Post by peterd on Dec 15, 2007 5:04:04 GMT -8
"I advised the brothers to devote more effort to matters of da'wa [preaching, outreach]. Majdi Kamal said to me: 'The time for speaking has come to an end. The time for action is here.' I warned them against speaking to me about this again, and I made a firm decision to break off my ties with them after their matters in Pakistan were taken care of. This was in mid-1993."
"For Years after the Launching of Al-Qaeda, They Would Do Nothing Without Consulting Me"
Q: "But everyone knows that you were the first Emir of the Jihad group..."
A: "The security agencies considered my relation to the brothers to be one of organization head, but the truth is that it was one of shari'a guidance. I thought that occupying [myself] with shari'a studies, and writing on them, were more important than organizations, since organizations, and even states, pass away, but shari'a studies remain and benefit the Muslims.
"Throughout my relations with the brothers in the Jihad, I made them train everyone who wanted training and help everyone who was in need of them, [including] those who did not have an organizational tie to them. They would give something to live on to those who were not from the organization. When the brothers in Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya complained of what had happened to their brothers in the Ain Shams neighborhood in Cairo, I asked Ayman [Al-Zawahiri] to help them, and he gave Rifa'i Taha a large sum.
"For years after the launching of Al-Qaeda, they would do nothing without consulting me. Does that make me their Emir, or part of the organization? I always say that the brotherhood of Islam is a shari'a obligation, and it is greater than organizations."
"I Don't Know of Anyone in Islamic History Having Committed Such Deceit, Fraud, Falsification, and Betrayal of Trust... Before Ayman Al-Zawahiri"
Q: "How did the dispute develop between yourself and the Jihad group, and with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in particular?"
A: "There were two reasons for this. The first was their determination to carry out fighting operations in Egypt. [They decided on this] in 1992, as I mentioned earlier, and I rejected this. I repeated my disapproval and rejection of what they were doing when I came to Sudan in late 1993.
"They [also] came to this conclusion and announced the cessation of operations in Egypt in 1995, but unfortunately only after failed, bloody confrontations [that were carried out] for the sake of ostentation and fame, and just to imitate Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya. They stopped after their brothers fell in droves to the gallows and the prisons.
"The second [reason] was that they [the Jihad organization] perverted my book Al-Jami' fi Talab Al-'Ilm Al-Sharif. Ayman Al-Zawahiri was the one who did this, by himself, but the entire group held their peace about what he did, and [thus] they share his sin.
"My relations with Al-Zawahiri were normal until I left Sudan in mid-1994. It was he that greeted me at Khartoum airport when I came to Sudan in late 1993, and it was he that saw me off at the same airport when I left in mid-1994. I didn't write Al-Jami' until after I had cut ties with them in 1993, and I finished it before I left Sudan in 1994.
"I left them a copy of it when I left for Yemen, so they could learn from it and study it, and so that they could sell it and earn money from it, if they wanted to help the families. Al-Zawahiri told me that 'this book is a victory from Allah,' and they announced that it would be published in a magazine they put out in London called Kitab Al-'Ilm. At times they described me as 'Mufti of the Mujahideen in the world,' and at times as 'the fighting mufti and the mujahid sheikh 'Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz.'
"After I arrived in Yemen and was practicing medicine, I learned from one of the brothers that the Jihad group had altered my book Al-Jami', struck things out of it, and changed the name of the book to Al-Hadi ila Sabil Al-Rashad. They [also] said that their Shari'a Council had confirmed it [to be correct].
"I asked the brother who had typed the book into the computer and had arrived in Yemen to work, and he informed me that Al-Zawahiri and he alone was the one who did all of these perversions [to the book], because he had found in the book criticism of the Islamist movements that I had written [based on] the reality of having lived with them.
"I don't know of anyone in Islamic history having committed such deceit, fraud, falsification, and betrayal of trust with such hostility to someone else's book, and perverted it – no one before Ayman Al-Zawahiri. When one of the righteous forefathers saw something he considered an error in someone else's book, he would write a rebuttal...
"Aggression towards someone else's book, and the perversion of it, like Al-Zawahiri did, is something that is done only by bandits and people who have no morals and no character. I wrote a communiqué deploring what he had done.
"Neither Al-Zawahiri nor his Shari'a Council have the competence to examine or correct books on shari'a – even with the permission of the author – and they don't have anyone capable of writing a single page without an error in jurisprudence..."
"Ayman Al-Zawahiri Was Entirely Dependent On Me"
Q: "You didn't answer my question concerning your position on Al-Zawahiri. Is it personal or objective?"
A: "The dispute is objective. Ayman Al-Zawahiri was entirely dependent on me, in matters of instruction, professional matters, shari'a matters, and at times [even] personal matters.
"He had a contract to work as a surgeon with the Kuwaiti [Red] Crescent Hospital in Peshawar in 1986. He had never been trained in surgery, and had never done a surgery internship in any hospital. He had received a theoretical MA in surgery by studying what I had written, and he had worked a bit in Saudi Arabia as a general physician, and when he enlisted he worked in anesthesia.
"When he got the job at the Kuwaiti [Red] Crescent Hospital he asked me to be at his side and teach him [how to perform] operations. I taught him until he started to stand on his own two feet. If I hadn't done this, he would have been exposed [as a disgrace], since he had taken a contract for a profession that he had never practiced."
"Ayman Al-Zawahiri and His Emir, Bin Laden... [Are] Extremely Immoral; I Have Spoken About This So As To Warn the Youth Against Them"
"[Al-Zawahiri] was in love with the media and visibility. I wrote works on shari'a and pamphlets, and he would put his name on them, so that I would give him a push [in the realms of] shari'a and the media.
"Al-Zawahiri dealt ungraciously with all of this. He was ungrateful for the kindness and did not thank [me] for it. He bit the hand that I had extended to him in kindness. [This was] deceit, fraud, betrayal of trust, falsehood, and gangsterism.
"This nature remained in him, up to the point where he and his companions in Al-Qaeda bit the hand of Mullah Muhammad Omar, who had hosted them and protected them in Afghanistan, and who ordered them not to enter into a confrontation with America...
"This is part of the truth about Ayman Al-Zawahiri and his Emir, bin Laden – without falsification and without the media deceit that their followers shower on the two of them. [They are] extremely immoral. I have spoken about this in order to warn the youth against them – youth who are seduced by them, and don't know them..."
Four Stages in the Development of Al-Qaeda
Q: "...How did the tie begin between the Jihad and Al-Qaeda?"
A: "When I came to Peshawar in 1983, there were only about the number of Arabs as the number of fingers on two hands. Then came Sheikh 'Abdallah 'Azzam, and he founded the Office for Mujahideen Services in late 1984. There were more and more calls for Arab participation in the Afghan jihad, and the Arab presence gradually grew. The Jihad [group] was launched before Al-Qaeda.
"Al-Qaeda went through four stages: The first stage was that of the camp and the front, in late 1987. Bin Laden would raise funds from Saudi Arabia and give them to the Afghan leaders and to Sheikh ['Abdallah] 'Azzam. Some of the youth complained to bin Laden about irregularities in the Office for [Mujahideen] Services, and bin Laden decided to launch something independently of Sheikh 'Azzam.
"He started with a training camp and a combat front in the Jaji region in Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. Cadres from the Jihad group helped him in this and, thanks to their high level of military skills, youth started flocking to them, and as a result the number of training camps increased.
"The second stage was the stage of the organization, in 1989, when the number of youth of various nationalities increased, though most of them were from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Bin Laden started asking them to give an oath of allegiance to himself as Emir of the jihad, and Al-Qaeda was transformed from a camp and a front into an organization.
"The third stage was that of the 'sifting' of the organization. In 1990 some of those who were knowledgeable in Islamic activity and who had given the oath of allegiance to bin Laden noticed that he was rapidly changing his goals and plans, from the Afghan jihad to throwing his weight into the jihad in southern Yemen, before the end of the Afghan jihad, an attempted assassination against Mohammed Zahir Shah (the former king of Afghanistan) in Italy, and preparations for participation in the second Gulf War against Iraq when it occupied Kuwait.
"Some of his followers demanded that Al-Qaeda should have a program (a constitution) that would define the principles of its existence and its goals, and on the basis of which bin Laden would receive the oath of allegiance from the youth.
"Bin Laden refused to be bound by any program, in order to give himself the freedom to behave with his followers however he wanted. He banished those who had demanded a program, and from that time on, unfortunately, the only people who have followed bin Laden have been one of two [kinds of] people: people who are ignorant in their religion, or people who seek gain in this world.
"Everyone was obligated to blind obedience – and if they didn't [blindly obey] their fate was known. Whoever opposed [bin Laden] was banished. It came about that the majority of his followers were the youngest of the youth from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who were motivated more by Islamic sentiment than by guiding shari'a rules. There were also non-Arabs, from Asia and Europe, whose understanding of religion was limited and who were motivated by sentiment, and especially those of them who were new converts to Islam and hadn't studied their religion.
"The fourth stage was the stage of global confrontation, [which began] in 1993 in Sudan, when bin Laden revealed his desire to enter into conflict with the international powers, and America in particular.
"Some of his followers abandoned him, even some of his relatives and in-laws. His declaration of the Global Front for Fighting Jews and Crusaders in 1998 was just a summing up of what he had begun to prepare since 1993 by observing American and European targets that he could strike at in various parts of the world."
Q: "Does this mean that the Egyptians should be credited with founding Al-Qaeda?"
A: "Members of the Jihad group are the ones who founded Al-Qaeda, managed it, and tried to steer bin Laden in the right direction and keep to a minimum his slip-ups in shari'a.
"Then I cut my ties with everyone in 1993, when I saw that most of them were following their own desires. Allah said (Koran 28:50): 'Who is farther astray than he who follows his own desires without guidance from Allah? Allah does not guide unjust people.'
"This is the reason that I say that the only program, ideology, ideologue, and mufti that Al-Qaeda has is what bin Laden thinks right, according to his personal opinion, and whoever opposes [him] is banished. It was this path that led to the events of 9/11. The job of those who remained with bin Laden was to find justifications for his errors and views by using dubious shari'a arguments, with which they [then] dupe the ignorant..."(6)
"For Years after the Launching of Al-Qaeda, They Would Do Nothing Without Consulting Me"
Q: "But everyone knows that you were the first Emir of the Jihad group..."
A: "The security agencies considered my relation to the brothers to be one of organization head, but the truth is that it was one of shari'a guidance. I thought that occupying [myself] with shari'a studies, and writing on them, were more important than organizations, since organizations, and even states, pass away, but shari'a studies remain and benefit the Muslims.
"Throughout my relations with the brothers in the Jihad, I made them train everyone who wanted training and help everyone who was in need of them, [including] those who did not have an organizational tie to them. They would give something to live on to those who were not from the organization. When the brothers in Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya complained of what had happened to their brothers in the Ain Shams neighborhood in Cairo, I asked Ayman [Al-Zawahiri] to help them, and he gave Rifa'i Taha a large sum.
"For years after the launching of Al-Qaeda, they would do nothing without consulting me. Does that make me their Emir, or part of the organization? I always say that the brotherhood of Islam is a shari'a obligation, and it is greater than organizations."
"I Don't Know of Anyone in Islamic History Having Committed Such Deceit, Fraud, Falsification, and Betrayal of Trust... Before Ayman Al-Zawahiri"
Q: "How did the dispute develop between yourself and the Jihad group, and with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in particular?"
A: "There were two reasons for this. The first was their determination to carry out fighting operations in Egypt. [They decided on this] in 1992, as I mentioned earlier, and I rejected this. I repeated my disapproval and rejection of what they were doing when I came to Sudan in late 1993.
"They [also] came to this conclusion and announced the cessation of operations in Egypt in 1995, but unfortunately only after failed, bloody confrontations [that were carried out] for the sake of ostentation and fame, and just to imitate Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya. They stopped after their brothers fell in droves to the gallows and the prisons.
"The second [reason] was that they [the Jihad organization] perverted my book Al-Jami' fi Talab Al-'Ilm Al-Sharif. Ayman Al-Zawahiri was the one who did this, by himself, but the entire group held their peace about what he did, and [thus] they share his sin.
"My relations with Al-Zawahiri were normal until I left Sudan in mid-1994. It was he that greeted me at Khartoum airport when I came to Sudan in late 1993, and it was he that saw me off at the same airport when I left in mid-1994. I didn't write Al-Jami' until after I had cut ties with them in 1993, and I finished it before I left Sudan in 1994.
"I left them a copy of it when I left for Yemen, so they could learn from it and study it, and so that they could sell it and earn money from it, if they wanted to help the families. Al-Zawahiri told me that 'this book is a victory from Allah,' and they announced that it would be published in a magazine they put out in London called Kitab Al-'Ilm. At times they described me as 'Mufti of the Mujahideen in the world,' and at times as 'the fighting mufti and the mujahid sheikh 'Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz.'
"After I arrived in Yemen and was practicing medicine, I learned from one of the brothers that the Jihad group had altered my book Al-Jami', struck things out of it, and changed the name of the book to Al-Hadi ila Sabil Al-Rashad. They [also] said that their Shari'a Council had confirmed it [to be correct].
"I asked the brother who had typed the book into the computer and had arrived in Yemen to work, and he informed me that Al-Zawahiri and he alone was the one who did all of these perversions [to the book], because he had found in the book criticism of the Islamist movements that I had written [based on] the reality of having lived with them.
"I don't know of anyone in Islamic history having committed such deceit, fraud, falsification, and betrayal of trust with such hostility to someone else's book, and perverted it – no one before Ayman Al-Zawahiri. When one of the righteous forefathers saw something he considered an error in someone else's book, he would write a rebuttal...
"Aggression towards someone else's book, and the perversion of it, like Al-Zawahiri did, is something that is done only by bandits and people who have no morals and no character. I wrote a communiqué deploring what he had done.
"Neither Al-Zawahiri nor his Shari'a Council have the competence to examine or correct books on shari'a – even with the permission of the author – and they don't have anyone capable of writing a single page without an error in jurisprudence..."
"Ayman Al-Zawahiri Was Entirely Dependent On Me"
Q: "You didn't answer my question concerning your position on Al-Zawahiri. Is it personal or objective?"
A: "The dispute is objective. Ayman Al-Zawahiri was entirely dependent on me, in matters of instruction, professional matters, shari'a matters, and at times [even] personal matters.
"He had a contract to work as a surgeon with the Kuwaiti [Red] Crescent Hospital in Peshawar in 1986. He had never been trained in surgery, and had never done a surgery internship in any hospital. He had received a theoretical MA in surgery by studying what I had written, and he had worked a bit in Saudi Arabia as a general physician, and when he enlisted he worked in anesthesia.
"When he got the job at the Kuwaiti [Red] Crescent Hospital he asked me to be at his side and teach him [how to perform] operations. I taught him until he started to stand on his own two feet. If I hadn't done this, he would have been exposed [as a disgrace], since he had taken a contract for a profession that he had never practiced."
"Ayman Al-Zawahiri and His Emir, Bin Laden... [Are] Extremely Immoral; I Have Spoken About This So As To Warn the Youth Against Them"
"[Al-Zawahiri] was in love with the media and visibility. I wrote works on shari'a and pamphlets, and he would put his name on them, so that I would give him a push [in the realms of] shari'a and the media.
"Al-Zawahiri dealt ungraciously with all of this. He was ungrateful for the kindness and did not thank [me] for it. He bit the hand that I had extended to him in kindness. [This was] deceit, fraud, betrayal of trust, falsehood, and gangsterism.
"This nature remained in him, up to the point where he and his companions in Al-Qaeda bit the hand of Mullah Muhammad Omar, who had hosted them and protected them in Afghanistan, and who ordered them not to enter into a confrontation with America...
"This is part of the truth about Ayman Al-Zawahiri and his Emir, bin Laden – without falsification and without the media deceit that their followers shower on the two of them. [They are] extremely immoral. I have spoken about this in order to warn the youth against them – youth who are seduced by them, and don't know them..."
Four Stages in the Development of Al-Qaeda
Q: "...How did the tie begin between the Jihad and Al-Qaeda?"
A: "When I came to Peshawar in 1983, there were only about the number of Arabs as the number of fingers on two hands. Then came Sheikh 'Abdallah 'Azzam, and he founded the Office for Mujahideen Services in late 1984. There were more and more calls for Arab participation in the Afghan jihad, and the Arab presence gradually grew. The Jihad [group] was launched before Al-Qaeda.
"Al-Qaeda went through four stages: The first stage was that of the camp and the front, in late 1987. Bin Laden would raise funds from Saudi Arabia and give them to the Afghan leaders and to Sheikh ['Abdallah] 'Azzam. Some of the youth complained to bin Laden about irregularities in the Office for [Mujahideen] Services, and bin Laden decided to launch something independently of Sheikh 'Azzam.
"He started with a training camp and a combat front in the Jaji region in Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. Cadres from the Jihad group helped him in this and, thanks to their high level of military skills, youth started flocking to them, and as a result the number of training camps increased.
"The second stage was the stage of the organization, in 1989, when the number of youth of various nationalities increased, though most of them were from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Bin Laden started asking them to give an oath of allegiance to himself as Emir of the jihad, and Al-Qaeda was transformed from a camp and a front into an organization.
"The third stage was that of the 'sifting' of the organization. In 1990 some of those who were knowledgeable in Islamic activity and who had given the oath of allegiance to bin Laden noticed that he was rapidly changing his goals and plans, from the Afghan jihad to throwing his weight into the jihad in southern Yemen, before the end of the Afghan jihad, an attempted assassination against Mohammed Zahir Shah (the former king of Afghanistan) in Italy, and preparations for participation in the second Gulf War against Iraq when it occupied Kuwait.
"Some of his followers demanded that Al-Qaeda should have a program (a constitution) that would define the principles of its existence and its goals, and on the basis of which bin Laden would receive the oath of allegiance from the youth.
"Bin Laden refused to be bound by any program, in order to give himself the freedom to behave with his followers however he wanted. He banished those who had demanded a program, and from that time on, unfortunately, the only people who have followed bin Laden have been one of two [kinds of] people: people who are ignorant in their religion, or people who seek gain in this world.
"Everyone was obligated to blind obedience – and if they didn't [blindly obey] their fate was known. Whoever opposed [bin Laden] was banished. It came about that the majority of his followers were the youngest of the youth from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who were motivated more by Islamic sentiment than by guiding shari'a rules. There were also non-Arabs, from Asia and Europe, whose understanding of religion was limited and who were motivated by sentiment, and especially those of them who were new converts to Islam and hadn't studied their religion.
"The fourth stage was the stage of global confrontation, [which began] in 1993 in Sudan, when bin Laden revealed his desire to enter into conflict with the international powers, and America in particular.
"Some of his followers abandoned him, even some of his relatives and in-laws. His declaration of the Global Front for Fighting Jews and Crusaders in 1998 was just a summing up of what he had begun to prepare since 1993 by observing American and European targets that he could strike at in various parts of the world."
Q: "Does this mean that the Egyptians should be credited with founding Al-Qaeda?"
A: "Members of the Jihad group are the ones who founded Al-Qaeda, managed it, and tried to steer bin Laden in the right direction and keep to a minimum his slip-ups in shari'a.
"Then I cut my ties with everyone in 1993, when I saw that most of them were following their own desires. Allah said (Koran 28:50): 'Who is farther astray than he who follows his own desires without guidance from Allah? Allah does not guide unjust people.'
"This is the reason that I say that the only program, ideology, ideologue, and mufti that Al-Qaeda has is what bin Laden thinks right, according to his personal opinion, and whoever opposes [him] is banished. It was this path that led to the events of 9/11. The job of those who remained with bin Laden was to find justifications for his errors and views by using dubious shari'a arguments, with which they [then] dupe the ignorant..."(6)