Terrorist groups pretending to stand for Islam (1)-Takfir wal-Hijra Group
Establishment
On July 23, 1952, a military coup was staged in Egypt overthrowing King Farouq. A number of officers who called themselves the “Free Officers” came into power and Major General Mohammad Najib was sworn in as President of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood participated and sympathized with the revolutionaries, although its role and position in the coup remain to date controversial.
Relations between the Free Officers Movement and the Muslim Brotherhood soon grew uneasy. A couple of years later, on January 14, 1954, the Revolutionary Command Council issued a decision ordering the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood was accused of plotting an assassination attempt against a member of the Free Officers, Jamal Abdul Nasser on October 26, 1954, but they denied the allegations. Later, it turned out that President Mohammad Najib was in touch with the Muslim Brotherhood and willing to support them should they succeed in toppling the regime. On November 14, 1954, the Revolutionary Command Council decided to relieve Najib of his duties and keep the presidential seat vacant. This provided a further pretext for the Muslim Brotherhood’s protests against the measures taken both by the Council and Abdul Nasser. Thus began a frustrating conflict between the two sides and prison cells were full of Islamists who suffered torture and killing.
In this atmosphere, radical Islamic views were born and inside the dark cellars, the doctrine of the Takfir wal-Hijra Group saw the light. The group charged the Egyptian Head of State Jamal Abdul Nasser of infidelity and branded all his supporters, including those Muslims who prayed, fasted and went on pilgrimage as only pretending to be Muslims and thus the group deemed them as infidels and apostates. Therefore, the entire community was infidel and should be fought.
Accusing Muslim believers of not believing was the most alarming aspect of this group’s doctrine. The origins of takfir (judging one as an unbeliever) had appeared much earlier under the Kharijites, a Muslim group that emerged in 657 as a result of the political disputes that marked Caliph Ali Bin Abi Taleb’s era. They eventually killed him and were given the name Kharijites (Arabic plural khawārij, singular Khārijī, derived from the verb kharaja “to come out, to exit») for rejecting the leadership of Imams and other religious scholars.
Takfir is the cornerstone of this group’s beliefs and doctrines. It declares as infidel:
- The one who commits sin and continues in sin, refusing to repent and ask for forgiveness
- The rulers- heads of states, kings, ministers- who fail to rule by the principles and tenets of the Quran, which is the constitution for all Muslims, but rather opt for man-made constitutions, thereby abandoning the codes sent down by Allah to Prophet Mohammad.
- The religious scholars and clerics who have become a tool for rulers justifying their deviation from Quranic principles, thus turning into scholars for the sultans that are unfit to be entrusted with the Quranic and religious matters.
- Those citizens who have succumbed to their rulers and staged no rebellion to change the faithless reality violating the Quran.
شاهد الجدول كاملا
The second pillar upon which the doctrines of the Takfir wal-Hijra Group rest is the departure from the community. Believers cannot live in a society of unbelievers; rather, they should isolate themselves, break off with the communities in their life and thought and choose a remote place, usually somewhere in the mountains.
The third pillar is the blind obedience to their Imams in everything, be it in life or in comprehending the meaning of Islam. The sayings of their Sheikhs, even those of the students among them, should be the basis for them, not the sayings of prominent religious scholars and clerics. Members of this group view that their prince and Sheikh Shukri Mostafa is the savior of the Islamic nation and that Allah shall realize, through the Sheikh and his followers, what was not realized by Prophet Mohammad himself as to the manifestation of Islam over all religions, peoples and nations. They believe that they should not weaken themselves with Jihad at this stage; rather they should strengthen themselves. They urge their followers to abandon Friday prayers and cease praying in mosques because all mosques are places of disbelief except four mosques: Masjid Al-Haram of Mecca (The Sacred Mosque), Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi (The Prophet’s Mosque), Quba Mosque, the oldest mosque in Islam, and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Deeds of terror
Violence and fighting are the means used by Takfir wal-Hijra Group towards achieving its objectives. The group has waged several attacks on Egypt’s police force, anchored by the conviction that the police, although Muslim, protected the tyrants and should thus be slaughtered in order to topple the rulers, take power and establish Islamic rule.
Among their most significant deeds of terror:
- Kidnapping and killing Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Al-Thahabi, former Minister of Egyptian Awqaf, after Egyptian authorities refused to meet the group’s demands, foremost of which was the release of some of their members from prison.
- The Takfir wal-Hijra Group had a primary role in the war that erupted in Algeria between the government and Islamist extremists between 1992 and 2005.
- One of its members, Mohammad Bouyery, reacted to the movie Submission by cutting the throat of its maker, Dutch film director Teo Van Gogh, on November 2, 2004. The movie linked the abuse of women in Islam to Quranic texts and depicted naked women painted with verses from the Quran.
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