Nikaya vs. Tamkin – My understanding of this comes from Naji’s Idara. Nikaya, or “vexing” you opponent, is something you do when you have not “established” (tamkin) a state. It’s the tool of the less powerful. Once you have a state–or attained tamkin–supposedly you can launch conventional operations because you are on a more equal footing with the nations around you. I don’t recall seeing qital al-nikaya and qital al-tamkin, but that’s probably the distinction Maqdisi had in mind.

Maqdisi – I agree that he hasn’t changed the fundamentals underlying his views, but as Caliph says, neither has Sayyid Imam, who claims to have been saying the same thing all along. It is, as Joas argues, a matter of emphasis, which I think is also tempered by audience (Imam -> fence-sitting youth; Maqdisi -> Jihadis). It is definitely not the sort of “revising” that the Islamic Group has been engaged in but it’s also not status quo. It’s too late now, but perhaps we can call Imam’s and Maqdisi’s version “reining in” (كبح) rather than “revising” (مراجعة).

I believe you are mistaken in your translation of “nikaya” and “tamkin”. The former term does refer to doing damage and hurting the enemy, not necessarily for reasons of spite. The latter term, at least as Al-Maqdisi uses it, refers to using fighting to create a safe haven for mujahidin, preferably an Islamic state. “Tamkin” therefore indicates that fighting does not just entail setting off bombs and blowing things up but actually leads to the consolidation of power of the mujahidin.
Your comment that Al-Maqdisi is going “down this road” still misses the point, I believe. We agree that Al-Maqdisi is not rejecting jihad or takfir but neither is he rejecting any of his former beliefs. The only difference between what he is saying now and what he used to say is that he is stressing different aspects of his ideology now without rejecting, revising, forgetting or dismissing any of the other aspects. Whereas in the past he used to stress the legitimacy of takfir of and jihad against the rulers while only mentioning his relative moderation on these issues in passing, the situation since the late 1990s has been more balanced. It may be that the widespread use of takfir in countries like Algeria and the irresponsible “zealous youngsters” (as he calls them) in Jordan caused him to stress his relatively moderate views on takfir a bit more. He is, however, not going into a direction that he hasn’t gone into before. The situation has changed, not the man or his ideas.

Thank you for that detailed response. I think you’re the only Maqdisi expert in the world! I haven’t seen your article but I’ll make sure to put it on my list of desiderata.

I have been arguing, it seems unsuccessfully, for exactly the position that you articulate: Maqdisi is trying to reign in some of the extreme elements of the movement he helped create. You are absolutely right that doesn’t reject takfir or jihad (neither does Sayyid Imam for that matter). He just doesn’t like the extreme expressions of it. That doesn’t make him a moderate in my moral universe, but it does in his. He’s not revising in the GI sense–I’ve never argued that–but he’s not exactly standing still either. As I wrote several weeks ago, “Although the statement is far short of the revisions of Sayyid Imam, it’s a step down the road and will cause another convulsion in the Jihadi Movement.”