In attempting to bolster their legitimacy, these different currents have moved away from al-Maqdisi and even derided him. The story of al-Maqdisi’s issues with the leader of IS’s predecessor, Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, and of IS toying with him during fake negotiations over the Jordanian pilot Mu‘adh al-Kasasbah, are well-trodden at this point. But more recent recriminations between al-Maqdisi and HTS are also worth exploring since they signal a change in tone. Although there have been vigorous debates between al-Maqdisi and HTS over decisions to move away from AQ and HTS’s alleged “diluting” of its ideology, this latest round of argument augurs another broken chain within the jihadi movement and further cements the fact that claiming HTS is some kind of front for AQ is incorrect in the same way that saying ISIS was still within AQ in 2013 was wrong.

Background: HTS Dismantles Hurras al-Din and the So Be Steadfast Operations Room

Hurras al-Din (HD) was established in February 2018 as AQ’s official branch in Syria, after HTS publicly distanced itself from its parent organization. Later, in October 2018, HD set up the Wa-Harridh al-Mu’minin (And Incite the Believers) Operations Room in conjunction with two smaller AQ-aligned groups, Jabhat Ansar al-Din and Jama‘at Ansar al-Islam. HD and the operations room were allowed to operate at the behest of HTS and received food and ammunition provisions from HTS. Therefore, as I noted in September 2019, “If [HD] were to grow significantly stronger, HTS may try to suppress it and arrest its leaders in order to preserve its own power base. In that sense, HD’s local growth potential is somewhat limited.”

And in many ways this is what happened. On June 12, 2020, HD, alongside its two partners in the operations room, established a new operations room called “Fa-thbutu” (So Be Steadfast) that also included the groups Tansiqiyat al-Jihad and Liwa’ al-Muqatilin al-Ansar. The leaders of these latter groups, Abu al-‘Abd Ashida’ and Abu al-Malik al-Talli respectively, both had falling-outs with HTS over the direction of the jihad, relations with Turkey, and corruption issues. Similarly, ahead of this announcement, Abu Salah al-Uzbeki, leader of Katibat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, switched its alliance from HTS to Jabhat Ansar al-Din, thereby adding another strength to this alternative jihadi bloc.

As a consequence of these shifting alliances and the bolstering of the HD-led alternative jihad, HTS arrested al-Uzbeki on June 17 and al-Talli on June 22. This led the new Fa-thbutu operations room to warn HTS that it would “bear the consequences” if it did not release its leaders or subject itself to a religious court. HTS retroactively claimed, in a circular by its Higher Follow-Up and Supervision Committee, that individuals needed authorization to either leave the group or join other groups. Anticipating a policy that would be set out in a statement days later, HTS was showing that it would not allow others to have a monopoly on violence in the territories it controlled. The arrests and perceived lack of transparency behind them led to infighting between the two factions in the towns of ‘Arab Sa’id, al-Hamamah, al-Ya’qubiyah, Jdaydah, Armanaz, Kuku, and Shaykh Bahar over the next few days until truces were brokered due to HTS overpowering HD and its allies.

This led HTS on June 26 to proclaim that the only military efforts that could be conducted would be via itself or through its own al-Fatah al-Mubin (The Clear Conquest) military operations room, thereby banning any other efforts outside this infrastructure such as HD and its own operations room. As a result, HD’s military bases were shut down by HTS. Since then, neither HD nor its Fa-thbutu operations room have publicly operated, frustrating the ability of AQ to return to the forefront of the insurgency in Syria (for now, at least).

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi Responds

Two days later al-Maqdisi responded to these events. In an online essay he described two categories of groups that he sees as working against the interests of the true jihadis in northwest Syria: overt and covert client groups. The former are those directly backed by Turkey such as the Syrian National Army/National Liberation Front, which is operating in the Turkish-controlled zones that were taken from the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in parts of northwest and northeast Syria. The latter groups are an unstated reference to HTS, which al-Maqdisi sees as more dangerous since it claims the mantle of being a jihadi group but in reality is helping Turkey pursue its aims in the region. In particular, al-Maqdisi highlights how HTS protects Turkish patrols and forbids the true jihadis from targeting the Russians when Russia conducts joint patrols with Turkey. Furthermore, al-Maqdisi alludes to the above infighting and dismantlement of HD and the Fa-thbutu operations room by noting that these so-called “manipulated factions have killed the jihad of al-Sham, broken it up, and subjected it to the secular Turks.”

In response, al-Maqdisi suggests two possible ways of overcoming these assaults on the legitimate jihadis. The first involves eradicating the overt client groups and reforming the covert client groups by getting defections from sincere individuals among them and then slowly replacing and overtaking their leaders. Of course, this is easier said than done. Therefore, al-Maqdisi advises that the true jihadis follow the second possible course of action, which is to disband themselves and lay in wait for the right opportunity to return. It is plausible that new and more clandestine formations like Kata’ib Khatab al-Shishani (which announced itself in mid-July) and Sariyat Ansar Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (which announced itself in late August) are examples of this at play.

Al-Maqdisi Disavowed By HTS

Two months later, on August 21, the feud between al-Maqdisi and HTS was reignited when al-Maqdisi shared a post on his Telegram channel by an AQ supporter called Ya Sariyat al-Jabal (Oh Mast of the Mountain). The post repeats claims and affirmations about secret dealings between HTS and Turkish intelligence. The most controversial part is about how these alleged actions have essentially pushed HTS away from faith: “Everyone with knowledge of the nullifiers of Islam who is aware of these details [in relation to actions HTS has allegedly taken with Turkey] will see after considering them carefully that the leadership of [HTS] day after day gets closer to disbelief and draws farther away from faith.” Members and partisans of HTS thus interpreted al-Maqdisi’s sharing of this as his excommunicating HTS from Islam.

One of HTS’s top ideologues, Dr. Muzhir al-Ways, responded that day to this in a Twitter post, republished by the unofficial HTS support media outlet al-Bayyinah under the title “After Being Accused of Diluting and Deviation and Stultifying the Jihad [in Syria], al-Maqdisi is Now Excommunicating HTS.” Al-Ways writes that al-Maqdisi’s false accusations against HTS today are no different from those that IS lodged against the jihadi groups in Syria some years ago. Therefore he is the “shaykh of the khawarij.” More damning and possibly embarrassing if true for al-Maqdisi is al-Ways’s suggestion that the account al-Maqdisi shared was in fact something he himself created to try and amplify the message while making it seem like he didn’t say it himself. The charge is not far-fetched since al-Maqdisi has been known to write content under pseudonyms before.

The next day al-Bayyinah released a fuller take down of al-Maqdisi by al-Ways derisively titled “The Monotheism of Barqawism,” a reference to al-Maqdisi’s real last name and a way of stripping him of honorific legitimacy. Here al-Ways calls al-Maqdisi out for having his own version of monotheism (tawhid) that he uses to attack and discredit his opponents. Al-Ways also states that al-Maqdisi is not only out of touch in regard to sharia and scholarly limits related to excommunication (takfir), but also ignorant of what is going on the ground in northwest Syria since he is basing his views of events on television reports and social media. Interestingly, al-Ways claims that al-Maqdisi practices taqiyyah (dissimulating one’s true beliefs) by using euphemisms such as “dilution” of ideology instead of outright doing takfir on HTS.

Al-Bayyinah Media shared a number of other anti-al-Maqdisi releases in the following week via its Telegram channel. Of note is the claim that al-Maqdisi is in fact an asset of Jordanian intelligence and that his attacks on other jihadis are intended to damage and break up the movement. Al-Bayyinah Media highlights examples of suspicious timings in the past when al-Maqdisi has been released from prison and the fact that he has legitimized his dealings with the Jordanian government over the negotiations with IS regarding the captured Jordanian pilot in 2015.

To further discredit al-Maqdisi, al-Bayyinah Media set up a mock website that appears to look like al-Maqdisi’s old Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad library of jihadi primary sources. Yet unlike the original, this is a spoof that seeks to delegitimize al-Maqdisi by highlighting articles that expose his extremism and incorrect views. On the top of the site, the creators of it state that the original Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad website was set up as a “cartoon media platform for himself” and sarcastically exclaim that “tawhid is a trademark registered in the name of al-Maqdisi,” who was allowed at his own whim to determine who was legitimate. The site is clearly set up to expose al-Maqdisi’s problematic views over the years. Interestingly, the site also features quotes from IS’s founder Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi and one of AQ’s top ideologues historically, Atiyat Allah ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Libi, discussing al-Maqdisi as being important and having made a contribution to the jihadi movement but rejecting the idea that his word is infallible truth on everything.

As a consequence of all of this, Jallad al-Murji’ah (Executioner of Those Who Postpone), a pro-AQ supporter on Telegram, complained that HTS was essentially conducting a disinformation campaign and that HTS is like the “pharaoh’s magicians, when they were bewitching the eyes of people, misleading them, making the truth void, and falsehoods correct.”

A Splintered Jihadosphere

Based on all of this, unlike in the past when HTS was willing to tolerate al-Maqdisi’s broadsides and even responding civilly, a redline has clearly been crossed. With accusations of creeping apostasy and extremism going back and forth, it appears unlikely that some form of reconciliation is a possibility. Back in 2013-14 we saw similar dynamics play out between jihadi groups and the ideologues of the jihadi movement, leading to an irrevocable split and the division of jihadism into a bipolar world, one torn between AQ and IS. It seems in many ways that we are now entering an era of a tri-polar jihadosphere.

Although some perceived HTS’s initial breaking of ties with AQ as a fig leaf to cover up a strong and enduring relationship, evidence from the past few years in northwest Syria—of arrests, infighting, ideological arguments, and now these latest dynamics between HTS and AQ factions since June—run counter to such a view. The dynamic between HTS and AQ is not similar to that between the Taliban and AQ, whose relationship has been tight and never foundered. HTS truly has created its own pole of jihadism outside the framework of the historical AQ network or the more contemporary IS network. What this means for the future of the broader movement is difficult to say since it does not appear (yet) that HTS has ambitions beyond Syria in comparison with the globalized networks of AQ and IS. The implications for al-Maqdisi are clearer. Considering the antipathy that both IS and now HTS have for him, al-Maqdisi’s influence continues to diminish due to the erosion in consensus amongst the broader jihadi movement over the past 15 years. And although there is no one who has likely eclipsed al-Maqdisi’s influence, it does not make sense anymore to say that al-Maqdisi is the most important jihadi ideologue in the world today when two of three jihadi poles are against him.

Ultra Extremism Among Tunisian Jihadis Within The Islamic State

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Many within Syria viewed Tunisians as more extreme relative to other foreign fighters.[1] There is a twofold aspect to this. The first relates to the human rights violations that Tunisians have been involved in within Syria, which is not necessarily unique considering all of the human rights violations committed by members of IS, whether local or foreign. The second, which this article focuses on, relates to some Tunisians involved within an extremist trend within IS called the al-Hazimiya (Hazimis), which is named after the progenitor of the ideas these individuals follow, Ahmad Bin ‘Umar al-Hazimi, a Saudi religious scholar. It should be noted that al-Hazimi is not a member or affiliated with IS; his ideas, however, were co-opted by some members of IS. As former Saudi ISIS member Sulayman Sa‘ud al-Suba‘i noted about this extremist trend among Tunisians in ISIS, “it was mostly the Tunisians who were involved in takfir, although personally, I doubt they had such extensive religious knowledge.”[2]

Although some in the Tunisian jihadosphere, especially those that are pro-AQ, claim that the spread of this trend among Tunisians is a consequence of the Tunisian government attempting to sully and divide the Tunisian jihadi movement, it is a bit more complicated than that.[3] As background, al-Hazimi did four different lecture series in Tunisia between December 2011 and May 2012 (see table 8.1) with the local jihadi milieu. Interestingly, the first series was announced on October 25, 2011, a mere two days after the Tunisian Constituent Assembly election, which al-Nahdah won as the leading political party.[4] Al-Hazimi’s first three visits to Tunisia were in coordination with and sponsored by the Hay al-Khadra’ Mosques Committee and the Islamic Good Society in Tunis. The committee was headed by Abu Muhanad al-Tunisi, who was a senior cleric in AST [Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia] and also ran the al-Rahmah Mosque in Hay al-Khadra’, a neighborhood in Tunis.[5] The al-Rahmah Mosque became an AST-run mosque following the 2011 revolution.[6] Abu Muhanad’s first lecture promoted by AST at the al-Rahmah Mosque noted that it “is where the organization of the two previous sessions with Shaykh Ahmad Bin ‘Umar al-Hazmi” took place since it happened in mid-February 2012.[7] As for the Islamic Good Society in Tunis, in May 2014, the head and some of its members were arrested for money laundering and terrorist financing.[8] This could suggest that this charity was involved with more than just spreading its interpretation of Islam, but with assisting individuals involved in terrorism or helping finance travel abroad to Syria as well. Al-Hazimi’s final lecture in Tunisia was at the Grand Mosque of Medenine, a city sixty-five miles northwest of the Tunisian-Libyan border.

Besides these courses, in early March 2012, al-Hazimi helped create and was the supervisor of the Ibn Abu Zayd al-Qayrawani Institute for Sharia Sciences.[9] It was based in Hay al-Khadra’ and was named after the historical Tunisian Maliki scholar. This institute was established in conjunction with the Hay al-Khadra’ Mosques Committee, highlighting its connections to AST as well.

After the institute opened registration on March 10, 2012, there was now a specific institute in Tunisia that was teaching a curriculum that adhered to al-Hazimi’s views on creedal matters (more on this below).[10] This is likely where many Tunisians became exposed to al-Hazimi’s ideas beyond his in-person lecture series or his online presence.

Furthermore, AST promoted Hazimi’s ideas on its official Facebook page via its sharia committee. In December 2012, AST published a list of content that “is obligatory to learn for members of AST” as part of their dawa efforts.[11] AST also republished this list on its official Facebook page as a reminder in mid-January 2013.[12] Besides al-Hazimi’s content, the post suggested Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s Democracy: A Religion and The Religion of Abraham as well as a Saudi Arabia Ministry of Islamic Affairs Dawa and Guidance book from 2004 called Accessible Jurisprudence in Light of the Qur’an and Sunnah.[13] The al-Hazimi content contained a six-part lecture series titled al-Usul al- thalatha (The three fundamental principles) exploring the ideas of “Who is your Lord?,” “What is your religion?,” and “Who is your Prophet?”; an eight-part lecture series titled A‘lam al-sunnah al-manshurah fi a’tiqad al-ta’ifah al-mansurah (Highlights of the sunni knowledge on the creed of the victorious sect); and most importantly to the discussion related to extremism within the IS context, a four-part series titled Nawaqid al-islam (Nullifiers of Islam).

The latter lecture is based on a creedal work by the founder of Wahhabism, Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and relates to ten ways that nullify someone from being a true Muslim. In short, the third nullifier says, according to Cole Bunzel, that “one must pronounce takfir (excommunication) on those failing or hesitating to pronounce takfir” in relation to acts of polytheism.[14] Takfir in the jihadi context leads to the legitimization of killing those that fall outside the bounds of their interpretations of Islam. Within this third nullifier is where the shades of takfir between different jihadis, including within IS, is contested. Al-Hazimi believes in the idea of takfir al-‘adhir (excommunication of the excuser), meaning those who follow al-‘udhr bi-l-jahl (excusing someone from the duty of takfir on the basis of ignorance in what they are doing). This, according to those who opposed the followers of al-Hazimi within IS, would lead to a so-called endless chain of takfir. These ideas were thus promulgated in al-Hazimi’s lectures in Tunisia and in the audio series AST posted online for its followers. This negates AQ-apologetic ideologues like Abu Lababah al-Tunisi or al-Maqalaat claiming that the growth in these ideas in Tunisia were a consequence of some conspiracy by the Tunisian government.[15] That being said, it is important to remember that AST’s approach within Tunisia was not takfiri in any manner due to its dawa-first approach. It is clear, however, that these ideas by al-Hazimi did incubate within the minds of some and then were brought to fore more so in Syria once the Tunisian jihadists had joined ISIS/IS. Most notable among these figures was Abu Ja‘afar al-Hatab who had been on AST’s sharia committee.

Based on a reading of al-Hatab’s publications with AST, al-Nahdah’s crackdown upon AST following the government blocking AST from conducting its third annual conference in mid-May 2013 led al-Hatab down this ultra-extreme path. This is because al-Hatab was not writing anything along the lines of takfir al-‘adhir for AST publications. Ahead of the third annual conference, there were signs that al-Nahdah was planning to shut it down, but based on its past behaviors as described in chapter 4 of my book Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, some within AST likely saw it as a bluff and were not necessarily taking it seriously. Despite these warnings, AST wanted to prepare its followers for the conference, so al-Hatab penned guidance and instruction on how to act. In particular, the third instruction illustrates that al-Hatab was not yet believing in such ultra-extreme ideas. He said, “We need to be humble whether alone or in groups. . . . Our brothers don’t be arrogant especially with your brothers who have not joined AST. They are our brothers in faith. Be humble with them and invite them to attend our annual meeting. Even if they have disagreed with us, they still have the right to guardianship in Islam.”[16]

Only six weeks after this al-Hatab wrote his treatise defending ISIS, saying the only legitimate baya was to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This suggests that the al-Nahdah-led crackdown upon AST, which began in May 2013 and culminated in the group’s eventual designation in August 2013, led al-Hatab to adopt more radical views over time. This was likely reinforced by JN’s [Jabhat al-Nusra’s] challenge to ISIS as well as reinforced once he made it to the war zone context in the summer of 2013. The failed AST experience of a dawa-first approach probably also pushed al-Hatab down a path of no compromise since the softer way did not work in Tunisia. This dynamic was seen with other Tunisians within ISIS too. For example, according to Rania Abouzaid, a Tunisian leader doing a Friday sermon in Syria equated JN’s allegedly softening positions to his experience with al- Nahdah in Tunisia: “He had seen what he termed ‘the reality of these people’ in Tunisia, before his pilgrimage to Syria. ‘They curse God and the Prophet and say it is freedom of expression. They walk around naked and say this is freedom! If you are a Muslim and express your opinion, you are a terrorist! If you call one of them an infidel, they say you are an extremist!.’ ”[17]

Within a year of joining ISIS, al-Hatab and other Tunisians who began to internalize al-Hazimi’s ideas started to run afoul of the group, even though many Tunisians including al-Hatab came into important positions within the organization. For instance, when al-Hatab joined ISIS in the summer of 2013, he was a part of an early version of ISIS’s sharia committee alongside Turki Bin‘ali, who became an arch nemesis of the Hazimi trend within ISIS, and Abu ‘Ali al-Anbari.[18]

Based on my reading of WikiBaghdady, an alleged insider account and leaks on the inner workings of ISIS, which were published between December 2013 and June 2014, the ISIS infighting with JN helped cause the ascendancy of al-Hatab and other Tunisians within ISIS, which allowed for greater space for the Hazimi trend to grow.[19] While some within IS and AQ circles have skepticism about this source, a number of details from these leaks cohere with other information known about IS that has been independently written about since this time period.

In the early stages of the infighting between JN and ISIS, JN arrested two Tunisians, Abu Taj al-Sussi and Abu ‘Umar al-‘Abadi, among others who were not Tunisian, due to their takfiri ways and loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[20] In line with this, due to the loyalty of Tunisian foreign fighters during the fight with JN, a number of Tunisians were given more senior positions within ISIS, including al-Hatab. As a consequence of ISIS’s violent infighting with JN, which became far more aggressive in January 2014, a number of foreign fighters soured on ISIS because they did not want to fight those they perceived as their brothers in JN, even if there were some political and strategic disagreements. In response, al-Baghdadi nominated al-Hatab to try to stem these losses by receiving new bayat from others who supported the group in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey.[21] Al-Hatab also took charge of attempting to persuade leaders of Syrian rebel factions to defect and join ISIS with a $1,500 incentive; however, this effort allegedly failed.[22] Furthermore, al-Baghdadi placed spies—trusty Iraqis and loyal Tunisians—“with each field commander to fortify ISIS from any defections and have an early notification to try to dissuade the dissidents or liquidate them.”[23] Later on, al-Hatab became an official in IS’s Diwan al-Ta‘alim (Administration of Education).[24]

Shortly after providing more space to Tunisians due to their loyalty, their extreme positions on takfir came to light and increasingly became a problem for ISIS later in the year. In early March 2014 an audio leaked of a conversation between Abu Muhammad al-Tunisi, an ISIS sharia official in al-Hasakah, Syria; and Abu Mus‘ab al-Tunisi, an ISIS sharia official in Deir al-Zour; and Abu Usamah al-Iraqi, the wali (governor) of al-Hasakah, during which they described the Taliban and Usamah Bin Ladin as infidels.[25] A couple of weeks later another audio leaked of Abu Mus‘ab al-Tunisi, now doing takfir on AQIM [Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb] and AST and claiming that only ISIS is part of al-ta‘ifah al-mansurah (the victorious sect).[26] He also believes that “jihad will die” in Tunisia because of those two groups.[27] It should be noted that Tunisians were not the only ones associated with the Hazimi trend; in addition to al-Hatab, one of the early leaders in this trend was Abu ‘Umar al-Kuwaiti.[28] In August 2017, an IS scholar named Abu ‘Abd al-Malik al-Shami also highlighted that Egyptians, Saudis, Azerbaijanis, and Turks were among the early adopters of the Hazimi trend, along with Tunisians.[29] The increasing voice and strength of this trend, however, led to a backlash by some within the senior leadership of IS, who were worried about this excessive extremism in the use of takfir. This led to a series of arrests and then executions in August and September 2014, including of al-Hatab, Abu Mus‘ab al-Tunisi, and Abu Suhayb al-Tunisi.[30] In the following years there were a number of other public incidents related to the Hazimi trend (see table 8.2) that Tunisians were involved in as well.

Likewise, behind the scenes, those who were against the Hazimi trend within IS wrote several letters and memos that have since been leaked online that included details on later manifestations of this trend, which also highlighted some more Tunisians among a broader grouping of people. Some of them had positions within IS, including Abu Hudhayfah al-Tunisi, a member of IS’s Diwan al-I’alam (Administration of Media) and previously a judge of “real estate” in Wilayat al-Raqqah, and Abu Dhar al-Tunisi, the founder of IS’s Military Academy, which had lectures on warfare and tactics.[31] Beyond these two individuals mentioned for their extremism in use of takfir, IS’s Diwan al-Amn al-Am (Administration of General Security) notes some secret groups that came into being following the death of al-Hatab and his associates, including the Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Tunisi group and the Abu Ayub al-Tunisi group.[32] The latter group had the support of the wali (governor) of Aleppo, making it difficult to go after them even if the diwan viewed them as dangerous. Therefore, even if the Hazimi trend is less open publicly within IS, there remains some remnants of it left as of the fall of 2019.

Notes

[1] Haïfa Mzalouat and Malek Khadhraoui, “Fayçal, du jihad en Syrie à la désillusion,” Inkyfada, August 31, 2018; Lina Sinjab, “al-Qaeda’s Brutal Tactics in Syria Force Out Moderates,” BBC News, November 27, 2013; Mansour Omari, “Two Years an ISIS Slave,” Daily Beast, December 22, 2015; Yaroslav Trofimov, “In Islamic State Stronghold of Raqqa, Foreign Fighters Dominate,” Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2015; and Charlie Savage, “As ISIS Fighters Fill Prisons in Syria, Their Home Nations Look Away,” New York Times, July 18, 2018.

[2] “Birnamij hamuna 4—al-halaqah al-sadisah—tujarib shabab mugharar bi-him,” Saudi Channel 1, YouTube, March 5, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ8SS1HmT2o.

[3] Abu Lababah al-Tunisi, “Series About the Causes of the Spread of Extremism in the Tunisian Youth: Why Are Tunisia’s Youth the Most Extreme in the Ranks of the State Organization?, Parts 2, 3, 4,” September 3, 2015, https://jihadology.net/2015/09/03/new-article-from-abu-lababah-al-tunisi-series-about-the-causes-of-the-spread-of-extremism-in-the-tunisian-youth-why-are-tunisias-youth-the-most-extreme-in-the-ranks-of-the-state-or/; and al-Maqalaat, “Tunisia: A Reason For the Current Extremism in the Jihadi Movement,” November 19, 2015, copy retained in author’s archives.

[4] Abu al-Zubayr al-Qabsi, “al-Dawrah al-’ilmiyah al-ula li-l-shaykh ahmad bin ‘umar al-hazimi bi-tunis,” Ahl al-Hadith Forum, October 25, 2011; and “Dawrah ‘ilmiyah: Shaykh ahmad bin ‘umar al-hazimi,” Mawqah al-Islam fi Tunis, October 29, 2011, https://islamentunisie.com/?p=453.

[5] See https://masejed.weebly.com/index.html.

[6] Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia’s Clerical Establishment Database, created by Aaron Y. Zelin, available at http://tunisianjihadism.com, last updated August 10, 2016.

[7] Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, “Khutbah of Abu Muhanad al-Tunisi,” al-Bayyariq Media, February 17, 2012.

[8] Salwa al-Tarhuni, “Bitaqah ida’a bi-sijin fi haqq ra’yis jami’ah al-khayr al-islamiyah bi- tuhamah tamwil al-irhab,” Tunisien, May 14, 2014, available at http://www.tunisien.tn.

[9] “Bayan bi-khasus iftitah ma’had ibn abu zayd al-qayrawani li-l-’ulum al-shari’ah,” March 1, 2012, http://majles.alukah.net/t97703.

[10] “Tariqah al-tasjil fi ma’had ibn zayd al-qayrawani li-l-’ulum al-shari’ah,” March 1, 2012, http://majles.alukah.net/t97703.

[11] Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia Facebook page, December 22, 2012.

[12] Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia Facebook page, January 15, 2013.

[13] As linked to by AST on its official Facebook page: Fiqh al-Muyasar fi Dhu’ al-Kitab wa-l-Sunnah, Saudi Arabia: Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Dawah and Guidance, 2004, https://ia800204.us.archive.org/10/items/fikh_moyasar1/fikh_moyasar1.pdf.

[14] Cole Bunzel, “Ideological Infighting in the Islamic State,” Perspectives on Terrorism 13, no. 1 (February 2019): 13–22.

[15] Tunisi, “Series About the Causes of the Spread of Extremism; and al-Maqalaat, “Tuni- sia: A Reason For the Current Extremism in the Jihadi Movement.”

[16] Abu Ja’afar al-Hatab, “Stance Ahead of the Third Annual Conference,” al-Bayyariq Media, May 13, 2013.

[17] Rania Abouzeid, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria (New York: Norton, 2018), 515–17.

[18] Bunzel, “Ideological Infighting in the Islamic State.”

[19] WikiBaghdady, December 14, 2013–June 13, 2014, originally posted here: https://twitter .com/wikibaghdady, and archived here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wEQ 0FKosa1LcUB3tofeub1UxaT5A-suROyDExgV9nUY.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Islamic State, “Report on the Phenomenon of Extremism in the Islamic State,” November 14, 2015, http://www.jihadica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zahirat-al-ghuluww.pdf.

[25] “Shari’iyun da’ish yukafirun harakat taliban wa usamah bin ladin khatir jidan,” YouTube, June 28, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_LANfh2BOU.

[26] “al-Dawlah al-islamiyah ‘da’ish’ wa ‘aqidat al-takfir—da’ish tadu’i anaha al-ta’ifah al- mansurah wa ansar al-shari’ah ‘ala khata,’ ” March 13, 2014, originally available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvHnfeaBQ9E, author maintains a copy in his archives.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Tore Hamming, “The Extremist Wing of the Islamic State,” Jihadica, June 9, 2016, http://www.jihadica.com/the-extremist-wing-of-the-islamic-state.

[29] Abu ‘Abd al-Malik al-Shami, “Sighs from the Islamic State Buried Alive,” August 2017, copy retained in the author’s archives.

[30] Islamic State, “Report on the Phenomenon of Extremism in the Islamic State.”

[31] “Message of the ‘Council of ‘Ilm’ on the State of the Extremists in the Media Diwan,” al-Turath al-‘Ilmi Foundation, 2018; and Abu ‘Abd al-Malik al-Shami, “Sighs from the Islamic State Buried Alive.”

[32] The Islamic State, “Report on the Phenomenon of Extremism in the Islamic State.” Other members of the Abu Ayub group included Abu al-Darda’ al-Tunisi, Abu al- Yaman al-Tunisi, Abu Qatadah al-Tunisi, Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Libi, Abu Khalid al-Tunisi, Abu al-Mu’tasim al-Tunisi, and Jahabdhah al-Tunisi.

Excerpted from Your Sons are at Your Service (c) 2020 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

Rehabilitating the Bin‘aliyya: al-Maqdisi and the Scholarly Remnant of the Islamic State

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Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filastini, the two preeminent jihadi scholars living in Jordan, have repeatedly clashed in recent years over the proper scope and nature of Jihadi Salafism, the movement to which both helped give rise. While agreeing that the Islamic State is too extreme, they have departed over the issue of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former al-Qaida affiliate in Syria previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra. In short, al-Maqdisi has accused HTS of abandoning al-Qaida and diluting jihadi ideology, while Abu Qatada has praised HTS as the harbinger of a more practical and more inclusive jihadism. This has led to mutual recriminations. Al-Maqdisi and his allies routinely accuse Abu Qatada and his followers of “fusionism” (talfiq), that is, of attempting to fuse jihadi ideology with mainstream Islamism, including its tolerance of democracy and ideological diversity. The so-called “fusionists” (mulaffiqa), in turn, have cast al-Maqdisi and his friends as purveyors of “extremism” (ghuluww), that is, as being too inclined to engage in the excommunication (takfir) of fellow Muslims. In this view, al-Maqdisi is seen as too close in ideology to the Islamic State. In the words of one al-Maqdisi supporter, Abu Qatada is “the shaykh of fusionism” (shaykh al-talfiq), while in the words of one Abu Qatada supporter, al-Maqdisi is “the shaykh of extremism” (shaykh al-ghuluww).

Recently, the two men and their supporters have feuded over another matter, namely, the network of religious scholars previously associated with the Islamic State. Sometimes known as “the Bin‘ali current” or “the Bin‘aliyya,” these are men who, beginning with the eponymous Turki al-Bin‘ali himself, the head of the Islamic State’s Office of Research and Studies until his death in 2017, emerged as critics of the caliphate’s drift towards an even more extremist theology in 2016-2017. Those who survived the ensuing turmoil grew more critical still in 2018 and 2019, publishing numerous commentaries online accusing the Islamic State’s leaders of extremism and oppression. Ultimately, in early 2019, they turned against the caliphate entirely.

In October 2019, al-Maqdisi began expressing his admiration for al-Bin‘ali and the so-called Bin‘aliyya, praising them for opposing the Islamic State’s “extremism.” Predictably, Abu Qatada and his allies were up in arms at this ostensible embrace of a group of “Kharijites.” One of their number has speculated that al-Maqdisi is trying to form a new jihadi group.

Praising al-Bin‘ali

To be sure, this is not the first time that al-Maqdisi has spoken kindly of al-Bin‘ali. The latter, as will be recalled, was a student of al-Maqdisi’s and wrote prolifically for his website. The two fell out in 2014 over the matter of the Islamic State, which al-Bin‘ali had joined. Even though al-Bin‘ali, in 2015, accused al-Maqdisi of “falling away from the religion,” this did not prevent al-Maqdisi from eulogizing his former pupil upon the latter’s death in an airstrike in May 2017. In a brief note on Telegram, which included the phrase “may God have mercy on him,” al-Maqdisi praised al-Bin‘ali for having raised “objections to the extremists” in the Islamic State. At the same time, he was careful to dissociate himself from al-Bin‘ali’s “errors.”

It was Abu Qatada’s indirect praise for a certain Mauritanian Islamist, Muhammad al-Hasan Wald al-Dadaw, that inspired al-Maqdisi to return to the subject of al-Bin‘ali. On October 11, 2019, Abu Qatada reposted a Telegram message noting the death of al-Dadaw’s father and in so doing praising the son, who is known for his favorable view of democracy. (Al-Maqdisi has written several refutations of al-Dadaw; see, for instance, here.) Later the same day, al-Maqdisi responded on Telegram, remarking that al-Bin‘ali’s “sandal covered in dust” from fighting jihad is “better than an earth’s full of Wald al-Dadaw and the likes of him who argue on behalf of the idol-rulers and defend democracy.” Al-Bin‘ali, he wrote, “advised his state, condemned its errors, and sought reform.” He asked God to forgive al-Bin‘ali his trespasses and to reunite them in paradise.

Al-Maqdisi’s post touched off a new round of refutation and counter-refutation regarding al-Bin‘ali. The London-based Abu Mahmud al-Filastini, one of Abu Qatada’s chief supporters, retorted that al-Maqdisi was misrepresenting al-Bin‘ali as some kind of moderate. The reality, he contended, was that al-Bin‘ali’s differences with the senior Islamic State leadership were an intra-Kharijite affair: “Al-Bin‘ali to the last moment of his life proclaimed the unbelief of al-Qaida, the Taliban, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the religious scholars … and his final words contained a clear excommunication of Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaida.” This second point was a reference to an audio statement by al-Bin‘ali observing the degeneration of al-Qaida and describing al-Zawahiri as “the fool who is obeyed” (al-ahmaq al-muta‘). What is more, added Abu Mahmud, al-Bin‘ali had “disparaged” al-Maqdisi “in the worst possible terms,” as indeed he had. For instance, al-Bin‘ali described al-Maqdisi as “abominable” (khabith) in a letter sent to the Delegated Committe in May 2017.

Another response to al-Maqdisi’s post came from the Syrian Islamist scholar and HTS supporter ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Mahdi, who took exception to al-Maqdisi’s imagery. “It is never permitted to compare a Muslim to a sandal,” he wrote. Al-Maqdisi replied that it is indeed permitted in the case of Wald al-Dadaw and those like him who promote the polytheistic system of democracy.

On October 19, Abu Qatada himself entered the fray, writing an essay on his secondary Telegram channel, “The Pearls of Shaykh Abu Qatada,” and signing it “the administration.” In the essay, Abu Qatada chided al-Maqdisi for preferring “the Kharijite al-Bin‘ali” to the well-respected al-Dadaw and for excommunicating the latter. It was this quickness to engage in takfir, he averred, that had led al-Maqdisi’s students, al-Bin‘ali among them, to slander him and call him an unbeliever. “Don’t you see, o shaykh,” he continued, addressing al-Maqdisi, “that you have made very light of the matter of the extremists and their bloodshed?” “Don’t you see that your output in recent years has been confined to generating tensions and stirring up hatreds?”

The next day, al-Maqdisi returned fire with an essay of his own, published in like fashion on his own secondary Telegram channel. The essay derided Abu Qatada for trying to distance himself from a piece that was so obviously his. It was not true, al-Maqdisi claimed, that al-Bin‘ali had excommunicated him; nor was it true that he had excommunicated al-Dadaw. Abu Qatada, he shot back, was the one inciting hostilities, not him. “Don’t you see, o shaykh,” he wrote, imitating Abu Qatada’s language, “that you have begun to make very light of the matter of the defenders and advocates of democracy, endorsing many of its chief figures, even publicly proclaiming your love for them?” “Don’t you see, o shaykh, that most of your output in recent years has been devoted to arguing on behalf of the chief figures of democracy, venerating them, and asking God to have mercy on those of them who have died?”

To make things even more personal, al-Maqdisi recalled Abu Qatada’s enthusiastic support in the 1990s for the radical Algerian Armed Islamic Group, or Groupe islamique armé (GIA), including in particular his 1995 fatwa permitting the killing of women and children—“the likes of which not even the most recalcitrant extremists in our time have issued.” Al-Maqdisi reproached Abu Qatada for his refusal to retract this fatwa, as well as for claiming that his former views are entirely consonant with his present ones. The dispute between the two men would appear to be very deep indeed.

Praising the Bin‘aliyya

Following the exchange with Abu Qatada, al-Maqdisi began extending his praise to the other Islamic State scholars in al-Bin‘ali’s circle. On October 21, he shared a letter from al-Bin‘ali to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from January 2017, in which the former warned against a policy of appeasing the “extremists” in the Islamic State. In an accompanying commentary, al-Maqdisi described this as “part of the efforts and attempts of shaykh Turki al-Bin‘ali to push back against the influence of the extremists in the State,” noting that it had been shared with him by one or more of “the supporters of shaykh Turki who opposed the extremists alongside him.” Al-Maqdisi went on to describe these struggles at some length:

[Al-Bin‘ali] contended a great deal with the extremists of the State and opposed them, especially the minister of media, Abu Muhammad al-Furqan. Al-Furqan considered Turki a mortal enemy; the extremists were not pleased with Turki’s work in the research center [i.e., the Office of Research and Studies]. Thus they sought to restrict the authority of the research [center] and to weaken it, because Turki was working through it to confront their extremism, sometimes openly, sometimes through debate, and sometimes by complaining to al-Baghdadi and warning him, as in this document … Al-Bin‘ali represented the tie between the scholars and al-Baghdadi; he hoped and was determined to bring about reform, but al-Baghdadi forsook him.

A-Maqdisi then turned his attention to these other scholars:

The scholars in the State, or those known as the al-Bin‘ali current, were suppressed by the Media Department and its minister, al-Furqan. He punished them severely, to the point that some of them were imprisoned and killed. Among the distinguished scholars who stood up to extremism (and it is just that they be cited, mentioned, and not eradicated physically, ideationally, or literarily) were:

  • Abu Hafs al-Hamdani al-Yamani (killed)
  • Abu Ya‘qub al-Maqdisi (killed)
  • Abu Muhammad al-Masri (most likely killed)
  • Abu Mus‘ab al-Sahrawi (killed)
  • Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Zarqawi (fled, then killed by the State’s security officials)
  • Bilal al-Shawashi (fled)
  • Abu ‘Isa al-Darir (fled)

And many more besides them. The people of the State ought to know why it was that they were killed or fled! Among them were outstanding and distinguished scholars. One of them [i.e., Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Zarqawi] was around during the [Islamic] State of Iraq and was a judge for Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi … May God have mercy on those of them who were killed, and may God confirm on the clear truth those who have fled.

As if anticipating the ensuing criticism, al-Maqdisi added that “none of this conflicts with our previously known reservations and well-known refutations of the errors of the State Group.”

In the following days, al-Maqdisi continued his trumpeting of the Bin‘aliyya by sharing more relevant files. On October 23, he shared the recently published “testimony” of a former Islamic State scholar, Abu Jandal al-Ha’ili, regarding the massacre of intended “penitents” in Iraq in 2014. Abu Jandal, according to al-Maqdisi, had worked closely with al-Bin‘ali and was one of the scholars who “condemned the oppression and transgressions” of the Islamic State. A week later, al-Maqdisi posted a short biography of the Yemeni Islamic State scholar Abu Hafs al-Hamdani, authored by an anonymous admirer of al-Hamdani’s. A few days after that, on November 3, he shared an essay by the pseudonymous Ibn Jubayr, likely a former Islamic State scholar who fled eastern Syria in 2018, titled “The Collapse of the Fiction.” The essay is a refutation of the Islamic State’s appointment of a new and anonymous caliph. Its importance, al-Maqdisi said, lies in the fact that it is “an internal criticism.” He was not sharing it, he emphasized, because he agreed with it in its entirety, but because it was “from within the State.”

By sharing and commenting on the these works, al-Maqdisi revealed not only his enthusiasm for this group of erstwhile Islamic State scholars but also his familiarity with their struggles and writings. Furthermore, he showed himself to be well plugged in to their network. When one of the Bin‘aliyya, Abu Ya‘qub al-Maqdisi, was executed by the senior Islamic State leadership back in 2018, he was charged with, among other things, communicating with al-Maqdisi. The charge is not so difficult to believe.

A new group?

On November 5, one of Abu Qatada’s allies, a certain Abu ‘Umar ibn Sihman al-Najdi, came out with an essay attacking al-Maqdisi’s recent efforts on behalf of the Bin‘aliyya. Titled “al-Maqdisi and the Bin‘aliyya: Refuting al-Maqdisi’s Rehabilitation of Kharijite Bin‘ali Current,” it sought to debunk the notion that al-Bin‘ali and his allies were waging a war against extremism in the Islamic State. Al-Bin‘ali, the author wrote, did not oppose the takfir of the Taliban and al-Qaida or the shedding of innocent Muslim blood. What al-Bin‘ali was against, as seen in his letter to al-Baghdadi, was the notion of chain takfir, or takfir in infinite regress (al-takfir bi’l-tasalsul), which some members of the Islamic State were promoting and which was leading some of them to pronounce takfir on al-Baghdadi himself.

Speculating as to his motives, the author mused that al-Maqdisi was dissatisfied with al-Qaida and the Taliban, deeming them insufficiently ideologically pure. His cheerleading for the Bin‘aliyya was thus part of an effort “to create a new entity that he could defend” without embarrassment, one that would be “an effective alternative on the ground.”

Later in the month, on November 20, Abu Qatada wrote an essay referring to al-Maqdisi’s support for the “remnants of the Kharijites,” warning against their reintegration before they are made to repent. In his characteristically oblique style, he denounced the efforts of “the one who is known for making light of extremism” (i.e., al-Maqdisi) to rehabilitate and organize the Kharijite remnant (i.e., the Bin‘aliyya).

According to one member of the Bin‘ali current, Abu Qatada had caught wind that al-Maqdisi might be trying to form a new group. A number of mostly Jordanian jihadis had sent a letter to al-Maqdisi and Bilal Khuraysat, a scholar associated with Hurras al-Din (the new Syrian al-Qaida branch), asking for their help in establishing a “group” (jama‘a) that would be free of both the “dilution” of al-Qaida and the “extremism” of the Islamic State.

The letter in question, which was later published, did not in fact propose the formation of a “group” (jama‘a). It did, however, ask al-Maqdisi and Khuraysat, and “all the shaykhs of the intermediate path,” to “bring together the monotheist brothers under one banner, far from the unbelieving parties such as the Brotherhood group … and from the waywardness of extremism and takfir of the Muslim masses.” The authors, who described themselves as former Islamic State supporters and students of Mahdi Zaydan (a Jordanian scholar who joined the Islamic State in 2014 and died in 2017), expressed their disapproval of the “creed” of the Taliban and the “dilution” of the “Brotherhoodized” al-Qaida.

The letter was sent to a media agency affiliated with Hurras al-Din, the “Bayan Foundation” (Mu’assasat Bayan). An image of the correspondence on Telegram shows a representative of Mu’assasat Bayan saying that he showed the letter to Khuraysat, and that the latter sent it to al-Maqdisi. Curiously, Khuraysat denied any knowledge of the letter, as did al-Maqdisi. One of Abu Qatada’s supporters thereafter collected these sources in an essay accusing al-Maqdisi and Khuraysat of lying.

The jihadi homeless

As this correspondence suggests, a number of jihadi intellectuals are currently without an organizational home, having been turned off by the perceived moderation of al-Qaida and the hyper-extremism of the Islamic State. The Bin‘aliyya fall into this category, as do the men who wrote to al-Maqdisi and Khuraysat, these  “shaykhs of the intermediate path.”

Al-Maqdisi would appear to be the natural leader of this current, though some among the Bin‘aliyya, it is worth noting, still bear him ill will. In time, these wounds may heal, but none of this necessarily portends the creation of a new group. What it does suggest is that the two leading groups in the Sunni jihadi universe—al-Qaida and the Islamic State—are out of step, each in its own way, with the “intermediate path” represented by al-Maqdisi. In the short term, this is likely to limit these groups’ appeal; in the long term, it may well leave the door open for the emergence of an alternative.

Caliph Incognito: The Ridicule of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi

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The last week of October 2019 was an eventful one in the history of the Islamic State. On October 26, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, its leader and caliph, blew himself up during a U.S. special forces raid on his compound in Idlib Province, Syria. The next day, official spokesman Abu al-Hasan al-Muhajir, a potential successor to al-Baghdadi, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in nearby Aleppo Province. On October 31, the Islamic State confirmed the fatalities in an audio statement read by al-Muhajir’s replacement, Abu Hamza al-Qurashi, who went on to announce the appointment of a certain Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as the new “commander of the believers and caliph of the Muslims.” The adjective Qurashi in their names denotes descent from the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe of Quraysh, one of the traditional qualifications of being caliph.

In his statement, Abu Hamza called on all Muslims to proffer the bay‘a, the traditional contract of allegiance between ruler and ruled, to “the mujahid shaykh, the learned, the active, the pious, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi,” portraying him as a “scholar” and “commander” with significant experience fighting the Americans. But apart from this vague description of a veteran jihadi with putative descent from Quraysh, nothing about him has been revealed. With the possible exception of the White House, no one seems to know who Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi is. Abu Hamza al-Qurashi, the new spokesman, is also an unknown quantity, though his voice has been heard in earlier Islamic State videos, and his title of “emigrant shaykh” suggests that he is from neither Iraq nor Syria.

For some opponents of the Islamic State, particularly the network of former supporters turned critics, the anonymity of the new caliph presents an opportunity. For Islamic law, as they argue, prohibits the rule of a caliph who is unknown.

Building up al-Baghdadi

In the run-up to the caliphate announcement in June 2014, far more was known about the intended caliph, al-Baghdadi, than is known about al-Hashimi today. In August 2013, in the context of the Islamic State’s attempted expansion to Syria, the Islamic State scholar Turki al-Bin‘ali produced a biography of al-Baghdadi as part of an essay urging Muslims to proffer the bay‘a to him. The biography discussed al-Baghdadi’s background and education, as well as his involvement in the jihadi insurgency following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, including the positions he held in the Islamic State of Iraq before being named its emir in 2010. And it traced al-Baghdadi’s lineage back to the fourth caliph, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, and the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima, thus bolstering his claim to descent from Quraysh.

One of the arguments that al-Bin‘ali sought to refute in his essay was the charge that al-Baghdadi was unknown (majhul), and that therefore one could not proffer the bay‘a to him. To this he replied, pointing to the biographical details just provided, “Shaykh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is not unknown; he is eminent and distinguished.” To the related argument that al-Baghdadi’s face was not yet known, al-Bin‘ali retorted that Islamic law did not require it. He quoted the eleventh-century scholar al-Mawardi, author of a famous book on the theory of the caliphate, who had written:

Once the caliphate has been invested in the one assuming the office, either by designation or by election, it is necessary for the whole community to learn of its conferral on him according to his qualities; however, it is not necessary that they know him by his appearance and by his name, save for the electors by whom the evidence is presented and by whose bay‘a the caliphate is conferred.

Eleven months later, al-Baghdadi’s biography was again invoked in the statement announcing the establishment of the caliphate. Read by then Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani, the statement referred to al-Baghdadi’s birth and upbringing in Samarra and his studies in Baghdad, and identified him by his real name, even titling him “Caliph Ibrahim.” Days later, al-Baghdadi appeared in a filmed sermon at the al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, showing his face for the first time.

Evidently, the Islamic State considered al-Baghdadi’s identity and image, which it had been carefully building up, as crucial to his legitimacy as caliph. Not so, at least as of yet, for Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi.

Abu Ibrahim who?

On November 2-3, the al-Wafa’ Media Agency, one of several online media outfits previously aligned with the Islamic State but now decidedly against it, published two essays in response to the appointment of al-Hashimi. The first, by a certain Nasih Amin (“Faithful Adviser”), also known as Muqtafi al-Athar (“The Tracker”), was titled “The Pincers Tearing Apart the Illusions of the Caliphate’s Claimants.” The second, by the pseudonymous Ibn Jubayr, was called “The Collapse of the Fiction.” While little is known about Nasih Amin, Ibn Jubayr appears to be a former scholar in the Islamic State who fled eastern Syria earlier this year. Both men are prolific authors in the network of former Islamic State supporters turned critics. Since the publication in March 2019 of the influential book Withdraw Your Hands from Bay‘a to al-Baghdadi, by another former Islamic State scholar, both men have denounced the Islamic State as wayward and illegitimate.

Nasih Amin begins his essay by ridiculing the idea that “an unknown nobody” (majhul ‘adam) could be appointed caliph by a group of men who are likewise unknown. Ibn Jubayr decries the Islamic State’s leaders for the same reason, telling them, “It is as if you said, ‘O community of Muhammad, we unknowns have conferred and chosen for you an unknown, so come and proffer an ignorant bay‘a to him.’” The jurists of Sunni Islam, Nasih Amin points out, have established certain criteria for determining a candidate’s suitedness for the office. “How are we to know,” he asks, “that your caliph is qualified when he is unknown?” As further support for his position he quotes Ibn Taymiyya, the fourteenth-century Hanbali scholar adored by jihadis, who wrote in his famous polemic against the Shi‘a, “The Prophet decreed obedience to leaders who exist and who are known … not obedience to a nonentity or an unknown.” Ibn Taymiyya was referring here to the hidden imam in Shi‘i Islam, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, who it is believed disappeared in the year 941 and will reappear in end times.

According to Nasih Amin, the Islamic State’s “secluded paper caliph” (al-khalifa al-kartuni al-mutasardab) is in fact unknown in two senses—in condition and in appearance—and a caliph must be recognized in both. That is to say, one must know both his identity and what he looks like. Nasih Amin acknowledges that the jurists have disagreed as to whether a caliph needs to appear in public, but he contends that the correct view is that he must. Here he cites the opinion of the early jurist and judge of Mecca Sulayman ibn Harb (d. 839), who said that “knowing him [the caliph] by his appearance and his name is required for all the community.”* Ibn Jubayr seems to agree with Nasih Amin on the necessity of the caliph’s appearance, relating that this was al-Bin‘ali’s position back in 2014. While others in the Islamic State, says Ibn Jubayr, strongly opposed al-Baghdadi’s public appearance at the al-Nuri Mosque on security grounds, al-Bin‘ali regarded it as a must. (If this is true, however, it would seem to contradict what al-Bin‘ali wrote in his 2013 essay discussed above.)

Further disqualifying al-Hashimi, in the eyes of both Nasih Amin and Ibn Jubayr, is the nature of the men who selected him. Not only are they unknown to the world, says Nasih Amin, but they are “criminals and innovators,” men patently unqualified for the business of choosing and validating a caliph. Al-Mawardi, notes Ibn Jubayr, stipulated three qualifications for the caliph’s electors: justice, knowledge, and wisdom. All of these, he says, are absent in al-Baghdadi’s coterie, or those he calls the Al Baghdad (“House of Baghdad”), who have shed innocent Muslim blood and embraced extremism in the practice of excommunication (takfir). As regards wisdom, they showed none in sending al-Baghdadi to northern Idlib, a place earlier deemed by them a land of unbelief, when he would have been much safer hiding in the desert.

A final point made by both writers is that, over and above everything else, there is simply nothing left for a would-be caliph to preside over. The Islamic State is an “imaginary state,” writes Nasih Amin: a powerless and hollow organization with none of the trappings of statehood. When al-Bin‘ali wrote his justification of the caliphate back in 2014, Nasih Amin notes, he was clear in stating that “the caliphate requires a certain amount of might and power and territorial consolidation, and this is present in the Islamic State.” But this, Nasih Amin contends, no longer holds. The Islamic State’s leaders, says Ibn Jubayr, have refused to own up to this reality. “You are still living the illusion of the state and the caliphate,” he tells them. “You do not recognize that God has destroyed your state on account of your oppression.”

Doubly exposed

In the days following the announcement of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi’s appointment, the Islamic State began releasing pictures of its members around the world proffering the bay‘a to him. These were featured in last week’s issue of al-Naba’, the Islamic State’s weekly Arabic newsletter. The bay‘a campaign appears intended to illustrate the legitimacy and unanimous acceptance of the new leader; and to that extent, it may also be intended as a way of getting out ahead of the critics. The images have been shared widely by the Islamic State’s supporters, some of whom have refuted the argument that al-Hashimi is an unknown. One of them, for example, makes the point that Islamic law does not require that we know the caliph’s real name or what he looks like. Al-Hashimi, he says, has been endorsed by the “people of loosing and binding” (ahl al-hall wa’l-‘aqd), and that is more than sufficient.

Indeed, the arguments of Nasih Amin and Ibn Jubayr are unlikely to persuade the most ardent of Islamic State supporters, for whom loyalty to the caliphate is as an article of faith. But they do well to point out a new vulnerability that it faces. Al-Hashimi is not al-Baghdadi, and it is unlikely that he, unknown and untested, and assuming power at the nadir of the Islamic State’s caliphate project, can command the kind of loyalty and generate the kind of enthusiasm that his predecessor once did.

It is true that the Islamic State attempted to depersonalize its project after building up al-Baghdadi to such heights in 2013 and 2014. The leadership understood the folly of centering its enterprise on any one person. Al-Baghdadi came to appear less central. However, the caliphate, traditionally understood, is a personal institution. It is premised on the leadership of an eminently qualified man, one who, according to al-Mawardi, “personally oversees affairs.” One proffers the bay‘a to the caliph, not to the caliphate. Likewise, it is premised on a certain degree of power and territorial control. The death of al-Baghdadi leaves the Islamic State exposed on both counts.

 

 

* Al-Mawardi, it should be known, took the opposite view, as did his contemporary Abu Ya‘la ibn al-Farra’, the author of a similar book on the caliphate, which includes the quote by Sulayman ibn Harb.

How Did the Islamic State Pick Its New Leader?

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The world’s most wanted man, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, may be dead at the paws of Conan the Hero Dog, but the ISIS crisis isn’t over.

Just three days after the killing of the so-called Islamic State’s leader, the group issued a statement announcing the name of his successor as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurashi. Like his predecessor, he assumed the title of caliph, or successor to the Prophet Mohammed. In other words, he sees himself as the legitimate ruler of all Muslims—a claim that most of the world’s 1.8 billion Islamic faithful will find either deeply offensive or hilariously corny, but that the Islamic State cult’s own members are deathly serious bout.

(An unofficial English translation has been posted online by Aymenn al-Tamimi, a British-Iraqi expert on the Islamic State.)

So who is the new guy? The short answer is: we don’t know. Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurashi is a nom de guerre, where the last two names are intended to signal ancestry in the prophet’s family and, more importantly, membership of his Qureish tribe. Most Muslim scholars have viewed Qureish ancestry as a necessary qualification to become caliph.

There’s a decent chance that Abu Ibrahim is an Iraqi, since most of the group’s top leaders have been from Iraq and since the statement mentions that he fought the United States in the past—but it isn’t necessarily so.

In any case, journalists, analysts, experts, and any number of intelligence services are currently hard at work trying to match these details with known Islamic State leaders, who are known to use multiple noms de guerre. We’ll know sooner or later, and perhaps the mystery has already been solved: “ISIS has a new leader. We know exactly who he is!” tweeted U.S. President Donald Trump on November 1.

The ‘Islamic’ in ‘Islamic State’

Interestingly, the statement read by the Islamic State’s new spokesperson, one Abu Hamzah al-Qurashi, also gave some clues as to how Abu Ibrahim was appointed—or at the very least, how the group wants us to believe his appointment happened.

As a fundamentalist cult whose entire self-image is based on the idea that it is, in fact, a theocratic nation led by a caliph, the Islamic State needs to take historical precedent very seriously.

Sure enough, Abu Hamzah made a point of clarifying that Abu Ibrahim’s succession had taken place in accordance with “the tradition [Sunnah] of the Noble Companions.” The prophet’s companions, known in Arabic as the Sahaba, are the men and women who joined Islam while the prophet was still alive, under his leadership. They are seen as exemplary Muslims, uncorrupted by later distortions of the faith.

As concerns the institution of the caliphate, Sunni Muslims reserve particular veneration for the first four caliphs (632-661 CE), who are collectively known as the Rashidoun, or “the rightly-guided.”

Looking at their early and ideal models of transition, several different methods were in fact used.

The first caliph, Abu Bakr, was elected upon Mohammad’s death in 632 CE, in the absence of clear instructions from the prophet. However, Abu Bakr appointed his own successor, Omar, while he was still alive. As for Omar, he handled the succession issue by establishing a committee tasked with choosing a third caliph on his death—they chose Othman. When Othman was murdered, the fourth rightly-guided caliph, Ali, arrived to power amid internal conflict through a convoluted process that involved rallying supporters to his side.

These events are of course the subject of an enormous amount of scholarship and studies, and their details and nuances have been debated among Muslims for more than a thousand years. But the very short version is this: there was no single method for how to select a new caliph in early Islam, with rightly-guided caliphs having come to power both through election and direct appointment by their predecessor.

The Shoura Council Decided

The October 31 statement by Abu Hamzah al-Qurashi seems to be suggesting the choice of Abu Ibrahim as Islamic State caliph involved something of a combined method, but that ultimately the decision rested with the Shoura Council.

Abu Hamzah says the Islamic State’s Shoura Council—its top advisory and governance body—convened immediately upon confirmation of Baghdadi’s death to organize the transition. Given the security conditions in Syria and Iraq, that’s remarkable in itself. It would be an even bigger feat if representatives of far-flung Islamic State “provinces” in the Russian Caucasus, Afghanistan, or West Africa also sit on the council. On the other hand, the statement doesn’t specify that the Shoura Council convened in a physical meeting, so maybe they just posted 👍s in a chat group.

Abu Hamzah’s statement goes on to say that the “Sheikhs of the Mujahedin”—which, in this context, likely just means the Shoura members themselves—mutually agreed to pledge allegiance to Abu Ibrahim. The word he uses is tawafaqa, which suggests a broad consensus, though it doesn’t necessarily mean unanimity.

Moreover, Abu Hamzah claims that the Shoura Council’s decision was taken “after consulting with their brothers and [after] working in accordance with the testament of the caliph of the Muslims, may God accept him.”

The “brothers” in question are most likely Islamic State members outside the council, such as senior commanders and scholars whose views must be taken into account. The “caliph of the Muslims,” in this case, is Baghdadi, and the word translated here as “testament” is wasiyya.

Baghdadi’s Testament

Tamimi’s English translation renders wasiyya as “counsel,” but “testament” or “will” seems like a more reasonable choice in the context of Baghdadi just having joined the choir invisible. That doesn’t necessarily imply a formal, written letter, however—it could refer to views and orders given by Baghdadi while he was still alive.

The line about Baghdadi’s testament has been highlighted by experts on Salafi-jihadism like Hassan Hassan and Sam Heller, since it suggests that the group had a pre-arranged mechanism for how to transition to a new leader. Planning its line of succession ahead of time would certainly make sense for a group with massive leadership turnover, and where member are bound together by personal pledges of allegiance to the top guy. Even so, this was the first public reference to instructions from Baghdadi.

On the other hand, the word testament doesn’t tell us much more than that Baghdadi had left some form of instruction behind. It may mean that he had specifically ordered that Abu Ibrahim should be the new caliph upon his death. It could also mean that he expressed a personal preference for Abu Ibrahim without actually selecting him, or that he left a shortlist of successors to choose from, or that he devised a system for how to select the new leader without specifically naming anyone—or some combination of the above.

It’s not obvious to what extent the Islamic State leadership would feel bound by Baghdadi’s decisions after his death, but Abu Hamzah does make clear that the group took Baghdadi’s will into account and worked according to it. Then again, he is just as careful to note that the Shoura Council consulted with “their brothers.”

What it all comes down to is that the decision ultimately rested with the members of the Islamic State’s Shoura Council. They took Baghdadi’s testament into account and they consulted with others, and then they confirmed Abu Ibrahim as the new caliph.

But that’s assuming that Abu Hamzah told the truth about how the appointment happened—and that is a big if. The Islamic State spokesperson may as well have tried to put a legalistic, pious gloss on a chaotic or corrupted process or even, in theory, to paper over a divisive internal power grab. For the moment, we just don’t know—and that is perhaps as far as we can get into the inner workings of the Islamic State without more information.

Mourning Morsi: The Death of an Islamist and Jihadi Divisions

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Following the death of Mohamed Morsi, the former Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, on June 17, 2019, a contentious debate broke out in the world of Sunni jihadism over the proper reaction to his demise. The Islamic State exhibited no grief whatsoever, its Arabic weekly noting the passing of “the Egyptian apostate idol-ruler … [who] rose to power by means of polytheistic democracy and spent one year in power, [ruling] by other than what God has revealed.” For the Islamic State, Morsi’s loss was no loss at all. He was no better or worse than any other apostate ruler in the Islamic world. But for those jihadis in the orbit of al-Qaida, the matter was not so black-and-white. Some rued his loss, others objected to their doing so, and passions ran high. The debate highlights the significance and endurance of a widening ideological divide in this segment of the jihadosphere.

Al-Maqdisi vs. Abu Qatada

The leading parties to the debate were the Palestinian-Jordanian scholars Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filastini, longtime friends who have fallen out in recent years over the matter of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian jihadi group that broke ties with al-Qaida in attempting to present a moderate face. In short, al-Maqdisi, the more ideologically intransigent of the two, has condemned HTS for abandoning al-Qaida and diluting the principles of jihadism, while Abu Qatada, the more open-minded one, has championed HTS and its seemingly moderate turn. Al-Maqdisi, it could be said, represents a more exclusivist form of jihadism, one concerned with defining and policing the boundaries of the faith, while Abu Qatada stands for a more inclusive version, one that deemphasizes the strict Salafi-Wahhabi theology adored by al-Maqdisi and appeals to the umma broadly. For al-Maqdisi, then, a man such as Morsi has committed the unforgivable sins of partaking in democracy (understood as polytheism) and failing to implement the Sharia. Abu Qatada is willing to overlook these faults.

On June 17, less than an hour after the news of Morsi’s death broke, Abu Qatada took to Telegram to bemoan his loss. “May God have abundant mercy on him and accept him among the righteous,” he wrote. “May God have mercy on you, Dr. Mohamed. We give condolences to his family, and we say, ‘Surely we belong to God, and to Him we return’ [Q. 2:156].” A few minutes later, in a second note, he urged all Muslims to join him in mourning the late president: “[This is] an appeal to every Muslim on this earth to beg pardon for him and to ask God to have mercy on him, for he died unjustly. Not for a moment did I doubt that he possessed a heart sincerely devoted to his religion and his umma.” He added shortly thereafter, “Dr. Morsi—I bear witness before God that I loved him for the sake of God.”

Al-Maqdisi could not contain his exasperation. Writing on Telegram a few hours later, he declared that his stance was unchanged as regards “Morsi, Erdogan, Hamas, and the likes of them who have chosen the path of democracy, having been misled and having misled their followers thereby.” “We do not love them,” he continued, in an obvious reference to Abu Qatada’s remarks, “and it is not permissible for us to love them, as do those whose balance of association and dissociation (al-wala’ wa’l-bara’) has become defective; and we do not ask God to have mercy on them; nor do we call on people to ask God to have mercy on them when they die. For theirs is a heresy warranting excommunication.” While he took care not to name Abu Qatada here, it was clear to all concerned who stood accused of having a faulty theological compass. In the same post al-Maqdisi attacked the selfsame unnamed person for “turning his back on his old method.”

A day later, on June 18, Abu Qatada responded to al-Maqdisi, among other critics, in a written Q&A with his London-based student, Abu Mahmud al-Filastini. Reaffirming his belief that Morsi was a Muslim sincerely devoted to the faith, Abu Qatada clarified that he did not support everything the man had said or done. But his sympathy for him was evident. He remarked that the burden of responsibility borne by Morsi as president of Egypt constrained him severely, and that in any case one cannot expect perfection from an Islamic leader given the circumstances of the age—“the reign of idol rulers, the corruption of education, and the drying up of the springs of guidance.” Abu Qatada was likewise careful to avoid mentioning his antagonist by name. His student, Abu Mahmud, however, did not show the same compunction.

In a post following the Q&A, Abu Mahmud quoted an essay by al-Maqdisi from a few years prior, one that appears to defend the Muslim Brotherhood from excessive criticism. Al-Maqdisi had argued that it was wrong to accuse every member of the Muslim Brotherhood of unbelief, or to equate the Brotherhood with those far worse than it, such as secularists. “If I said these were the words of the one who has been condemning and denouncing and acting enraged because of asking God to have mercy on Morsi, would anyone believe it?” Abu Mahmud wrote. He then referred to the Taliban’s recent eulogy of Morsi, which he quoted in full. Let’s see al-Maqdisi get worked up over the Taliban’s statement, he wrote.

The next day, al-Maqdisi uploaded a pair of audio messages to Telegram in an attempt to clarify his position. In the first he explained that his main issue was not with asking God to have mercy on Morsi, that is, saying “may God have mercy on him.” While he was opposed to it himself, he did not deem it such a big deal so long as one refrained from praising Morsi and leading people to believe that democracy was acceptable. “My only problem,” he said, “is with him who asks God to have mercy on him and in doing so leads people to believe that his method is correct; or adds to asking God to have mercy on him praising him and endorsing him, even endorsing the contents of his heart that only God knows.” In the second audio message he elaborated on his reasons for not saying “may God have mercy on him” with respect to Morsi, citing the practice of the Prophet and earlier Muslim scholars not to use such statements with respect to various “innovators.” For whatever reason, here and elsewhere al-Maqdisi avoids denouncing Morsi as an unbeliever in explicit terms, preferring to describe his behavior—not necessarily the man—as unbelieving.

Secondary contributors

Meanwhile, other notable names in the jihadi world contributed opinions on the matter. Among them was Abu ‘Ubayda Yusuf al-‘Annabi, a senior leader in al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, who sided passionately with Abu Qatada in a short interview. Al-‘Annabi wrote that Morsi had died “unjustly and oppressed … so how could we not ask God to have mercy [on him]? … If we could we would seek revenge on his behalf.” Regardless of what errors he may have committed while in office, he continued, Morsi’s “independent reasoning and interpretation” shielded him from charges of unbelief. Also in Abu Qatada’s corner, unsurprisingly, were the scholarly voices of HTS, including its leading Sharia official Abu ‘Abdallah al-Shami. HTS as a group would also issue an official statement of mourning.

More critical of Morsi, but still willing to say “may God have mercy on him,” were the Egyptian scholars Hani al-Siba‘i and Tariq ‘Abd al-Halim, allies of al-Maqdisi who reside in the United Kingdom and Canada, respectively. Each of them, however, was careful to distance himself from the methodology of the Muslim Brotherhood (see here and here). ‘Abd al-Halim added that while he disagreed with al-Maqdisi’s position on asking God to have mercy on Morsi, he certainly understood where he was coming from—Morsi had no doubt uttered words indicative of unbelief.

As can be seen, it was the two Palestinian-Jordanians who were setting the terms of the debate. And it was not over yet.

A mirage of unity

On June 20, al-Maqdisi released a more aggressive attack on his critics, this time in written form. His target was the more inclusive form of jihadism advocated by Abu Qatada. “Certain persons,” he wrote, “are calling on the jihadi current to revise itself and to purify its ranks and its writings of extremism.” Indeed, he said, “the time has come for full and comprehensive revisions to the methodology of the jihadi current,” but this was “to defend and protect it,” not from extremism, but “from attempts to corrupt it by certain characters, groups, and individuals.” These were people who did not belong to the jihadi movement at all:

It appears that the current has, over the past decades, been united with certain individuals as in a mirage. As facts have come to light in incidents and convulsions, it has become clear that we are united with them neither in methodology nor in politics nor in jurisprudence nor even in sentiments.

In years prior, he suggested, it had been possible to paper over the differences between the real and the faux jihadis, but this was no longer the case:

The agreed principle of global jihad and enmity for the idol-rulers, and the principle of rebelling against them and fighting, united us with many, but as for methodology, jurisprudence, political theory, and the firmest bonds of monotheism … they have opposed us in these for decades … The time has come to purge this imaginary and flimsy union.

The idea of unity with Abu Qatada and his allies was a fantasy no longer worth indulging. This was a civil war, and it could not be avoided. Now more than ever, he said, it was imperative to define our core jihadi principles sharply and definitively, to “lay a foundation of monotheism, creed, and methodology above all things,” and on that foundation to “build a true and honest union.”

Abu Mahmud, the student and ally of Abu Qatada, replied on Telegram that it was al-Maqdisi who was the “intruder upon the current,” not his opponents.  “The jihadi current has never embraced the methodology of extremism,” he wrote, and al-Maqdisi has never been considered the principal “theoretician” (munazzir) of the movement. This was the view of al-Qaida’s leaders and scholars, who, he claimed, did not subscribe to al-Maqdisi’s exclusivist theology. Days later, al-Qaida would seem to prove his point.

Al-Qaida’s eulogy

On June 27, the “general leadership” of al-Qaida put out a statement eulogizing Morsi and advising the Egyptian people to rise up in armed jihad. “May God pardon him and forgive him,” it read. “We have no doubt that he was killed unjustly and oppressed, and we give our condolences to his family and to all his children and loved ones.” The two-page statement was no endorsement of Morsi or the Muslim Brotherhood, however, as it urged Egyptians to reject “the religion of democracy.”  The message was similar to an earlier al-Qaida statement from 2017 eulogizing Mahdi ‘Akif, the former spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. While registering its “disagreement” with ‘Akif on unspecified matters, al-Qaida had nonetheless underscored a shared “brotherhood of Islam.”

The reaction from Abu Qatada’s allies was predicable enough. Abu Mahmud, in an audio statement, suggested that al-Maqdisi would now have to accuse al-Qaida of diluting jihadism. Another ally of Abu Qatada’s hailed the statement as evidence of al-Qaida’s pan-Islamist orientation, saying the group does not subscribe to “the religion of the jihadi current” that some people are trying to found. Al-Qaida “sees itself as a part of the umma, not as an alternative to it,” he wrote. (Islamic State supporters, for their part, also felt vindicated. One of them took the statement as further proof of the “Brotherhoodization” of al-Qaida under the leadership of Zawahiri.)

Al-Maqdisi sought to downplay the apparent difference between himself and al-Qaida in light of the statement. In an audio message he once again stressed that his problem was with praising and expressing approval of Morsi, not so much with asking God to have mercy on him. And the al-Qaida statement had been clear in criticizing the democratic and pacifist inclinations of the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, the statement was for the most part unobjectionable.

In any case, he asserted, it would not be long before he was vindicated, as always happens. “Those who follow our history,” he said, “know that we have disagreed with al-Qaida before, and we have disagreed with some of the leaders of al-Qaida … and by the grace of God all those we have advised, in the end and after a certain time, not because I am infallible but by the grace of God … it has become clear that we were correct.” As evidence of his sterling record in this regard, al-Maqdisi cited the time in 2009 when he publicly took issue with an al-Qaida leader’s comments on Hamas—an episode described by Daniel Lav in his book (p. 171). The leader, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, had said an interview with Al Jazeera that “we and Hamas share the same thinking and the same method.” Al-Maqdisi objected in an essay, whereupon Abu al-Yazid recanted in a clarifying statement, acknowledging his error and thanking al-Maqdisi for his intervention.

In recounting this ten-year old story, however, al-Maqdisi invites the question whether al-Qaida would show him the same level of deference today as it did then. At a time when it is seeking to distinguish itself from the “extremism” of the Islamic State and appeal broadly to the umma, the likely answer is no.

Al-Qaida amid the storm

While al-Maqdisi’s views, particularly as regards theology, are highly popular among jihadis who support al-Qaida, the latter is trying to cultivate a broad base of support in the Islamic world. It needs the likes of al-Maqdisi for ideological legitimacy, but it also needs the support of Abu Qatada and his ilk if it is going to succeed in generating pan-Islamist appeal. The jihadi civil war being waged by the two men is thus an unwelcome development as far as al-Qaida is concerned. The group would like to hold on to the supporters of both, not choose between them. But the case of Syria, where HTS decided to cut ties with al-Qaida in pursuing the vision espoused by Abu Qatada, and where al-Qaida loyalists aligned with al-Maqdisi have formed a new al-Qaida franchise, suggests this may not be possible. The divide between these two ideological camps may well be unbridgeable, as al-Maqdisi suggests. He is always proven right, after all.

Kill the Caliph! The Islamic State’s evolution from an integrated to a fragmented group

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In 2016, the two scholars Haroro Ingram and Craig Whiteside argued in an article on War on the Rocksthat we should not try too hard to kill the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In fact, they said, it would be better to leave him alive. Their view was that it would be wiser to leave al-Baghdadi as the caliph in charge of the demise of the group’s territorial caliphate, essentially positioning him as the authority in charge of its collapse and hopefully leaving him as an unpopular figure with little sway among group members and little ability to lead its resurgence. Well aware that this is an entirely theoretical discussion—if we obtain knowledge of al-Baghdadi’s whereabouts there is no chance that he will not be killed—I agreed with the authors at the time the article was published. But as the context has now changed I am increasingly convinced that we now have a strategic moment where indeed it would make sense to kill the caliph.

From an integrated to a fragmented group

In his book Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse, Paul Staniland introduces a four-pronged typology of network structures within rebel groups: integrated, parochial, vanguard, andfragmented. Integrated groups are characterized by strong horizontal and vertical networks ensuring strong internal cohesion. Strong unity among senior figures materializes in effective central institutions while the group enjoys a high level of local compliance. In parochial groups there is no strong unity between senior figures, but the group has strong local control despite the absence of effective institutions. A vanguard group is the opposite of a parochial group with strong unity among senior figures but little to no local control. Finally, a fragmented group suffers from a lack of unity between senior figures, an absence of effective central institutions, and little local control.

In the heyday of the Islamic State’s territorial control, the group could legitimately be considered an integrated group with unity among its leadership and with strong local embeddedness and compliance in most areas under its control. While it may be a stretch to claim that the Islamic State has already turned into a fragmented group, it is certainly on its way to doing so. This comes as a result of its rapidly decreasing local control and factionalization among figures on the highest organizational level. In addition, the linkages between senior figures on a global scale appear weak compared to those of al-Qaida, whose leaders have a shared history from Afghanistan or other battlefields. In groups where trust is essential, this is no minor issue.

Already in the early days of the caliphate, the Islamic State suffered from internal criticism and dissidence, but at the time it was mainly among fringe elements of the group and did not pose an immediate danger to group cohesion. In 2017, when the group’s decline was already well on its way, internal criticism intensified and eventually escalated to involve imprisonment and assassination of opposing figures. The ideological aspect of this division between what we can call a ‘moderate’ wing and an ‘extremist’ wing is already well-documented through the works in particular of Cole Bunzel (see here, here and here), Aymenn al-Tamimi (see here, here, here and here) and this author (see here and here). The actual impact of this internal conflict has received less thought though.

Divisions and fratricide: fighting the wrong enemy

Since 2017 the internal conflict has been building up and positions on each side have hardened. At the heart of the conflict lie differences regarding specific theological issues such as who should be considered apostates, but criticism has also concerned how the Islamic State handled its territorial demise. Both factions have attacked one another through their respective channels on the IT-platform Telegram, authored publications with the sole purpose of delegitimizing the opposing faction, leaked material from inside the group, and fought for control over central institutions and the support of their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. More recently, senior figures of the ‘moderate’ wing have been imprisoned and, on some occasions, killed by coalition bombings during imprisonment. Unsurprisingly, supporters of the ‘moderate’ wing claim that the opposing faction is leaking the locations of these prisons to the coalition.

Whether such claims are true is hard to confirm, but in any case the internal conflict between the two factions has left deep wounds inside an already troubled organization. Instead of focusing on its main enemies, the Islamic State has wasted energy on an internal war, losing personnel and fueling group fragmentation at a time when cohesion is more important than ever. Questions are also being asked about the leadership of al-Baghdadi. Is he the one actually leading the group? And should he continue to do so?

In his latest video, al-Baghdadi the fighterattempts to cement his role as the leader of the group—a leader who is up-to-date on the situation in the Islamic State’s global provinces and who is indeed pulling the strings. Almost five years earlier, in his first appearance, al-Baghdadi the caliph said from the top of the al-Nuri mosque’s pulpit that “I was chosen to lead you, but I am not better than you. So if you find me to be right then help me, and if you find me to be wrong then advise me and make me right and obey me in what I obey Allah. If I disobey Him then there is no obedience to me”. Now, in 2019, it appears that at least two factions in the Islamic State consider al-Baghdadi ill-suited to be caliph. This was the message in a recent bookpublished by a senior figure in the ‘moderate’ wing, Abu Muhammad al-Hashimi, in which he urges supporters to revoke their pledge of allegiance to al-Baghdadi (it should be stated that al-Hashimi’s book received a lot of criticism from ordinary supporters of the Islamic State who initiated a campaign to renew bayah to al-Baghdadi (see examples here and here) and also from the extremists who despite sharing al-Hashimi’s disappointment with al-Baghdadi are more at odds with the ‘moderates’ (see here)).

Fragmentation and shifting power balances

Despite the question marks surrounding his leadership, al-Baghdadi for now remains the glue keeping the group together. If he were killed, a symbolic power vacuum would emerge and it is likely that the group would once and for all fracture and that tensions and infighting would escalate. Unlike in al-Qaida where Ayman al-Zawahiri was an easy pick as Bin Laden’s successor, there is no clear succession plan in the Islamic State. This is partly due to the death of most of the experienced senior leaders, but also a result of the internal tensions among those remaining. Hence it is hard to identify any existing leader to take over and immediately heal the wounds.

In fact, it could be speculated that the death of al-Baghdadi would result in a critical geographical shift in power balance within the group. Despite its origin in the Levant, a case could be made that a new caliph, or amir, should be found outside Syria and Iraq where certain provinces have intensified their military campaigns and thereby raised their global standing. While such a scenario remains unlikely, albeit not impossible, it would not only shift the group’s center of authority but also further aggravate its diminishing global cohesion.

According to Ingram and Whiteside, a splintering Islamic State group is not something we should wish for, however, as it could make the group even more ‘volatile and dangerous’. While it is true that splintering into several groups could result in new strategies and operational priorities, not to speak of increased irrational and undisciplined behavior, it will likely weaken the threat these actors pose. Such weakening will result from a combination of decreased capacity, the necessity to reconfigure the group, and the distraction that group splinters always entail. Just ask al-Qaida or Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

There is always the risk that leadership decapitation offers the group a fresh start, and perhaps that is precisely what the Islamic State currently needs. But given the fragmented nature of its current network and authority structures, there is a much greater chance that the death of the caliph will lead to internal implosion and defections.

 

Divine Test or Divine Punishment? Explaining Islamic State Losses

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Since it began losing territory in Iraq and Syria in 2016, the Islamic State’s official line for explaining its losses has been that God is subjecting the believers to a test or trial (tamhis, ibtila’). The theme was introduced in May 2016 by Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani, the Islamic State’s official spokesman until his death later that year, in an audio address recalling the struggles of the Islamic State of Iraq between 2006 and 2012. Al-‘Adnani reminded listeners of “God’s practice of testing and trying the mujahidin,” hinting that more of the same lay in store. In October 2016, an editorial in the Islamic State’s official Arabic weekly, al-Naba’, spoke similarly of God’s habit of “trying the believers with misfortune and hardship … before God’s victory will descend upon them.”

In other words, so the message goes, take heart and despair not, for the divine tribulation will surely pass and the triumphant march toward final victory will resume. As Abu al-Hasan al-Muhajir, al-‘Adnani’s successor as speaker, put it in a speech in April 2017: “If we are dispossessed of a city or an area or a village, this is only the testing and trying of the Muslim community, in order that the ranks may be purified and the filth expunged.” Thereafter, he said, God will give victory to the believers and, as prophesied, they will go on to conquer the world.

To most members and supporters of the Islamic State, this message might be persuasive enough. But not all are on board. Indeed, a large number have pushed back spiritedly against the notion that their suffering is somehow a divine test, accusing the Islamic State of being responsible for the present travails. According to them, what we are witnessing is not a divine test so much as a divine punishment. The Islamic State’s leadership, in this view, erred badly, indulging ideological extremism, corruption, and oppression, thus incurring God’s wrath. The two explanations for the Islamic State’s losses are thus the trial thesis and the oppression thesis. As the Islamic State prepares to cede its final pocket of territory in eastern Syria, the adherents of the latter may be growing.

The oppression thesis takes form

The oppression thesis dates back to at least summer 2017, when two Islamic State scholars composed letters setting out a litany of complaints against the caliphate’s leadership. The two letters, by Abu Muhammad al-Husayni al-Hashimi and Abu ‘Abd al-Malik al-Shami, respectively, were described in an earlier post, and since have been translated by Aymenn Al-Tamimi (see here and here). As will be recalled, these men were reacting to a series of developments involving the promulgation of a memorandum on takfir (excommunication) seen by the scholarly class as too extreme and the subsequent death of several scholars who objected to it. Yet their concerns went beyond the immediate context of the takfir dispute.

Al-Hashimi questioned the Islamic State’s very claim to be following “the prophetic methodology,” arguing that “oppressors, ignoramuses, and innovators” had taken over the caliphate while Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was nowhere to be seen. Al-Shami complained similarly of “oppressive, errant, deficient, and extremist commanders” who had seized the reins of power in the caliph’s absence. Both claimed that these leaders were advancing a Kharijite ideology, referring to the early Islamic sect famous for its extremism in takfir. In al-Shami’s words, the Islamic State was “exchanging its religion for the religion of the Kharijites,” while dissenters were being imprisoned or killed.

As a result, according to the two letter-writers, the Islamic State’s worldly fortunes were being affected. God was punishing the pseudo-caliphate. “Do you not have a reminder and an admonition in all these dreadful events and calamities that are befalling the Islamic State?” al-Hashimi asked al-Baghdadi, quoting Qur’an 6:42: “Indeed, We sent to nations before thee, and We seized them with misery and hardship that haply they might be humble.” Al-Shami was equally strident on this score. “Indeed,” he wrote, “what the Islamic State is going through today is not a test, as the misleading media lead us to believe. Rather it is a substitution”—a reference to God’s threats in the Qur’an (9:39, 47:38) to “substitute another people instead of you.”

For both writers, a key piece of evidence was a statement made by Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani back in April 2014, in a speech defending what was then the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. In the speech, al-‘Adnani beseeched God to punish the Islamic State if it veered toward extremism. “O God,” he exclaimed,

if this state be a state of Kharijites, then break its back, kill its leaders, bring down its flag, and guide its soldiers to the truth. O God, and if it be a state of Islam, ruling by Your book and the practice of Your prophet and waging jihad against your enemies, then fortify it, empower it, make it victorious, establish it in the land, and make it a caliphate on the prophetic methodology.

In the eyes of al-Hashimi and al-Shami, God’s reply to al-‘Adnani was abundantly clear. The signs of His disfavor were everywhere and irrefutable. “Indeed, I see the confirmation of this entreaty being realized before us,” al-Hashimi commented. “We have seen clearly how al-‘Adnani’s entreaty … was answered,” wrote al-Shami. The extremist and oppressive functionaries appointed by al-Baghdadi were getting their comeuppance. And yet, as is God’s way, all were paying the price. Al-Shami quoted verse 8:25 of the Qur’an: “And fear a trial which shall surely not smite in particular the oppressors among you; and know that God is terrible in retribution.”

The oppression thesis gains steam

Even though al-Baghdadi retracted the controversial takfir memorandum in September 2017, in a sign of support for the scholars and their somewhat more nuanced position on takfir, the concerns voiced by al-Hashimi and al-Shami lingered among the scholars, unconvinced as they were that the leadership had truly changed. Over the next year and more, the scholars continued to air grievances of the same kind, and they continued to be imprisoned and killed. That the Islamic State was inviting punishment was a recurring theme in their remarks.

A major spokesperson for the oppression thesis was the Jordanian-born Abu Ya‘qub al-Maqdisi, for a time the head of the Islamic State’s Office of Research and Studies. In mid-March 2018, he addressed a letter to “those in authority” in which he elaborated his concerns and called on his correspondents to reform. Among other things, al-Maqdisi criticized them for imposing limits on the range of acceptable religious discourse, particularly as concerns takfir. In his view they had come “to equate themselves with God in commanding right and forbidding wrong,” which was to say they were usurping God’s sovereignty. Al-Maqdisi complained further of “the spread of innovations,” including “the throwing of accusations of unbelief and innovation without restriction,” and “the spread of oppression and violation of blood and property.” It was these transgressions, he submitted, that were to blame for the current troubles:

We are certain that the successive losses, defeats, and setbacks that have befallen this state are not the result of a shortage of numbers and materiel. Indeed, the cause of this is sin, which has drawn the wrath of the Almighty and the visitation of His retribution against us all.

Al-Maqdisi called on his correspondents to correct their errors, but the advice did not go over well. Repeatedly imprisoned in 2018, he was executed toward the end of the year on charges of apostasy.

Another Islamic State scholar who publicly espoused the oppression thesis was the Saudi Abu al-Mundhir al-Harbi. In a sermon during the siege of the Province of al-Raqqa (presumably late 2017), he said, “Indeed, this tribulation and this setback that we are passing through, we have no doubt that it is a punishment from God for what our hands have perpetrated … We have sinned and oppressed and grown arrogant.” It is necessary, al-Harbi continued, for us “to repent sincerely to God, to recognize that we have oppressed and transgressed and grown arrogant and haughty.”

Two other scholars to sing this tune were the North African Abu Mus‘ab al-Sahrawi and the blind Egyptian Abu ‘Isa al-Masri. In early summer 2018, al-Sahrawi delivered a sermon in eastern Syria excoriating the leadership for oppression and extremism. “What has befallen us,” he told his congregation, “what has broken our back, divided our authority, and empowered the enemies of God over us is oppression and extremism in religion.” According to the media group that uploaded the sermon online, al-Sahrawi was henceforward banned from preaching. Also speaking that summer, likely also in eastern Syria, al-Masri likened the Islamic State to a sinking ship. “Just as oppression and corruption sink the ship,” he said, “so extremism in religion sinks the ship as well.”

Al-Nasiha

Distributing these works online is a collection of dissident media agencies comprising Mu’assasat al-Wafa’, Mu’assasat al-Turath al-‘Ilmi, and Mu’assasat Ma‘arij. The first of these has also published articles by pseudonymous scholars blaming the Islamic State for its failures. (See, for instance, this March 2018 essay by Abu Suraqa al-Hashimi.) Yet an even more critical outlet in this regard been a media group called al-Nasiha (“Advice”), launched in 2018 as a forum for giving advice to the caliph.

Since its founding, al-Nasiha has published some twenty essays by a small group of writers. The most prolific of them is a certain Ibn Jubayr, who has given the impression of being in the Islamic State’s last holdout in eastern Syria. While extremely harsh in tone, Ibn Jubayr has for the most part exhibited a begrudging loyalty to the caliphate. Echoing the concerns of al-Hashimi and al-Shami, he has complained of the marginalization of the scholars, the effective disappearance of al-Baghdadi, the spread of extremism, and the consolidation of power in the hands of a small group of unscrupulous and repressive men. In July 2018 he told the latter that “your soldiers see you as the cause behind the erosion of the [Islamic] State and its breakup.” And in October 2018 he said to them, “Your oppression and your arrogance toward God … have served the coalition and brought us to where we are today.”

Gradually, al-Nasiha veered in the direction of outright opposition. The starting point was a speech by al-Baghdadi in August 2018 in which he reiterated the trial thesis, came to the defense of his deputies, and decried division. Ibn Jubayr responded with a critical commentary, noting regretfully that the caliph was very much aware of the oppression being unleashed by his underlings. The breaking point for him seems to have come in December 2018, when a number of imprisoned scholars were killed in a coalition airstrike on a prison in the Syrian village of al-Kushma. In an essay on the event, published in February 2019, Ibn Jubayr claimed that the Islamic State was now in some ways worse than the infidel states of the Middle East. Mentioning al-Baghdadi, he remarked, “may God swiftly set him right or replace him,” and addressing his deputies, he said, “God has made you and your false caliphate a [warning] sign for all who see your oppression.”

Al-Naba’ responds

It was not till early February 2019 that the Islamic State’s Central Media Department (Diwan al-I‘lam al-Markazi) finally took it upon itself to refute these arguments, devoting an article to them in al-Naba’. “One of the greatest crimes and greatest innovations that we are seeing today spreading among the people,” read the article, “is their plunging into some of God’s foreordainments and their attempt to explain God’s will by means of them.” This was al-Naba’s way of attacking the view that the Islamic State had invited God’s punishment. Those espousing this view, the article said, “deny categorically that what is befalling some of the believers today is the test by which [God] will raise them by degrees.” Rather, they claim that the cause is God’s anger at the “sin or oppression” of the Islamic State’s rulers and the “deviation of [its] creed and path.” And they argue that His anger will not be lifted until these supposed errors are corrected.

The problem with this argument, according to al-Naba’, is that it presumes knowledge of the unseen—namely, knowledge of God’s “foreordainments”—and to claim such knowledge is “manifest unbelief.” “The Muslim servant,” al-Naba’ says, “knows that what befalls him or others is by God’s wise decree, but he does not know God’s intention behind this decree.”

Two weeks later, an author for al-Nasiha wrote a refutation of the al-Naba’ article, disputing the idea that to judge the Islamic State negatively was to claim knowledge of the unseen. “It is known in the religion by necessity,” wrote the author,

that oppression does not please God, that unwarranted killing does not please God, that extremism in religion does not please God, that torturing Muslims does not please God, that imprisoning them and terrorizing them and wrongly seizing their property does not please God … The things that anger God were clarified and established by Him in His book and in the practice of His prophet.

Furthermore, he went on, there are numerous verses of the Qur’an that show that “sins incur God’s anger, His retribution, and His punishment.” As God says (Q. 40:21), “God seized them for their sins.”

“Injustice” in Baghouz

In light of the above, it is worth noting that several Islamic State members who have fled the last bastion of Islamic State rule in Syria, in Baghouz, seem to subscribe to some version of the oppression thesis as outlined by Ibn Jubayr and others. One of them is Shamima Begum, the British “ISIS bride” who recently explained to the Times of London why “[t]he caliphate is over.” “There was so much oppression and corruption that I don’t think they deserved victory,” she said. If her account is to be believed, her Dutch husband was imprisoned by the Islamic State for six months on charges of espionage, during which he was subjected to torture. “There was a lot of similar oppressions of innocent people. In some cases fighters who had fought for the caliphate were executed as spies even though they were innocent.” A similar complaint was voiced by the American Hoda Muthana, who mentioned the oppression of the Islamic State in an interview with the Guardian. “In the end,” she said, “I didn’t have many friends left, because the more I talked about the oppression of Isis the more I lost friends.”

Speaking with Agence France-Presse, a man named Abdul Monhem Najiyya offered a different kind of criticism: “There was an implementation of God’s law, but there was injustice … The leaders stole money … and fled.” As for al-Baghdadi, he complained, “He left us in the hands of people who let us down and left. He bears responsibility, because, in our view, he is our guide.”

Another harsh verdict came from one Um Rayyan, who told the Associated Press, “I think this is the reason for the failure of the Islamic State … God protected us (from the international coalition.) But when there was corruption inside us, God stopped making us victorious.” Her particular grievance was the elevation of Iraqis over non-Iraqis, a theme to which Ibn Jubayr devoted an essay.

Of course, some of these comments are self-serving and should be assessed skeptically. Yet they do suggest that the oppression thesis has its adherents among those fleeing the caliphate. As the al-Naba’ article indicated, objections of this kind have been “spreading” (muntashira). Whether they might erode the Islamic State’s base of support is hard to say, however, as the trial thesis has its devotees as well. As a woman in Syria recently told a CNN journalist, “God is testing us.” For the moment, this appears to be the dominant narrative among former residents of the caliphate. How dominant it remains will be a measure of the Islamic State’s strength in the years to come

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s Internal Conflict and Renewed Tensions with Hurras al-Deen

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On 1 February Abu al-Yaqzan al-Masri, a senior religious official (shar‘i) representing the hardliner wing within Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), announced his defection from the group. Al-Masri’s decision came as a direct response to a recent interview with Abu Muhammed al-Julani, the amir of HTS, in which he gave his support to Turkey’s planned operations against the Kurds in northeast Syria. HTS’s rapprochement with Turkey has long been a sensitive issue causing problems both within the group and between HTS and al-Qaida-aligned figures. In a speech published on 5 February 2019, al-Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri reiterated his criticisms of HTS, albeit not mentioning the group explicitly.

Al-Masri, who allegedly was arrested by HTS following his defection, has long been a critical voice within HTS. As recently as 30 December 2018, he said in a videotaped sermon in Idlib that Turkey’s battle against the Kurdish YPG is “between a secular army and a secular, atheist party; a battle that is one episode in a long struggle between Turkish and Kurdish nationalists, in which Islam has no stake, and God’s word has no part.”But tensions in HTS over the issue of Turkey were already brewing back in September last year, when it was reported that al-Masri was objecting to the party line. Initially there were rumours that two other senior sheikhs, namely Abu Malik al-Tali and Abu Malik al-Shami, had also resigned, but those claims have since been refuted (see here).

Al-Masri’s defection was long in the making, prompted as it was by al-Julani’s rapprochement with Turkey. The defection is in itself a serious matter since al-Masri was a senior and extremely vocal shar‘i in HTS and rumoured to be heading al-Asa’ib al-Hamra’ (the Red Bands), an elite military force within the group. After migrating to Syria in 2013, he joined Ahrar al-Sham but later switched sides to HTS in September 2016. In the summer and fall of 2018, he was seen traveling to the battlefronts and publishing regular videos including a series called “short words from the land of jihad.” While it has been claimed that he was forced to resign, it appears more likely that the Egyptian could no longer tolerate the warm feelings between his amir and the Turks, who are apostates in the eyes of al-Masri. Back in September 2018, he delivered a sermon equating secularism with apostasy from Islam and explaining how Turkey is very much secular. Further attesting to his hardline approach in theology, al-Masri has also been one of the fiercest voices against rival Jihadi groups Nour al-Deen al-Zinki and Ahrar al-Sham for their close collaboration with Turkey.

The immediate reaction from HTS has been ambiguous. Al-Zubayr al-Ghazi, a senior HTS ideologue, called on al-Masri to remain in HTS despite his differences, saying that “the brotherhood of faith is greater than the brotherhood of groups and organizations” (fa-ukhuwwat al-iman a‘zam min ukhuwwat al-jama‘at wa-l-tanzimat). But for the group it was important to send a signal that going against the party line would not be tolerated. Hence, on the same day as al-Masri’s resignation, HTS published a ruling stating that no one is allowed to publish fatwas before they have been approved by the shariah council (also like to statement). Two days later, Abu Abdullah al-Shami, the head of HTS’s shariah council, sought to defend against al-Masri’s criticisms, writing that it is not HTS that is changing in shifting its position (meaning ideology), as the critics claim, but rather the strategic context is changing, requiring the group to navigate the changing environment. Reports of al-Masri’s detention notwithstanding, an HTS insider source told this author that the expectation inside HTS is that al-Masri will eventually return, although Hurras al-Deen might seem the logical choice on an ideological level as al-Masri’s future home.

Re-emergence of tensions between HTS and Hurras al-Deen

As if al-Masri’s defection and implicit criticism of HTS was not enough of a headache for the group, it came at a time when renewed debate between HTS and Hurras al-Deen was being kickstarted. To remind readers, Hurras al-Deen is mainly composed of former Jabhat al-Nusra members who defected either after al-Nusra rebranded to become Jabhat Fath al-Sham in July 2016 or after the creation of HTS in January 2017, which effectively completed the breaking of ties with al-Qaida. Since its establishment in February 2018, Hurras al-Deen has consistently been at odds with HTS, criticizing the group for breaking its pledge of allegiance (bay‘a) to al-Qaida, for diluting the religion and monotheism (tawhid), and for not handing over certain weapons of HTS to Hurras al-Deen that the latter claims are the property of al-Qaida.

The tensions between HTS and al-Qaida loyalists came to a head in spring 2017, when Sami al-Uraydi, a Syrian-based al-Qaida leader, published a series of extremely critical essays directed against his former comrades. The situation escalated further in the fall when HTS began to arrest some of the critics including senior figures like Uraydi, Abu Julaybib and Abu Khallad. But it was after the formal establishment of Hurras al-Deen in February 2018 as a new al-Qaida group in Syria that the tensions got out of control. On 5 May 2018, the first casualty was recorded when Abu Uqba al-Kurdi, a Hurras al-Deen shar‘i, was shot by HTS at a checkpoint in Abu Utba outside of Aleppo. The explanation coming from HTS’s Abu Malik al-Shami was that a car didn’t stop when it was asked to and thus was shot at. Only afterwards was it realized that the passenger was a member of Hurras al-Deen. The shooter was subsequently arrested. Hostilities would continue, however, and on 11 July Abu al-Miqdad al-Urduni was arrested by HTS on fraud accusations. Al-Urduni is not officially a member of Hurras al-Deen, but he is close to the group and a good friend of Uraydi’s. He remains imprisoned to this day. Around the same time, Hurras al-Deen started to complain that HTS was arresting its fighters and opposing its military attacks on the regime

The dispute re-emerged on 30 January when Hurras al-Deen amir Abu Hammam al-Shami and its chief shar‘i Sami al-Uraydi published a statement following a new round of meetings between HTS and the Hurras al-Deen leadership. Abu Hammam’s and Uraydi’s argument can be divided into two themes. First is that some of HTS’s weapons belong to al-Qaida, and since Hurras al-Deen now represents al-Qaida in Syria it is the rightful owner of the weapons. Second is the argument that HTS’s jihad is not on founded on correct aqida (creed) or manhaj (methodology). As a way to settle the issue, the two suggest that a group of ‘independent’ scholars of religion, namely Abu Muhammed al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada al-Filastini, Nail bin Ghazi, Tariq Abdelhaleem, Hani Sibai, and Sadiq al-Hashemi, review the case and issue a judgment.

As expected, HTS members wasted no time in responding. The first response came from al-Zubayr al-Ghazi, a shar‘i in HTS’s military wing, in an essay titled “Does the Hurras group have rights and arms with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham?” Al-Ghazi builds his argument around the case of Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, al-Zawahiri’s deceased deputy, who according to the author not only ruled that al-Nusra could cut ties with al-Qaida but also that everything in its possession (including weapons) should remain its property. Al-Ghazi threatens that HTS could at anytime publish al-Khayr’s written ruling. To prove that Abu al-Khayr was in fact al-Zawahiri’s deputy at the time, six letters from al-Qaida shura members were shared (here, here, here, here, here and here). HTS claims (through al-Ghazi) that in a meeting on 5 January 2018 between Abu Hammam and al-Julani with Sheikh Abu Abd al-Karim al-Masri (an al-Qaida shura council member) as the overseer, 16 clauses were decided upon, among them the ruling of Abu al-Khayr – before his death – that the possessions of Jabhat al-Nusra would become the possession of (first Jabhat Fath al-Sham and then) HTS. Al-Ghazi only mentions 10 of the clauses, of which Hurras al-Deen, he states, would eventually break six (1-4, 8 and 10). He goes on to explain that after the agreement was made between al-Julani and Abu Hamman, both went back to their respective groups for final approval, but Abu Hamman’s al-Qaida loyalists (this was before the formal establishment of Hurras al-Deen) would not accept it (according to Abu Abdullah al-Shami not a single of the 16 clauses were accepted) and as a result Abu Hammam even offered his resignation (which was not accepted). Abu Hammam then referred the issue to a group of scholars for them to decide the issue.

The scholars’ reaction

As soon as the statement by Abu Hammam and Uraydi was published, I reached out to al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada to ask how they would respond. Al-Maqdisi’s response left little doubt concerning his position on HTS. He answered that adjudication is not possible at the moment as HTS behaves like the Islamic State, and it is pointless since a potential judgement would never be implemented, whether it came from him or from Abu Qatada. Abu Qatada was more diplomatic in his response, saying that he awaited an invitation from both parties before he would intervene. In statements on their telegram channels, Abdelhaleem and Sibai conveyed similar arguments. Abdelhaleem wrote that ruling in this case is impossible because it would require both parties to accept the ruling, which could not be enforced, while Sibai was more diplomatic but essentially said the same.

Afterwards al-Maqdisi, Sibai, Abdelhaleem, al-Hashemi and Nail bin Ghazi all agreed to arbitration subject to acceptance by HTS. Abu Qatada, who recently has been perceived as moving closer to HTS, still has not responded directly to the invitation, but in typical Abu Qatada fashion he authored an ambiguous statement stressing that people should focus on good things rather than be sources of enmity. This aligns with his general efforts in the last two years to promote reconciliation rather than provoke conflict.

While the scholars nominated by Hurras al-Deen to judge appear overwhelmingly in favour of Abu Hammam and Uraydi, HTS has the support of the most important factions of foreign fighters (muhajireen) in Syria (see here and here). The fact that the Turkistani Islamic Party (TIP) continues to side with HTS is particularly important as there have been questions whether it would switch sides due to its historic relationship with al-Qaida.

On 4 February Abu al-Qassam (an al-Qaida shura council and Hurras al-Deen member who accompanied Abu al-Khayr from Iran to Syria in late 2015) and Abu Muhammed al-Sudani also weighed in. In a gentle tone they suggested that the issue should be solved through arbitration by the scholars. A similar suggestion was made by Abu Abdalrahman Mekki, who is affiliated with Hurras al-Deen.

Renewed debate between Abu Abdullah al-Shami and Sami al-Uraydi

Entering the fray next was Abu Abdullah al-Shami, the head of HTS’s shariah council and thus the highest religious authority in the group. Al-Shami is no stranger to verbal combat with al-Qaida and especially Sami al-Uraydi, whom he debated at length back in fall 2017 about the issue of allegiance to al-Qaida. As part of the latest controversy, he published a statement titled “Six Issues” in which he comments on six issues raised by Hurras al-Deen figures. On the matter of weapons, he makes the same argument as al-Ghazi, invoking the ruling of Abu al-Khayr to conclude that the weapons are the property of HTS and under no circumstance are to be given to Hurras al-Deen. Al-Shami concludes that the weapons issue has been settled from a legal (shar‘i) perspective, and thus HTS will not accept arbitration by the scholars of religion in the matter. Nonetheless, and almost comically, al-Shami notes that arbitration by the Salvation Government, the HTS-dominated government in Idlib, remains a possibility.

Another important point raised by al-Shami is the issue of a military council. In their statement from 30 January, Uraydi and Abu Hammam criticized HTS for proposing a multi-group military council to be led by a figure from Faylaq al-Sham, a Free Syrian Army- and Muslim Brotherhood-linked group. Al-Shami says that Hurras al-Deen makes a mistake in focusing too much on the proposed individual rather than considering the greater good that would be derived from such a military coalition. Interestingly, he draws a distinction between the Free Syrian Army and the National Army, consisting of Ahrar al-Sham and Nour al-Deen al-Zinki, arguing that the former is more legitimate than the latter (despite Ahrar and al-Zinki being jihadi groups). Al-Shami ends his statement by claiming that Hurras al-Deen is at fault for the conflict between the groups and that it should stop trying to recruit fighters from HTS.

As expected, al-Shami’s long-time foe Sami al-Uraydi could not let the former’s words pass without comment. In a response, Uraydi teases al-Shami for being inconsistent in his opinions from the days of al-Nusra to HTS, the ‘Six Issues’ being no exception. Uraydi even compares al-Shami to the Islamic State and its late spokesperson Abu Muhammed al-Adnani in that the Islamic State would not accept arbitration by an ‘independent’ group of scholars and instead al-Adnani challenged none other than al-Shami to a mubahala (mutual imprecation). Commenting on the specific issue of the rights to the weapons, Uraydi rejects the claims made by al-Shami and argues that Hurras al-Deen has evidence that refutes HTS’s argument that Abu al-Khayr had made a definitive judgement. HTS, it will be recalled, has said on several occasions (through al-Shami and al-Ghazi) that it has proof of Abu al-Khayr’s judgement. Uraydi rejects this. On the establishment of a group of scholars to arbitrate, Uraydi actually suggest combining the two proposals to satisfy both parties, meaning including judges from the Salvation Government and independent scholars.

On the matter of establishing a new military council, Uraydi shoots back saying that Hurras al-Deen already has a military coalition, namely ‘Incite the Believers’ which is made up of Hurras al-Deen, Ansar al-Islam and Jabhat Ansar al-Deen. Hence, there is no need for another military coalition especially not one against al-wala’ wa-l-bara’. Uraydi finishes his response with an implicit threat. The earlier position of the Islamic State on  arbitration led to infighting between the mujahideen, and HTS should be extremely careful so that history does not repeat itself. Addressing the HTS fighters directly, Uraydi tells them that the disagreement is not with them but with the leadership of HTS, and that they simply want it to be resolved through legitimate arbitration.

De-escalation or infighting?

The exchanges between al-Shami and Uraydi left the relationship between the groups and their respective supporters in an extremely precarious state. Would the tensions be relaxed or would they escalate into infighting? On 7 February, Abu al-Qassam published a message aimed at deescalating tensions, urging the factions not to fight each other and to resolve their differences through legal judicial procedures (‘an tariq al-qada’ al-shar‘i). The same day, however, a fighter from HTS died from wounds resulting from an episode of infighting with Hurras al-Deen fighters in Aleppo countryside, bringing the tally of casualties from inter-group dispute to two. Hurras al-Deen quickly published its condolences and established a court to determine the fate of those who fired the bullet. One theory has it that it was HTS’s plan to manufacture a crisis between itself and Hurras al-Deen as part of al-Julani’s policy of rapprochement with Turkey and of establishing HTS as a moderate force. But this is probably to attribute too much cunning to the HTS leader.

As the infighting was beginning to become physical, on 10 February the two groups reached a deal concerning six issues to deescalate the conflict. The agreement stipulated that provocations in the media should come to a halt and that the issue of personnel and weaponry going from one group to the other should be settled. A committee to supervise the implementation of the agreement was created, the statement notes, though the names of its members were not given. Although the situation appears to be under control for the moment, one can be sure that Hurras al-Deen stands ready to take advantage of any further attempt by al-Julani to get closer to Turkey. In the event of more movement in that direction, more conflict will likely follow.