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Here’s a paraphrastic translation of the second installment published today.  I promise, it’s worth reading to the climactic end:

As I said yesterday, the testimony and hadith transmissions of a liar are not acceptable in Islamic law or in the religious sciences.  So Zawahiri’s religious pronouncement’s in the Exoneration should be rejected. [Sayyid Imam goes on to quote medieval scholars in support of his position.]

Before I get into Zawahiri’s jurisprudential mistakes, I want to say that this is not merely about the errors of one man on some jurisprudential issues.  It is the attempt to establish a corrupt, wayward school (madhhab) to justify excess in shedding blood.  I will detail how this school was established, examine its fundamentals, and refute them.  This corrupt school has been called by some, “the al-Qaeda concept.”

1.  How was the school of al-Qaeda established for excess in shedding blood?

The school emerged in the early ’90s and grew in the late ’90s when Bin Laden and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad put in motion their desire to kill the largest number of Americans possible.  This led to 9/11, which killed without distinguishing between civilians and military personnel. 

UBL left it to his prominent followers to justify the attacks Islamically, the fruit of which Z put in the Exoneration.

2. The principles of the school of al-Qaeda for excess in shedding blood.

To justify this kind of slaughter of Americans outside and inside their country, they had to ignore some Sharia principles.  This is the “jurisprudence of justification” [ie making Sharia fit your objective, not the other way around], the most important principles of which are:

A) Transforming the fight against America from a personal matter to a matter for the entire Islamic umma.  To do this, UBL depended on two things:  

• Media propaganda to promote the corrupt idea that America is the cause of all the ills afflicting Muslims.  He added the Jews because the Palestinian issue is the most visible among the masses, even though he did nothing for the Palestinians for reasons I will cover in part 3.
• Sharia support.  UBL worked to obtain fatwas and letters of support from many shaykhs in Pakistan and Afghanistan to justify the idea of fighting the U.S.  Z alludes to that in his Exoneration.  UBL obtained these things before 9/11.  When he decided to carry out the bombings of 9/11, he didn’t get a fatwa from anyone, acting as if his actions were supported by the previous fatwas.  He didn’t get the permission of his amir, Mullah Omar, or of his Sharia committee.  He did what he did behind their backs.

B) Mobilize the largest number of supporters for the strike on the U.S.  That is why Z in the Exoneration rejected my argument that Muslims have options other than fighting when they are weak and that there are conditions that prevent jihad.  He and his shaykh UBL want everyone to fight everywhere but they were the first to flee.

C) Legal artifice for avoiding the obligation of seeking the permission of one’s amir and host.  They gave Mullah Omar allegiance as the commander (amir) of the faithful in Afghanistan, where they lived.  Thus, the Sharia requires that they get his permission for jihad.  UBL knows that Omar refused conflict with the U.S. and explicitly prohibited them from doing that.  UBL thus created a legal artifice to get around this–the unlawful innovation called “localization of leadership,” meaning that Omar has jurisdiction over what they do in Afghanistan but not outside of it.  There was a violent argument between UBL and his Sharia council over this before 9/11 and after.  He told them in June 2001 that there was a big operation against the U.S. without giving specifics or locations.  His Sharia committee opposed him, saying he had to get Omar’s approval.  UBL refused and concocted the unlawful innovation of “localization of leadership.”  I’ll refute it later.

D) Eliminate all the Sharia obstacles that prevent the killing of Americans.  Instead, AQ formulated the following criminal principles:

• Fighting the far enemy before the near enemy
• Excommunicating and killing someone on account of their nationality because nationality is proof of loyalty and of adhering to the laws of infidel countries
• Can kill anyone who pays taxes to infidels because he (the taxpayer) is waging war with his money
• Can kill an infidel human shield and thus can kill civilians in infidel countries
• Can kill Muslim human shields and thus kill Muslims who mix with infidels 
• Appealing to the principle of reciprocity in order to widen the scope of indiscriminate killing
• Fighting the U.S. is a defensive jihad; thus, one can travel to the U.S. to kill Americans without the permission of one’s father and other authority figures.
• Visas for Muslims in infidel countries are not guarantees of safe passage, so it is permissible to kill citizens in the country that granted you the visa.  Even if it is a guarantee of safe passage, it can be violated for reasons that I’ll respond to later.  
• A tourist visa for people coming to Muslim countries is not a guarantee of safe passage for them.

E) AQ stopped its critics by adopting defenses against those who criticize its criminal school of thought, including:

•  No one may speak on these matters save Jihadi scholars cloistered in caves and mountains.  This is an unlawful innovation.
• Those who criticize them are discouraging jihad, attacking the mujahids, and harming the umma.
• Those who criticize them are serving the interests of the Zio-American Crusade.  Z said this about my Document even though he acknowledges that I had made the same criticisms in my 1993 book, The Compendium; nay, even before that.

3. Criticism of the principles of the school of al-Qaeda

They say the U.S. and the Jews are the reason for the ills of Muslims.  Most of the Exoneration is designed to convince Muslims of this in order to mobilize them against the U.S.  But the cause of Muslims’ problems is Muslims themselves.  When Muslims lost at Uhud, God blamed the Muslims, not their enemies.

There is a hadith qudsi that says Muslims won’t be ruled by others until they become internally corrupt.  God has put infidels over Muslims to punish Muslims for their sins.

“Who lost Palestine?  Arabs who fought the Ottomans and expelled them from Palestine in WWI and then handed it over to Britain in 1916, who gave it to the Jews with the Balfour promise of 1917.  

Who kills Palestinians today, especially their leaders?  Palestinians who collaborate with Israel.  Their betrayal makes it possible for Israel to kill whomever it wants.  

Who today is building Jewish settlements in the West Bank to consolidate its occupation by Israel?  Palestinian laborers.

Who introduced America to Afghanistan in 2001?  Bin Laden and Zawahiri.

What was the reason the U.S. opened the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba for imprisoning Muslims?  Bin Laden’s stupidity.

Who let America enter Baghdad long ago in 1258?  The Vizier Ibn al-`Alqami.

Who let America enter Baghdad today in 2003?  The traitorous senior Iraqi Army officers.

Who killed the Lebanese for 15 years, from 1975-1990?  The Lebanese.

Who occupied Kuwait and killed its people in 1990?  The people of Iraq, not America or Israel.

Who is killing tens of thousands of Sudanese in Darfur today?  The Sudanese themselves are killing one another, just as the Yemenis are doing.

Regardless of the legitimacy of their presence, the American forces did not kill a single Muslim in Saudi Arabia during their presence there after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.  The number of Muslims whose death and displacement was caused by al-Qaeda over a few years in Kenya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Pakistan, and elsewhere greatly surpasses the number of Muslims killed by or displaced by Israel in Palestine for the last sixty years.  The declaration that al-Qaeda defends Muslims is a myth.  It kills Muslims and displaces them. 

Putting blame on others while not accepting it yourself, which is what UBL and Z do, is the school of Satan.

If Muslims are the core of the problem, then reforming Muslims from within is the solution.  Zawahiri knows I have tried to do this with the Islamic groups and that I criticized them in the Compendium.  I tried to reform them without success.  They continued to cling to erroneous positions with no Sharia proof, only fiery rhetoric.

The Sharia excesses of Z and UBL reached such a point that one of the mujahid brothers excommunicated them in a meeting in 1992.  He was Dr. Ahmad al-Jaza’iri, one of the students of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. 

Document (Arabic): 11-19-08-al-masry-al-youm-denudation-part-2

Al-Masry al-Youm has begun its serial publication of Sayyid Imam’s new book, The Denudation of the Exoneration.  Since Media Shack won’t be covering it in depth, I’ll be posting summaries of it here as it comes out.  I’ll also .pdf the webpage so readers of Arabic won’t have to go scratching around for it later.

The first installment begins with “The Lies of Zawahiri,” so you know it’s going to be good.  Highlights are the revelation that Zawahiri was a Sudanese agent in the early ’90s and Sayyid Imam’s call to a mubahala.  As you’ll see, it’s hard not to believe that Sayyid Imam relishes the chance he’s been given to put his finger in Zawahiri’s eye.  Here is a summary:

• Zawahiri repeatedly says I wrote the Document [the Tarshid] under the supervision of the U.S. and the Jews.  He is a liar and I call him to a mubahala.  I swear to God that I wrote the Document to help Islam and if Zawahiri has lied about this, may God curse him.
• What Zawahiri says about the Document he also said about Bin Laden.  Zawahiri accused UBL of being an agent of Saudi intelligence working among the Islamic movements when UBL didn’t support them with money in 1995.  Zawahiri thinks everyone is a traitor like him.
• Zawahiri accused me of being an agent of Sudanese intelligence.  I swear that I heard Zawahiri say to me in Sudan at the end of 1993 that he had to carry out 10 operations for the Sudanese in Egypt and that he received $100,000 from them to that end.  If he denies it, I call him to a second mubahala: I swear Zawahiri said this and if he denies it, may God send his curse down upon him.
• He began working for the Sudanese a year after I cut off my ties with Islamic Jihad.  He paid the Islamic Jihad group in Egypt to carry out operations there.  I sat with them and warned them that it was futile and not required by Islamic law, but Zawahiri persisted.  He and his brother swore they would go fight in Egypt until they died, but they did not; they let others die there instead.
• Zawahiri told me in 1991 that my relationship with him gave the Islamic Jihad group more stature in the eyes of the Islamic Group because I am a scholar on par with `Umar `Abd al-Rahman [the Blind Shaykh].  In 1994, when I was making final revisions to The Compendium [al-Jami`, Sayyid Imam's famous reference book on all things jihad], Zawahiri said the book is “a victory from God.”  When they announced the publication of the book in their journal, al-Mujahidun, they said that I am “the mufti of the mujihads in the world” and that I am “the fighting scholar and the mujahid mufti.”
• Zawahiri contradicts himself in his Exoneration.  He says I wrote the Document under U.S. direction, but elsewhere he says I had opposed Islamic Jihad’s struggle in Egypt for 14 years.  He also knows that in The Comendium I criticized attacking a country when it gives you a visa–this was in a book he called a “victory from God.” [Zawahiri hammered Imam on the visa issue in the Exoneration.]
• I did not write The Compendium in 1993 under duress.  When Pakistan exiled me in 1993, I could have gone into political asylum in Europe, but I didn’t.  I chose to remain among Muslims despite the risk.
• Zawahiri also lied when he said I gave the full name of one of the operatives in the two assassination attempts in Egypt and says I could have only know this from an intelligence service.  Therefore, he says, I was working with the intel services when writing my book.  But intel services aren’t always accurate because brothers lie in interrogation, with Zawahiri first among them.  I found that when I was arrested by Egypt in 2004, Zawahiri had attributed many false things to me in his interrogation of 1981 to secure his release.
• Zawahiri says I was being supported by the Yemeni authorities who arrested me and gave me to Egypt at America’s instructions for the purpose of writing the Document.  That is a lie.  I had no connection with the Yemenis.  They arrested me after 9/11 for their own interest and to settle scores with Egypt.  I wasn’t the only one they arrested for these reasons.  The head of Yemeni intel told me that they had given my name to the U.S. and that the U.S. wasn’t interested in me.
• Later, the same intel director said at the beginning of 2002 that I should gather my Egyptian brothers and form an external opposition party against Egypt.  I refused.  They held us for 2 1/2 years until the Yemeni speaker of parliament disparaged us in 2003, so the Yemeni authorities transferred us to Egypt in 2004.  We were transferred as a group, so others in the group can testify to the truth of what I say.
• Zawahiri lies when he says that the Document serves the interests of the U.S.  It is he and UBL that serve its interests.
• Zawahiri lies when he says that he and al-Qaeda are the symbol of popular resistance against the Zio-American campaign against Muslims.  They were the first to flee the U.S. in Afghanistan.  They offered a truce to America; how can this be when they reject everything except fighting?  Moreover, Zawahiri worked as an agent for Sudanese intel to settle its political scores with Egypt in 1993.  The first time Zawahiri met with `Ali `Uthman Muhammad Taha, he told him that he had 10,000 trained fighters in Egypt when he had a few dozen.  There are people in prison with us now who still believe this lie.
• When the first assassination attempt against Sidqi failed in 1993, the Egyptian state infiltrated the Islamic Jihad and operations halted.  As the six men involved in the operation were led to the execution chamber, Zawahiri was busy telling jokes to the Sudanese, who grew frustrated with his lack of seriousness.
• Zawahiri says they decided to carry out operations in Egypt so that the idea and flame of jihad remained alive.  That’s a lie; he did it for fame.  He did it at the bidding of the Sudanese.
• In 1992, when they asked my advice about the operations in Egypt [which had yet to transpire], I refused them.  Zawahiri said, people are condemning us because the Islamic Group is doing something and we are doing nothing.
• At the end of 1993, when I repudiated what they had done in Egypt, he said, “The youth pressured me (to do it).”  I said, “That’s no excuse.”  That’s when he told me about the Sudanese paying for the operations.
• Some people pay money to increase their fame.  Zawahiri pays with the blood of others.
• In Islam, the hadiths transmitted by a liar or the testimony of a liar in court is invalid.  Why would anyone listen to the religious pronouncements of this known liar?
• Is someone who makes decisions for the sake of “the idea and the flame” capable, militarily or in terms of Sharia law, to talk about jihad?

Document (Arabic): 11-18-08-al-masry-al-youm-denudation-part-1

One of Faloja’s adminsitrators is claiming that the forum is under attack by the Shia.  As evidence, he cites suspicious messages that have been sent to individual members and some information gleaned from the inner workings of the forum.  He does not say why he thinks it’s Shia in particular who are involved.

Document (Arabic): 11-16-08-faloja-forum-under-attack-from-shia

That’s the question posed by a member of the Shumukh forum.  Below are a range of answers:

Abu Hajir (failure in Saudi):

• Clerics of beggary [i.e. they have their hand out for state money]
• The proximity of a theater like Iraq
• No suitable environment to move about or hide from the state
• The above only applies to Saudi Arabia; the brothers in Yemen are doing well

Abu Hajir (success in N. Africa):

• The rulers are manifestly not Muslims in the eyes of ordinary Muslims
• Rulers who impoverish their countries for the sake of warlords and the French
• Total war on the religion of God
• The experience of the militant groups in Algeria
• The desert that connects the Islamic countries of N. Africa with the Horn of Africa.  It is unprotected.

safyahh (success in N. Africa):

• The long experience of the Salvation Front fighting the French
• Difficult terrain
• Diffusion of weapons
• Islamists have greater legitimacy because power was snatched from them by the military

Zanki2010 (failure in Saudi):

• Historical background of the Saudi state
• Saudi successfully duped all of the clerics in the ’60s and ’70s.
• The existence of sects in Saudi Arabia, particularly the Shia, that the Saudi state uses to scare the Sunnis, particularly Sunni clerics
• Major differences between traditional Salafi clerics and the Sahwa Salafi clerics who entered Saudi from other countries
• The jihads in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya drained the enthusiasm of the youth.
• The Saudi state fought the clerics with prison, buying them off, and heavy surveillance.  It also duped them by implementing some of the more showy Islamic laws.
• The topography of Saudi Arabia makes guerrilla wars or wars of attrition difficult.
• Logistical and intelligence support from America and the Gulf States against the jihad
• Breaking Saudi society into factions by cultivating tribalism and buying the loyalty of tribal chiefs
• Passing laws that limit an individual’s activities

Since July al-Qaeda in Yemen has not released its monthly journal, Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Glorious Battles).  This period of silence included the September attack on the U.S. embassy, which made it hard to confirm if al-Qaeda in Yemen had carried it out.

Now the group has published issues 5 and 6 of Sada al-Malahim with apologies for the delay “due to technical matters.”  Issue 5 includes the following titles:

• “Exclusive Interview With Brother Ghrayb al-Taizi”
• “Call To Assist Somalia”
• “Lessons From The Tarim Operation”

Reaction from the members of Hesbah, the last of the top-tier Jihadi sites to remain open:

• Abu Ahmad al-Salafi: “The election of this black man to the Black House will improve the image of the New Rome in the eyes of the world.  Al-Faruq `Umar [the second caliph] was right when he said that Rome is the fastest to recover after a catastrophe.  That’s what has happened with the election of this black man.”
• Al Hakim: “Today America elected Obama because al-Qaeda wanted it, after God desired it!  In 2004 America elected Bush because al-Qaeda had wanted it, after God desired it!”
• Abu Ahmad al-Salafi: “I think the election of McCain would have been more beneficial and useful to the Muslims than this black slave.  This Christian is a fanatical supporter of the Jews and (his election) will raise the market shares of Western democratic capitalism (even though it is) in the final throes of death.”
• Al Hakim: “Brother Abu Ahmad al-Salafi, like you I believe that al-Qaeda wants the election of the Republican candidate McCain.  But the organization has been quiet until now, when Obama has been elected.  There can be only one reason for this: the organization is taking the next step after the success of its previous plan against the wildly stupid Republican Party.  The new plan requires a massive effort from al-Qaeda and we are behind it.  The Democratic Party is diplomatic and smart.”
• Abu Mus`ab al-Mujahid: “We will not stop from seeking (America’s) destruction…”
• `Abd Allah al-Harbi: “The victory of Obama means the departure of the occupier from Iraq, humiliated, exhausted, defeated, and broken.”
• Umuruzi al-Misri: “Unbelief is one community, meaning Bush, Obama, and McCain are the same.”
• Al-Nasr lil-Islam: “Obama is the black gloves that the American cowboy will wear to strike Muslims, so don’t rejoice too much.”
• elhajgamal: “Greetings noble brothers.  Is it permissible for us to address him by the color of his skin just because he is an enemy infidel whom we hate on behalf of God?”
• Al-Nasr lil-Islam: “We say ‘black’ because he is not white.  There is no place for racism among Muslims.”

Document (Arabic): 11-5-08-hesbah-reactions-to-election-of-obama

[by Chipotle Mystery]    Issue 3 of Hittin, an Urdu-language Jihadi journal, has been released.  The issue includes:

• short reports on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
• a eulogy of Mullah Dadullah, a major Taliban commander who was killed in May of 2007
• several articles that refer to the Red Mosque incident
• a collection of quotes from notable jihadi figures (e.g. Mullah Omar, Usama bin Laden, and Zawahiri) that is presented as inspirational advice for leaders
• an article on “methods” for engaging in jihad by the “Center for the Islamic Studies”  

It’s telling that although this issue was published recently, it focuses on events that occurred in the middle of 2007.  There is also older material.  For example, this issue has a fatwa issued by Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai in 2001 that justifies attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan (he had issued a similar fatwa against the Soviets following their invasion of Afghanistan in 1979).  Shamzai was a Pashtun cleric from Karachi who has been lionized in Al-Qaeda videos and who was assassinated by unknown assailants in 2004.  He issued this fatwa just prior to the collapse of the Taliban government.  

Going back even further, there is also an “article” by Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti, a 15th century Egyptian polymath who wrote on a variety of subjects ranging from theology to history (he wrote an interesting history of the caliphs).  The article attributed to him warns against getting entangled with governments, likely meant to warn readers against assisting the Pakistani government in its anti-militant clampdown.   

The publication of Hittin has been sporadic, with the first two issues being published in 2007 (March 2007 and then May-July 2007 after the Red Mosque siege).  Although the length of the magazine has increased over time, it remains an eclectic collection of material, much of it recycled from elsewhere.  This fact, coupled with the magazine’s dated material, indicates that either  Jihadi Urdu-language e-journals are still in their infancy or that there is limited personnel for preparing such journals.  The fact that it had to be distributed on Arabic-language forums also tells us that Urdu jihadi forums (if there are any) don’t yet have the infrastructure or following to disseminate it.  As for the breadth of the magazine’s distribution in hard copy, that remains a mystery.

Document (Arabic): 10-31-8-faloja-issue-3-of-hittin

The Christian Science Monitor and The Guardian have very informative pieces on the forum closures.  They also have excellent taste in opiners.  One of them, Aaron, has links to the recent public discussions among us fora followers who are trying to figure out what’s going on.  (Is it me, or are most of Aaron’s comments on the subject delphic?)

Rob at Arabic Media Shack has, as always, an informed take on the forum closures.  I have a slightly different take that I’ll share after a summary of his argument.

Rob concedes that the closures are a big deal (doesn’t say why), but he’s skeptical that they are influential in the Middle East for the following reasons:

1. Access:   There is not much internet access in the ME compared to the West.  Also, local censors can easily block the forums.
2. Interest:  Most Middle Easterners don’t think that much about Bin Laden or al-Qaeda.
3. Coverage:  If the forums were important, mainstream Arabic newspapers would have written more about them.

Rob ends his post by suggesting that influence should be measured by how many people in the region actually watch or read al-Qaeda material.

On the issue of access, Rob is right: connectivity in the Middle East is much less than in Europe and the U.S.  But this varies across the region; Saudi, for example, has a high level of connectivity.  And are censors that tough to beat?  Iranian bloggers would say no.

Of course, internet access does not equal interest in Jihadi materials.  In fact, Clint Watts has argued the opposite in his foreign fighter report.  Still, there are a lot of reports in the Arabic press (particularly the Saudi press) of Jihadi forum members being arrested or carrying out attacks, so some portion of the population is interested.  Moreover, Arab journalists regularly monitor the forums for material (new videos, etc.), so they do receive coverage.  That the forums themselves have not been the sole object of coverage is not dispositive in a debate about influence; they weren’t covered in the English press either until a few weeks ago.

Rob is pushing back on the idea that the forums are influencing public opinion in the Middle East in the sense that hundreds of thousands of Arabs are signing on to the forums and being radicalized.  I agree that is not the case and one hears similar hyperbolic statements about access to these forums in the West.  Nevertheless, the forums are the primary conduits of propaganda that is reposted to mainstream forums and broadcast on satellite television, so in that sense they do have influence.  Closing them cripples the propaganda flow.  To be sure, Jihadis will find other ways to distribute their materials, but they won’t be nearly as effective.  Posting a video on YouTube or Archive.org gets the material out there, but how will anyone know to link to it?

Finally, something is being overlooked in the recent discussion of the forum closures.  These forums are not dangerous for the usual reasons cited (weapons manuals, travel info, coordination, etc–see my earlier posts).  They are dangerous because they provide a community to reinforce ideas and an audience to applaud action.  A young man in Tunisia who is motivated by propaganda but whose local community disapproves of suicide bombings might be dissuaded from action.  But if he is part of a forum that will celebrate his deeds in song, video, and biography, he is more likely to act.  This is forums true power and future discussion of their influence and the utility of closing them down should take this as its starting point.  (As a parallel, ask yourself what the open-source software movement would be without discussion forums.  The payoff for participating isn’t pecuniary; it’s the recognition of one’s deeds.)

Faloja, one of the second-tier sites that was closed down two weeks ago, is back up.  In announcing its return, the administrators acknowledged that it had fallen victim to the same wave of closures that shut down the top-tier sites in September.  It also announced that several of these sites will be back online shortly.

Even more significant is the return of Tawhed.ws.  For those of you who have browsed the Atlas before, you know that this is the main online library of Jihadi literature.  Although a static site, it was shut down in June when the first wave of attacks was launched on the top-tier discussion forums.  Prior to that, you could only access it through a proxy if you live in the U.S. (although now it seems that a proxy is not necessary).

Tawhed.ws is affiliated with Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Zarqawi’s spiritual mentor who was in a Jordanian prison until recently.    Jihadis online have been waiting for Maqdisi to make a statement but he’s been pretty quiet so far.  I’m not sure why he’s been given his electronic platform back, but perhaps a “reconsideration” of jihad is coming.