Mick Hartley

Egyptian Tawfik Hamid recalls his path to becoming a jihadist:

When I was nine, I learned the following Koranic verse during one of our Arabic lessons: “But do not think of those that have been slain in God’s cause as dead. Nay, they are alive! With their sustainer have they their sustenance. They are very happy with the reward they received from Allah [for dying as a shahid] and they rejoice for the sake of those who have not joined them [i.e., have not yet died for Allah]” (Koran 3:169-70).

It was the first time I was exposed to the concept of shahid (martyr), and naturally, I began to dream of becoming one. The thought of entering paradise very much appealed to me. There I could eat all the lollipops and chocolates I wanted, or play all day without anyone telling me to study. In secondary school I watched films about the early Islamic conquest. These films promoted the notion that “true” Muslims were devoted to aggressive jihad…

I remember one particularly defining moment in an Arabic language class when I was sitting beside a Christian friend named Nagi Anton. I was reading a book entitled Alshaykhan by Taha Hussein that cited the Prophet Muhammad’s words: “I have been ordered by Allah to fight and kill all people [non-Muslims] until they say, ‘No God except Allah.’” Following the reading of this Hadith, I decisively turned toward Nagi and said to him, “If we are to apply Islam correctly, we should apply this Hadith to you.” At that moment I suddenly started to view Nagi as an enemy rather than as a longtime friend.

What further hardened my attitude on this matter was the advice I received from many dedicated Muslim fellow students, who warned me against befriending Christians. They based their counsel on the following verse: “O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends: They are but friends to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them [for friendship] is of them [an infidel]. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust” (Koran 5:51)…

My high test scores enabled me to gain admission to the medical school at Cairo University in the late 1970s. At the time Islamism was proliferating rapidly. This was due in part to the money and textbooks Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi sect donated to promote Salafi Islam, but, more importantly, Islamism gained adherents because Egyptians attributed the growing wealth of Saudi Arabia to its strict practice of Salafism. We enviously lamented, “Look how Allah has blessed the Saudis with money and oil because they apply Shari’a.” We believed that our economic problems would be solved if we did the same – just as Allah had blessed the Saudis, He would bless us.

At medical school I met members of Jamaah Islamiyah, an Islamic organization then approved by both the Egyptian government and the university, though later classified as a terrorist organization…

During my first year of medical school, a Jamaah member named Muchtar Muchtar invited me to join the organization. Muchtar was in his fourth year, and Jamaah had given him the title amir (prince or caliph) – a designation taken from early Islamic writings that is associated with the Islamic caliphate or amir almomenin (prince of the believers). I accepted his invitation, and we walked together to Jamaah’s mosque for noon prayers. On the way there Muchtar emphasized the central importance in Islam of the concept of al-fikr kufr, the idea that the very act of thinking (fikr) makes one become an infidel (kufr). (In Arabic both words are derived from the same three root letters but have different meanings.) He told me, “Your brain is just like a donkey [a symbol of inferiority in the Arab culture] that can get you only to the palace door of the king [Allah]. To enter the palace once you have reached the door, you should leave the donkey [your inferior mind] outside.” By this parable, Muchtar meant that a truly dedicated Muslim no longer thinks but automatically obeys the teachings of Islam…

Following the prayers, members of Jamaah welcomed me and introduced me to a “brother” named Magdi al-Mahdi, who advised me to start reading Salafi books. I followed his advice and became immersed in those texts. After a few months of listening to Jamaah’s belligerent religious sermons and reading the materials they recommended, my personality was utterly transformed. I started to grow my beard. I stopped smiling and telling jokes. I adopted a serious look at all times and became very judgmental toward others. Bitter debates with my family ensued. My behavioral and intellectual transformation greatly alarmed my father. My mother was also concerned; she said that the Koran should be understood in a more moderate manner and advised me to stop reading Salafi materials….

At one afternoon prayer session, an imam I had never met before gave a sermon. He was one of the fiercest speakers I had ever heard. His passion for jihad was astonishing. He advocated complete Islamic dominance, urging us to pursue jihad against non-Muslims and subdue them to Shari’a – the duty of every true Muslim. His rhetoric inspired us to engage in war against the infidels, the enemies of Allah. He particularly condemned the West for the freedom of its women. He hated the fact that Western women were permitted to wear what they pleased, to work and to have the same opportunities as men.

He dreamt of forcing the West to conform to a Taliban-style system in which women were obliged to wear the Islamic hijab, were legally beaten by men to discipline them and were stoned to death for extramarital sex. After the imam’s speech my friend, Tariq Abdul-Muhsin, asked me if I knew this speaker. When I said I did not, Tariq told me that he was Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri…

One of Zawahiri’s significant achievements was to personalize jihad – that is, to have transformed it from a responsibility of the umma, the Islamic collective, to a duty of Muslim individuals. His goal is to spread the empire of Islam through the actions of individual radical Muslims, each of whom is incited to wage a personal jihad. This allows young Muslims to carry out suicide bombings without the endorsement of the collective body…

Within several months I was invited to travel to Afghanistan to join other young Muslims in training for jihad. It was fairly common to be recruited after the end of Friday prayers. Volunteering to train in Afghanistan was very simple: I only needed to register my name in certain mosques, and organizers would carry out all the logistical and financial arrangements. I was excited to go because I believed that I would be fulfilling “the command of Allah” to wage jihad. It seemed the easiest way to guarantee my salvation in the afterlife and to attain my purpose in life…

I was not allowed to question any established teaching of Salafi ideology. The Salafists consider any criticism of Islamic texts as redda (apostasy) punishable by death and eternal damnation. Out of simple fear, then, I attempted to idolize Muhammad and to emulate him as he is portrayed in the Sunna. The fear of such harsh punishment deters most other Muslims from criticizing Salafi teaching as well.

I increasingly felt at ease with death because I believed that I would either defeat the infidels on earth or enjoy paradise in the afterlife.

Jihad against non-Muslims seemed to me to be a win-win situation. The following verse, commonly cited by Jamaah members, validated my duty to die for Allah: “Allah has purchased the believers, their lives and their goods. For them [in return] is the garden [of paradise]. They fight in Allah’s cause, and they slay and are slain; they kill and are killed… it [paradise] is the promise of Allah to them” (Koran 9:111).

I passed through three psychological stages to reach this level of comfort with death: hatred of non-Muslims or dissenting Muslims, suppression of my conscience and acceptance of violence in the service of Allah. Salafi religious indoctrination played a major role in this process. Salafists promoted our hatred for non-Muslims by emphasizing the Koranic verse that read, “Thou wilt not find any people who believe in Allah and the last day loving those who resist [i.e. do not follow] Allah and His messenger” (Koran 58:22).

Salafi writings also helped me to suppress my conscience by holding that many activities I had considered to be immoral were, instead, halal – that is, allowed by Allah and the prophet. My conscience would normally reject polygamy, for example, because of the severe psychological pain it would cause my future wife. Salafi teaching encourages polygamy, however, permitting up to four wives as halal: “Marry women of your choice, two or three or four” (Koran 4:3). I accepted such ideas – ideas that contradicted my moral outlook – because I came to believe that we cannot negotiate with God about his commandments: “He cannot be questioned for His acts, but they will be questioned [for theirs]” (Koran 21:23).

Once I was able to suppress my conscience, I was open to accepting violence without guilt – the third psychological stage. One Salafi method of generating this crucial attitude is to encourage violence against women, a first step in developing a brutal mentality. Salafists emphasize the following text: “Men are superior to women because Allah has given them more preference than to women, and because they financially support them. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part you fear that they do not obey you, admonish them, avoid making sex with them [as a form of punishment], and beat them; but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means [of annoyance]: For Allah is most high, great [above you all]” (Koran 4:34).

A mind that accepts violence against women is much more likely to be comfortable murdering hated infidels and responding to the verse that reads: “O prophet, strive hard [fight] against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh with them. Their abode is hell, an evil refuge indeed” (Koran 9:73). It is clear that the three psychological stages in Salafism that I have described are deeply interconnected.