132-653: The Egyptian Islamic Jihad ( EIJ , Arabic : الجهاد الإسلامي المصري ), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad (Arabic: الجهاد الإسلامي ) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites , originally referred to as al-Jihad , and then the Jihad Group , or the Jihad Organization , was an Egyptian Islamist group active from the late 1970's until its 2001 merger with Al-Qaeda . It was long considered an affiliate of Al-Qaeda and under worldwide embargo by
264-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
396-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
528-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
660-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
792-453: A letter of commendation to take back to Canadian mosques, calling for donations. However, the pair had a sensationalist showdown when Khadr insisted that he had a right to know how the money would be spent, and Azzam's supporters labelled Khadr a Western spy. A Sharia court was convened in bin Laden's compound, and Azzam was found guilty of spreading allegations against Khadr, though no sentence
924-529: A life sentence for his part in the plot to kill Sadat". This faction, the Islamic Jihad, "was small and tightly disciplined". Most of the middle-rank members were discharged from prison after only three years and fled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to help the mujahideen there and escape persecution at home. In the mid-1980s, in Peshawar Pakistan, the militants reconstituted themselves as
1056-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
1188-608: A religious blessing of wars already declared and organized by secular bodies. But with his tireless travel and exhortation of activists, thousands of whom traveled to be trained and to fight in Afghanistan, what Azzam "called for actually came about". Azzam also broadened the idea of jihad. Azzam preached that jihad was Azzam had considerable impact. Fatwas going back to the Crusades had urged Muslims to defend one another against an invasion, but his contention that "such defense
1320-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
1452-636: A role as an ideologist in founding the Islamist Hamas movement in Palestine. Azzam took a position as lecturer at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah , Saudi Arabia, where he remained until 1979. Osama bin Laden was enrolled as a student in the university between 1976 and 1981 and probably first met Azzam during that time. When the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan on request of
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#17327662651231584-480: A scholarly, ideological and practical paramilitary infrastructure for the globalization of Islamist movements that had previously focused on separate national, revolutionary and liberation struggles. Azzam's philosophical rationalization of global jihad and practical approach to recruitment and training of Muslim militants from around the world blossomed during the Afghan war against Soviet occupation and proved crucial to
1716-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
1848-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
1980-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
2112-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
2244-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
2376-513: Is "likely that the notion of suicide bombing" was inspired by Hezbollah as al-Zawahiri had been to Iran to raise money, and had sent his underling Ali Mohamed , "among others, to Lebanon to train with Hezbollah". A few months later in November, al-Jihad made another bombing attempt, this time to kill Egypt's prime minister, Atef Sidqi . The car bomb exploded close to a girls' school in Cairo as
2508-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
2640-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
2772-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
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#17327662651232904-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
3036-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
3168-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
3300-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
3432-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
3564-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
3696-438: Is the combination of bin Laden's financial resources with al-Zawahiri's ideological and operational leadership. The extent of its aid from outside of Egypt is not known. The Egyptian Government claimed that both Iran and Osama bin Laden support the Islamic Jihad. It also may obtain some funding through various Islamic nongovernmental organizations, cover businesses, and criminal acts. Unlike other militant counterparts, EIJ
3828-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
3960-506: Is thought to reinforce militants' "perception of a civilizational war between Islam and the West". His son Huthaifa Azzam, who assumes his father's legacy, on the other hand, says that al-Qaeda's methods of targeting civilians in the West or elsewhere would have been rebuked by Azzam, as would have been the use of kidnappings and beheadings. The internationally recognized terrorist group Abdullah Azzam Brigades (a Lebanese branch of al Qaeda )
4092-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
Egyptian Islamic Jihad - Misplaced Pages Continue
4224-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
4356-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
4488-744: The Afghan Arabs , the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri . The next group of "unbelievers" the EIJ wanted to make jihad against were the self-professed Muslims of the Egyptian government and other secular Muslim governments, not Israeli Jews , European Christians or Indian Hindus . For the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, takfir (excommunication) against the allegedly impious Egyptian government
4620-882: The Al Kifah Refugee Center as the Marktab al-Khidamat's official branch in the United States, the only country to have one aside from Pakistan. Azzam also radicalized El Sayyid Nosair , the man responsible for the assassination of Meir Kahane in 1990. In 1989, the FBI office in Dallas started investigating Azzam for his role in recruiting fighters for the Soviet-Afghan War. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan , Azzam became disillusioned with
4752-692: The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 , former leaders of the group in Egypt formed a political party, called the Islamic Party , which became a member of the Anti-Coup Alliance following the 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat . Al-Jihad or "Tanzim al-Jihad" was formed in 1980 from the merger of two clusters of Islamist groups: a Cairo branch, under Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag , and a Saidi (Upper Egypt) branch under Karam Zuhdi. Farag wrote
4884-519: The Islamic state established." From its victory in Afghanistan jihad would liberate Muslim land (or land where Muslims form a minority in the case of the Philippines or formerly Muslim land in the case of Spain) ruled by unbelievers: the southern Soviet Republics of Central Asia , Philippines , Bosnia , Kashmir , Somalia , Eritrea , and Spain . He believed the natural place to continue
5016-755: The Khalqist government in 1979, Azzam issued a fatwa , Defence of the Muslim Lands, the First Obligation after Faith , declaring that both the Afghan and Palestinian struggles were jihads and that all able-bodied Muslims had a duty to fight against foreign occupations of Islamic countries. The edict was supported by Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti , Abd al-Aziz Bin Baz . Azzam began to teach at International Islamic University, Islamabad , Pakistan in 1981. Soon thereafter, he moved to Peshawar , closer to
5148-583: The Muraqib 'Am (General Supervisor) of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan . Khalifa met with Azzam during several visits that he made to Silat al-Harithiya. During this part of his life, Azzam began reading the works of Hasan al-Banna and other Muslim Brotherhood writings. In the late 1950s, after he had completed his elementary and secondary education, Azzam left Silat al-Harithiya and enrolled in
5280-606: The Soviet Union , Azzam envisioned a pan-Islamic trans-national movement that would transcend the political map of the Middle East drawn by European colonial powers. In Egypt Azzam continued his studies at the prestigious Al-Azhar University , getting a PhD in Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence in 1973, while being acquainted during his stay with the ideas of Sayyid Qutb . He completed his 600-page doctoral thesis in around 16 months. Some researchers believe he had
5412-630: The United Nations . It was also banned by several individual governments worldwide. The group is a proscribed terrorist group organization in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000 . The organization's original primary goal was to overthrow the Egyptian government and replace it with an Islamic state . Later it broadened its aims to include attacking American and Israeli interests in Egypt and abroad. Since September 1969
Egyptian Islamic Jihad - Misplaced Pages Continue
5544-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
5676-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
5808-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
5940-815: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Abdullah Azzam Abdullah Yusuf Azzam ( ( 1941-11-14 ) 14 November 1941 – ( 1989-11-24 ) 24 November 1989)
6072-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
6204-535: The 1980 book al-Faridah al-Ghaiba (The Neglected Obligation) , setting forth the standards for EIJ, of which 500 copies were printed. After the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat , the Egyptian government succeeded in rounding up the membership of Tanzim al-Jihad, but "was rather lenient in the ensuing trial". In prison, the Cairenes and Saidis reverted into two factions; the Cairo militants later becoming
6336-490: The 1980s in an effort to stem Soviet expansionism and to destabilize the Soviet Union. Azzam frequently joined Afghan militias and international Muslim units as they battled the Soviet Union's forces in Afghanistan. He became an inspirational figure among the Afghan resistance and freedom-fighting Muslims worldwide for his passionate attachment to jihad against foreign occupation. In the 1980s, Azzam traveled throughout
6468-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
6600-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
6732-493: The Afghan border, where he established Maktab al-Khadamat (Services Office) to organize guest houses in Peshawar and paramilitary training camps in Afghanistan to prepare international recruits for the Afghan war front. An estimated 16,000 to 35,000 Muslim volunteers from around the world came to fight in Afghanistan. Thousands more Muslims attended "frontier schools teeming with former and future fighters." From there, Azzam
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#17327662651236864-545: The CIA to set up the assassination. After his death, Azzam's militant ideology and related paramilitary manuals were promoted through print and Internet media by Azzam Publications, a publishing house that operated from a London post office box and an Internet site . Both were shut down shortly after the September 11 attacks and are no longer active, though mirror sites persisted for some time afterwards. Babar Ahmad ,
6996-573: The EIJ had even worse troubles. In 1994, in a pamphlet written by Al-Zawahri, he alleges that, Ahmad Salama Mabruk 's 17-year-old son Musab, as well as the 15-year-old son Ahmed of Mohammed Sharaf , were captured by the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate and sexually abused. They were blackmailed with videotape of the sodomy until they agreed to act as informants against their fathers' group. Musab went through his father's files and photocopied them for
7128-683: The EIJ having "the majority" – six of nine seats – "of al-Qaeda's ruling council ( shura )." However, Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif has claimed that only 9 people from the organization, including Zawahiri, actually joined Al-Qaeda. Consequently, it is often considered synonymous with al-Qaeda (for example, by the US Treasury Department), although some refer to it as a separate organization with al-Zawahiri as its leader and global jihad's main ideologist. The organization specializes in armed attacks against high-level Egyptian Government personnel, including cabinet ministers, and car-bombings against
7260-540: The Egyptian Interior Minister, Hassan Al Alfi , who was leading a crackdown on Islamic militants. A bomb-laden motorcycle exploded next to the minister's car, fatally wounding Nazih Nushi Rashed and killing Tarek Abdel-Nabi (Dia al-Deen) instantly. The attack marked the first time Sunni Islamists had made use of suicide in terrorism , a technique made famous by Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon . It
7392-635: The Egyptian Islamic Jihad of killing his father-in-law for issuing a fatwa that "once the Russian were ejected from Afghanistan, it would not be permissible for us to take sides." Several associates of Azzam suspect the killing was part of a purge of those who favored moving the jihad to Palestine. In March 1991, Mustapha Shalabi , who ran the Maktab al-Khidmat , the Services Bureau in New York and
7524-509: The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, "with very loose ties to their nominal imprisoned leader, Abbud al-Zumar ". A physician by the name of Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif or "Dr. Fadl" was head of EIJ for some time, although eventually, Ayman al-Zawahiri , "whose leadership style was autocratic," would take over. During this time EIJ became more extreme, with, for example, Dr. Fadl emphasizing the importance of takfir and execution of apostates, which he argued should include those who registered to vote, since this
7656-457: The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and the Saidis later forming the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya , or the Islamic Group. According to Zawahiri, the EIJ was "different from the Takfir wal Hijra group as we do not consider people infidels because of their sins. And we are different from the Muslim Brotherhood because sometimes they do not oppose the government". The leader of the Cairo militants was Abbud al-Zumar , "a onetime army intelligence officer serving
7788-438: The Egyptian embassy in Islamabad killing 16 and wounding 60. The attack served as a prototype for future attacks by its sister organization al-Qaeda, such as the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Africa . According to journalist Lawrence Wright, based on testimony given at the trial of the Albanian cell members in the late 1990s or early 2000s, EIJ membership had dwindled to 40 members outside Egypt, and none at all inside
7920-440: The Egyptians "formed a barrier" around bin Laden and "whenever he tried to speak confidentially to bin Laden, the Egyptians would surround the Saudi and drag him into another room". One of those who complained of being elbowed aside was a former mentor of bin Laden Abdullah Azzam , the original exponent and organizer of global jihad on behalf of the Afghan mujahideen. In 1991, EIJ broke with al-Zumur and al-Zawahiri took control of
8052-470: The Egyptians, but the Sudanese intelligence service saw the covert meetings and alerted al-Jihad, recommending that they treat the boys leniently if they confessed. al-Zawahiri convened a Sharia court, where Musab confessed he had been given explosives by the Egyptians which he was told to detonate at the next Shura council meeting. They were each found guilty of "sodomy, treason, and attempted murder", and sentenced to death by firing squad . The trial, and
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#17327662651238184-405: The Faculty of Sharia at the University of Damascus in Syria . While in Damascus, he met Islamic scholars and leaders including Shaykh Muhammad Adib Salih, Shaykh Sa`id Hawwa, Shaykh Mohamed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti , Mullah Ramadan al-Buti, and Shaykh Marwan Hadid. Azzam's mentor, Shafiq Asad `Abd al-Hadi died in 1964. This strengthened Azzam's determination in working for the cause of Islam. During
8316-440: The Jihad organization abroad alive." In June 1995, another failed assassination attempt caused yet a greater setback. Operating from its exile base in Sudan, EIJ joined forces with the Egyptian al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and Sudanese intelligence in an attempt to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak while he was in Ethiopia for a conference of the Organization of African Unity . Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif has claimed that Zawahiri
8448-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
8580-504: The Middle East, Europe and North America, including 50 cities in the United States, to raise money and preach about jihad. He inspired young Muslims with stories of miraculous deeds, mujahideen who defeated vast columns of Soviet troops virtually single-handed, who had been run over by tanks but survived, who were shot but unscathed by bullets. According to his stories also, angels were witnessed riding into battle on horseback, and falling bombs were intercepted by birds, which raced ahead of
8712-409: The Muslim faith. He emphasized the violence of religion, preaching that, "those who believe that Islam can flourish [and] be victorious without Jihad, fighting, and blood are deluded and have no understanding of the nature of this religion." Azzam has been criticized for justifying the killing of civilians deemed mushrikeen (polytheists) in jihad, telling followers that: Many Muslims know about
8844-474: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
8976-413: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
9108-464: The West Bank and followed the Palestinian exodus to Jordan. In Jordan, Azzam participated in paramilitary operations against the Israeli occupation but became disillusioned with the secular and provincial nature of the Palestinian resistance coalition held together under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and led by Yasser Arafat . Instead of pursuing the PLO's Marxist -oriented national liberation struggle supported by
9240-450: The administrator of azzam.com, was extradited from the UK to the USA where he pleaded guilty to "conspiracy and providing material support to terrorism." Azzam popularized the idea of armed Islamic struggle (which went on to be developed further by groups such as the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA)). Prior to his work, declarations of jihad in the twentieth century (such as against Israel) were essentially rhetorical and served more as
9372-426: The agricultural Khaduri College in Tulkarm , about 30 kilometres southwest of his village. Though he was a year younger than his classmates, he received good grades. After graduation from the college, students were sent out to teach at local schools. Azzam was sent to the village of Adir, near the town of Kerak in central Jordan. According to one of his biographers, Azzam had wanted a position closer to home, but
9504-517: The assassination, the President of Afghanistan Mohammad Najibullah criticized Arab foreign fighters telling them to go do "jihad closer to home". Najibullah was a very active opponent of Wahhabism which he saw as contradictory to traditional Afghan Values. Former FBI agent Ali Soufan mentioned in his book, The Black Banners , that Ayman al-Zawahiri is suspected of being behind the assassination. Azzam's son-in-law, Abdullah Anas , accused
9636-650: The breakout of the Afghan Civil War in which former Muslim members of the mujahideen fought each other. Azzam initially supported Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin in the war, but after meeting Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Panjshir Valley switched his preference to Jamiat-e-Islami . He compared Massoud to Napoleon and told audiences in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait , "I have seen
9768-574: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
9900-469: The country where "the movement had been eradicated". In 1998, three al-Jihad members were arrested in Albania , and the United States intervened to ensure they were extradited to Egypt to face charges. In Afghanistan Zawahiri wrote the 1998 fatwa for the "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," calling for the killing of Americans and their allies, both civilian and military, which
10032-587: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
10164-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
10296-533: The execution, were filmed and copies of the film were distributed by al-Jihad. When the Sudanese found out about the executions in its jurisdiction, al-Zawahiri and the rest of EIJ were ordered to leave the Sudan. It was a devastating blow to the group. "In Zawahiri's hands, al-Jihad had splintered into angry and homeless gangs". bin Laden was also weakened by this failed operation. The core of his al-Qaeda group
10428-607: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
10560-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
10692-454: The future of jihad. It is Massoud!" This put him at odds with bin Laden, who continued supporting Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin. Azzam's trademark slogan was "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues." In Join the Caravan , Azzam implored Muslims to rally in defense of Muslim victims of aggression, to restore Muslim lands from foreign domination, and to uphold
10824-686: The hadith in which the Prophet ordered his companions not to kill any women or children, etc., but very few know that there are exceptions to this case. In summary, Muslims do not have to stop an attack on mushrikeen , if non-fighting women and children are present. Given the broad definition of mushrikeen used by some Muslims, at least one author ( Dore Gold ) has wondered if this could have led to followers being less concerned about killing women and children. However, Azzam's son, Huthaifa Azzam, has told journalist Henry Schuster that his father did not generally approve of attacks on civilians. Azzam built
10956-575: The holidays, Azzam would return to his village, where he would teach and preach in the mosque. Azzam graduated with highest honors in 1966, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Sharia . Thereafter he returned to the West Bank , where he taught and preached in the region around his village. After the 1967 Six-Day War ended with the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank , Azzam and his family left
11088-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
11220-498: The jets to form a protective canopy over the warriors. Steven Emerson 's 1994 television documentary Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America includes an excerpt from a video of Abdullah Azzam in which he exhorts his audience to wage jihad in America (which Azzam explains "means fighting only, fighting with the sword"), and his cousin, Fayiz Azzam, says "Blood must flow. There must be widows; there must be orphans." Azzam recruited
11352-713: The jihad fighters. To keep al-Khadamat running, bin Laden set up a network of couriers travelling between Afghanistan and Peshawar, which continued to remain active after 2001, according to Rahimullah Yusufzai, executive editor of The News International. After orientation and training, Muslim recruits volunteered for service with various Afghan militias tied to Azzam. In 1984, Osama bin Laden founded Bait ul-Ansar (House of Helpers) in Peshawar to expand Azzam's ability to support " Afghan Arab " jihad volunteers and, later, to create his own independent militia. In 1988, Azzam convinced Ahmed Khadr to raise funds for an alleged new charity named al-Tahaddi , based in Peshawar. He granted Khadr
11484-629: The jihad was his homeland, Palestine. Azzam planned to train brigades of Hamas fighters in Afghanistan, who would then return to carry on the battle against Israel." He viewed Hamas as "the spearhead in the religious confrontation between Muslims and Jews in Palestine ". During the First Intifada , he supported Ḥamas politically, financially and logistically from his base in Pakistan. This put him at odds with another influential faction of
11616-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
11748-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
11880-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
12012-425: The leader of the group from 1988 until 1992. The al-Zawahiri faction subsequently formed an alliance with Al-Qaeda leading over time to the effective merger of the two groups operations inside Afghanistan. Even though al-Zawahiri was frequently referred to as a 'lieutenant' or 'second in command' of Al-Qaeda, this description is misleading, as it implies a hierarchical relationship. The modern Al-Qaeda organization
12144-454: The leadership of the group has also allied itself to the ‘global Jihad’ ideology expounded by Osama Bin Laden that has threatened Western interests. In June 2001, Al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (which had been associated with each other for many years) merged into "Qaeda al-Jihad". However, the UN states that there was a split in the organization when the merger was announced. Following
12276-513: The leadership. At this point, Marc Sageman (a former foreign service officer who was based in Islamabad from 1987 to 1989), says "the EIJ became a free-floating network without any real ties to its original society or to its surrounding society". al-Jihad (EIJ) had a blind-cell structure, meaning members in one group did not know the identities or activities of those in another so that if one member were captured they would not be able to endanger
12408-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
12540-557: The mid-1950s, Azzam joined the Muslim Brotherhood after being influenced by Shafiq Asad 'Abd al-Hadi, an elderly local teacher who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Recognizing Azzam's sharp mind, Shafiq Asad gave Azzam a religious education and introduced him to many of the Muslim Brotherhood's leaders in Palestine. Azzam became more interested in Islamic studies and started a study group in his village. Shafiq Asad then introduced Azzam to Muhammad 'Abd ar-Rahman Khalifa,
12672-470: The minister was driven past. The minister, protected by his armored car, was not hurt, but the explosion injured 21 people and killed a young schoolgirl, Shayma Abdel-Halim. Unfortunately for al-Jihad this bombing was preceded by two years of terror by a larger terror group ( al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya ) that had killed 240, and the patience of the Egyptian public had run short. "Little Shayma's death captured people's emotions as nothing else had" and "when her coffin
12804-521: The mujahideen while also recruiting non-Afghan fighters (known as Afghan Arabs ) for their cause. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, he continued to promote jihadist militancy on behalf of other Muslims in other countries in an effort that led to him becoming known as the "father of global jihad " in many circles. On 24 November 1989, Azzam was killed by a car bomb detonated by unknown assailants in Peshawar, Pakistan . Azzam
12936-731: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
13068-457: The official US and Egyptian facilities. The original Jihad was responsible for the attempted assassinations of Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi in August 1993 and Prime Minister Atef Sedky in November 1993. Egyptian Jihad and the rival armed group launched a wave of violence against Egypt's secular government in 1992, a campaign they only abandoned at the end of the decade. Nearly 1300 people died in
13200-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
13332-533: The organization to train fighters in various parts of the world while Azzam favored keeping the training camps in Afghanistan. Azzam also objected to Bin Laden's favoring of Hekmatyar. Yet another actor accused of the assassination is the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence , an active opponent of Wahhabism . In 2009, Jordanian double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi claimed knowledge of Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate cooperation with
13464-563: The outbreak of the Soviet–Afghan War , and subsequently moved to Pakistan to support the Afghan mujahideen . As a teacher and mentor to Saudi militant Osama bin Laden , he was one of the key figures who persuaded bin Laden to go to Afghanistan and personally oversee the mujahideen's efforts in that country. In 1984, Azzam and bin Laden co-founded Maktab al-Khidamat , an Islamic advocacy organization that sought to raise funds for
13596-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
13728-749: The pulpit from which he delivered the sermon every Friday failed to detonate. The Arab mosque was in the University Town neighbourhood in western Peshawar, in Gulshan Iqbal Road. Abdullah Azzam used the mosque as the jihad center, according to a Reuters inquiry in the neighbourhood. Had the bomb exploded, it would reportedly have destroyed the mosque and killed everybody inside it. After the first attempt, Prince Turki bin Faisal of Saudi Arabia's chief of staff Ahmed Badeeb advised Azzam to leave Afghanistan. On 24 November 1989, Muhammad Azzam
13860-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
13992-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
14124-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
14256-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
14388-477: The subsequent development of the al-Qaida militant movement. Like earlier influential Islamist Sayyid Qutb , Azzam urged the creation of a "pioneering vanguard", as the core of a new Islamic society. "This vanguard constitutes the solid base [qaeda in Arabic] for the hoped-for society. ... We shall continue the jihad no matter how long the way, until the last breath and the last beat of the pulse – or until we see
14520-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
14652-529: The university in Jeddah in 1981, he also lived for a time in Peshawar; Azzam convinced bin Laden to help personally finance the training of recruits. Some have suggested that Mohammed Atef was responsible for convincing Azzam to abandon his academic pursuits to devote himself solely to preaching jihad. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for
14784-639: The unrest, including policemen and government officials. It is responsible for the Egyptian Embassy bombing in Islamabad , Pakistan in 1995. In 1998 a planned attack against the US Embassy in Albania was thwarted by a roundup of suspects who are now called the Returnees from Albania . Although Ayman al-Zawahiri was "the one in front", Al-Sharif was the actual leader. Nabil Na'eem was
14916-472: The whole organization. However, Egyptian authorities captured the membership director of EIJ, the one member who had all the other member's names. The database in his computer listed every member's address, aliases, and potential hideouts. Al-Jihad leader al-Zawahiri bitterly lamented "the government newspapers" elation over “the arrest of 800 members of the al-Jihad group without a single shot being fired". In August 1993, al-Jihad unsuccessfully attempted to kill
15048-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
15180-591: Was a Palestinian-Jordanian Islamist jihadist and theologian . Belonging to the Salafi movement within Sunni Islam , he and his family fled from what had been the Jordanian-annexed West Bank after the 1967 Six-Day War and pursued higher education in Jordan and Egypt before relocating to Saudi Arabia . In 1979, Azzam issued a fatwa advocating for "defensive jihad" in light of
15312-644: Was a crew doing routine road maintenance working on the culvert where the bomb was placed, the day before the assassination. Azzam and his sons were buried near the same site as his mother the year before, the Pabi Graveyard of the Shuhadaa' (martyrs), in Peshawar. Suspects in the assassination include competing Islamic militia leaders, such as Hekmatyar, as well as the CIA , the Mossad , and KHAD . Following
15444-460: Was a global obligation," that "Muslims everywhere were personally bound to take up arms" against invasions such as the Soviet's, was "all but unprecedented". Azzam is thought to have had influence on jihadists such as al-Qaeda with the third stage of his "four-stage process of jihad". This third stage was "ribat," defined as "placing oneself at the frontlines where Islam was under siege". This idea
15576-476: Was a violation of God's sovereignty over governance. It was also at this time that some saw "the Egyptians" of the EIJ begin to exert an influence on Osama bin Laden , who at the time was known as a wealthy and well-connected fundraiser for the jihad in Afghanistan. Egyptian filmmaker Essam Deraz, "bin Laden's first biographer," met bin Laden in the "Lion's Den" training camp in Afghanistan and complained that
15708-607: Was able to organize resistance directly on the Afghan frontier. Peshawar is only 15 km east of the historic Khyber Pass , through the Safed Koh mountains, connected to the southeastern edge of the Hindu Kush range. This route became the major avenue for inserting foreign fighters and material support into eastern Afghanistan for the resistance against the Soviets and their DRA allies. After Osama bin Laden graduated from
15840-469: Was also "said to prefer a 'Palestine next' strategy, turned up dead in his apartment." He was replaced by Wadih el-Hage , who later became bin Laden's personal secretary. Osama bin Laden has also been accused of being a suspect in the murder, but seems to have remained on good terms with Azzam during this time. However, it was reported that Bin Laden and Azzam also had a major dispute on where Al Qaeda should focus their operations. Bin Laden favored using
15972-607: Was an agent for Sudanese intelligence services. The leader of the plot was " Mustafa Hamza , a senior Egyptian member of the Al-Qaeda and commander to the military branch of the Islamic Group". The plotters had been planning the attack for more than a year and even married local women in Ethiopia. They received assistance from Sudanese intelligence services, which smuggled weapons into their embassy in Ethiopia. Their hope
16104-720: Was born on 14 November 1941 in Silat al-Harithiya , in what was then the British Mandate for Palestine , to a family of Palestinian Arabs . As part of the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , Azzam was granted alongside most Palestinians Jordanian nationality. Azzam has been described by most of his biographers as being exceptionally intelligent as a child. He liked to read, excelled in class, and studied topics above his grade level. In
16236-529: Was borne through the streets of Cairo, people cried, 'Terrorism is the enemy of God!'" A harsh police crackdown followed and 280 EIJ members were arrested, with 6 eventually given a death sentence. EIJ's longtime association with al-Qaeda became closer at this time when "most" of its members were reported to have gone "on the al-Qaeda payroll". The leader of EIJ hoped this would be a temporary measure but later confided to one of this chief assistants that joining with bin Laden had been "the only solution to keeping
16368-487: Was central, but Azzam opposed takfir of Muslims, including takfir of Muslim governments, which he believed spread fitna and disunity within the Muslim community. Towards the end of his life he said “I’m very upset about Osama. This heaven-sent man, like an angel. I am worried about his future if he stays with these people.” In 1989, a first attempt on his life failed, when a lethal amount of TNT explosive placed beneath
16500-489: Was driving his father and brother to Friday prayers in the Saba-e-Leil Mosque in Peshawar, when unknown assassins detonated a bomb as the vehicle approached. Lying in a narrow street across from a gas station, the explosive had a 50-metre detonation cord which led to the sewerage system where the assailant presumably waited. According to Time , political analyst Waheed Muzhda had noticed what he assumed
16632-438: Was imposed. Employing tactics of asymmetric warfare , the Afghan resistance movement was able to fend off the militarily superior Soviet Armed Forces throughout most of the war, although the lightly armed Afghan mujahideen suffered enormous casualties. The Saudi Arabian government and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) gradually increased financial and military assistance to the Afghan mujahideen forces throughout
16764-403: Was in such disarray because of arrests and defections, and so close to bankruptcy, that the only choice was to follow Zawahiri or abandon al-Jihad". One of those who did abandon al-Jihad was Zawahiri's own brother Muhammed , the military commander of EIJ. In June 2001, Al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged into an entity formally called jamaa'at Qa'idat al-Jihad, with the leadership of
16896-424: Was made up of members of Islamic Jihad. Because of Sudan's collaboration in the plot, the United Nations voted to impose sanction on the country. To rehabilitate itself in the international community, the Sudanese government pressured bin Laden to leave the country. Bin Laden and many EIJ returned to war-torn Afghanistan having lost many members and almost all of bin Laden's assets. On November 19, 1995, EIJ bombed
17028-543: Was noted for condemning only the government as apostate , and seeking to recruit soldiers, reporters and government workers who were untainted by jahiliyya . Iraq agreed in March 1993 to renew relations with the group. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
17160-520: Was sent to a distant school after an argument with his college's dean. After spending a year in Adir, Azzam returned to the West Bank, where he taught at a school in the village of Burqin , about four kilometers west of Jenin. His colleagues in Burqin remembered him as being noticeably more religious than them. During breaks, while others ate, Azzam would sit and read the Quran . In 1963, Azzam enrolled in
17292-399: Was signed by representatives of several jihadi organizations, including EIJ. In August 1998, Issam Abdel-Tawab was extradited to Egypt from Bulgaria. Dissent among EIJ members to this change of direction and abandonment of the taking over Egypt as the group's primary goal was so strong that "in the end, Zawahiri pledged to resign if the members failed to endorse his actions. The organization
17424-519: Was to decapitate the Egyptian government thereby eliminating the "iron grip" of the state security services, and creating a power vacuum which Islamists could then fill. Unfortunately for this plan, the attack was foiled by a malfunctioning grenade launcher and Mubarak’s bulletproof limousine. Back in Egypt , Mubarak launched a ruthless campaign to crush anyone involved in Islamist terrorism, but in Sudan
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