Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif (Arabic: سيد إمام الشريف, Sayyid ‘Imām ash-Sharīf; born 8 August 1950),[1] also known as Dr. Fadl or Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz,[2] has been described as a "major" figure "in the global jihad movement."
[3] According to Human Rights Watch, Sharif was born in 1950, in the southern Egyptian province of Beni Suef[5] seventy-five miles south of Cairo.
[3] Following the 1981 assassination of the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat – who had signed a peace treaty with Israel two years earlier – thousands of Egyptian Islamists were rounded up.
"[3] In Peshawar, Imam Al-Sharif (aka Fadl) wrote a text for jihadis to "school them in the proper way to fight battles" and preached that the "real objective was not victory over the Soviets but martyrdom and eternal salvation".
Every able-bodied believer is obligated to engage in jihad, since most Muslim countries are ruled by infidels who must be forcibly removed, in order to bring about an Islamic state.
Imam Al-Sharif, who was finishing "what he considered his masterwork, The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge", agreed to go at the urging of Al-Zawahiri.
Al-Sharif opposed Islamic Jihad's joining another Islamist group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, in its terror campaign against Egyptian government and foreign tourists in Egypt saying, "this is senseless activity that will bring no benefit.
"[citation needed] "Al-Sharif believed that violent attacks were futile, and instead advocated slow and steady infiltration into the structure of the state, but the group as a whole decided otherwise.
Despite Al-Sharif's complaints about the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya bombing campaign, his book defined Islam narrowly and takfir very broadly.
Among those who were not only sinners but apostates of Islam and deserving of death, according to Fadl, are the rulers of Egypt and other Arab countries, those who obey them, and those who participate in elections.
Al-Sharif became furious with Zawahiri when he found this out, refusing to accept his apology and telling Al Hayat, "I do not know anyone in the history of Islam prior to Ayman al-Zawahiri who engaged in such lying, cheating, forgery, and betrayal of trust by transgressing against someone else's book.
[8] He took his family to Sana'a following the 1994 Yemeni Civil War, then to the mountain town of Ibb, and began working in a local hospital.
[citation needed] In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Al-Sharif was questioned by Yemen’s Political Security Organization, the Yemeni "secret police", while at work as a surgeon at the al-Shiffa Hospital in Ibb Governorate, south of Sana'a, on October 28, 2001.
"[3] In November–December 2007 this book/initiative attacking al-Qaeda and calling for a stop to jihad activities both in the West and in Muslim countries, was published in serial form in two Arab dailies, the Kuwaiti Al-Jarida and the Egyptian Al-Masri Al-Yawm.
[12] Al-Sharif claims that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions – including a majority of Islamic Jihad members – had endorsed his position.
"[3] The book Rationalizing Jihad opens with the premise that "there is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property."
It defines most forms of terrorism as illegal under Islamic law and restrict the possibility of holy war to extremely rare circumstances.
Requirements for the lawful declaration of jihad include: a place of refuge, adequate financial resources to wage the campaign without resort to stealing or kidnapping, a means of providing for and protecting family members, properly identified enemy to avoiding killing the innocent.
Al-Sharif warns, "Oh, you young people, do not be deceived by the heroes of the Internet, the leaders of the microphones, who are launching statements inciting the youth while living under the protection of intelligence services, or of a tribe, or in a distant cave or under political asylum in an infidel country.
However the strife between Sunnis and Shiites in the jihad in Iraq is troubling because: "Harming those who are affiliated with Islam but have a different creed is forbidden."
Examples of unlawful slaughter include Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks in America, London, and Madrid, which were wrong because they were based on nationality, which is forbidden under Islam.
... That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11.In what is thought to have been an effort to dispel suspicions that the book did not represent Al-Sharif's true feelings, Muhammad Salah, the Cairo bureau chief of Al Hayat, was allowed into Tora Prison to interview Fadl.
"[3] In the interview, Fadl labels 9/11 "a catastrophe for Muslims," because Al Qaeda's actions "caused the death of tens of thousands of Muslims—Arabs, Afghans, Pakistanis and others.
"[3] Some critics include Hani al-Sibai, a London-based Egyptian political refugee who runs the Almaqreze Centre for Historical Studies, Muhammad Khalil al-Hukayma, leader of the al-Qaeda in Egypt group.
According to Diaa Rashwan, an analyst for the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, in Cairo, it was "the first time in history" that al-Qaeda leadership "have responded in this way to internal dissent.
Rather than conducting terror attacks that bring devastating retaliation, "the Islamic mujahid movement was not defeated, by the grace of God; indeed, because of its patience, steadfastness, and thoughtfulness, it is headed toward victory.