Dr. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam the Father of Global Jihad.

Dr. Abdullah Azzam.

Dr. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam the so called ―Father of Global Jihad‖. Azzam was a Sunni cleric, of Palestinian heritage and Osama bin Laden‘s mentor. Azzam like bin Laden was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, in his earlier years.

Azzam was born 1941, in a village in northern Palestine named Selat al Harithia in Genine district. Even as a child Azzam was known to be serious, an excellent student and pious. While in his early teens Azzam joined the Muslim Brotherhood. 

He studied at the Agricultural Khadorri College where he obtained a diploma. Though he was the youngest student there, he was amongst the brightest. Upon graduation, he worked as a teacher in a village in southern Jordan. He entered the Damascus University, there he earned a degree in Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence), in 1966. In 1967 he left Palestine for Jordan, he received a Master’s degree from the Jordanian University of Al Azhar, in sharia. In 1973 he earned his doctorate with distinction in the ―Principals of c Islamic Jurisprudence‖, at Egypt‘s al-Azhar University in Cairo. In 1981 Azzam moved to Saudi Arabia, he was released by the King Abd al-Aziz University in Jeddah, to teach at the Islamabad University in Pakistan. It must be noted here that Azzam, was an employee of the Saudi government at the time, in 1984 he resigned from his teaching post in Islamabad and moved with his family to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he forged closer ties with various Afghan Mujahideen (Holy Warriors).

Dr. Asaf Maliach is an expert on radical Islam, with special expertise in global jihad and al-Qaeda. He is a researcher on the Arab Middle East in the Political Science Department at Bar-Ilan University and is a consultant for the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. He wrote

                                          

the following concerning Azzam in, Military and Strategic Affairs Volume 2 No2 October 2010: ―Abdullah Azzam laid the foundations of al-Qaeda, and from the war in Afghanistan to this day has been Bin Laden‘s spiritual mentor. In late November and early December 1989, on the basis of the idea of al Qaeda al Sulbah (the Solid Base), devised by Azzam and mentioned for the first time in an article he wrote in the monthly al-Jihad in 1988, Osama bin Laden announced in Peshawar the establishment of the organization. The article began as follows: ―Every principle must have its vanguard that will carry it forth (author‘s note: here Azzam is clearly echoing Qutb‘s ―Vanguard‖). The Vanguard will pay a steep price and suffer many losses while paving the road for the Islamic society. There is no belief either earthly or heavenly, that does not need such a vanguard, one that will give all it has for its beliefs to be victorious, this vanguard is the solid base (al-Qaida al-Sulbah), of the society we are awaiting‖. Azzam preached that an individual who ―sold himself to God‖, would arise and call out loud to cleave to Allah: ―An elect group i.e. (al-Qaida), would gather around this leader and provide a solid base for an Islamic society and confront the surrounding jahiliyyah (ignorance). The man, who would lead the first elect group, would start by gathering people and teaching people the bases of belief, namely the unity of God and the unity of God‘s names and descriptions. Azzam wrote in 1988 in an essay wherein he laid down eight guidelines, several preconditions and characteristics of the hoped for leader. 

Those guidelines, preconditions, and characteristics are as follows:

1: The Vanguard would emerge from a furnace of troubles and disasters.

2: The leadership would have to participate in the journey of blood sweat and tears. The leadership would be the hothouse where the saplings would mature in a long period of cultivation and training.

3: the vanguard would renounce the cheap thrills of this world and would be of a different order, marked by asceticism and austerity.

4: The vanguard must be imbued with strong faith and endowed with great hope in achieving victory.

5: Tenacity and assertive decision to continue the journey are necessary, however long it would take.

6: Sustenance for the road one of the critical needs of the journey consisted of upright character, patience, and prayer.

7: The Vanguard had to cleave to the belief of ―friendship and abdication of responsibility‖, meaning demonstrating loyalty and friendship (walla), towards believers and hatred for (infidels) and abdicating responsibility for the latter (bara). By infidels, Azzam and others of his worldview meant not only unbelievers but also (the people‘s of the book i.e. Christians and Jews).

8: The Vanguard would necessarily uncover the global plans against Islam.

Azzam wrote the following concerning his Vanguard: ―The shahids (martyrs) are those who write the history of nations because the history of nations is written only in sweat and blood. They are the ones who build palaces of glory because palaces of glory are built only by skulls and limbs severed from the body. They are the ones who keep the tree of this religion from wilting and drying up because the tree of this religion is watered only with blood. They are the wise ones, because they found their way to Allah, while the others either mourn them or mock their thinking. They are the ones who love death so that they will earn life after death.

Jonathan Randal wrote in his book, ―Osama: The Making of a Terrorist‖: ―Osama was a chosen if initially minor, instrument of Saudi Policy designed to raise funds for the Afghan jihad‖. Prince Salman along with King Fahd one of the inner circle of seven sons born to King Abdulaziz‘s favorite wife, Hasa, was in charge of organizing humanitarian relief for the millions of Afghan refugees who had fled the war and sought asylum in Pakistan. A couple of years into the jihad, in the early 1980‘s fund-raising committees were established in each of the kingdom‘s regions. The local emir called on prominent families and asked them to name a family member to serve on the committee and thus encourage other donations. 

The bin Laden family picked Osama, apparently because he was considered the most religious sibling. There are many more sources Arabic and western establishing the fact that, Osama bin Laden, was initially an instrument of Saudi intelligence, who eventually went rogue. Azzam and Osama established the Maktab al-Khidamat al-Mujahideen (Holy Warriors Services Office), located in Peshawar‘s University Town, Pakistan. The Beit al-Ansar also a bin Laden funded project, provided room and board for new volunteers and did the same for those returning from Afghanistan. The Afghan jihad was supported throughout the Muslim world and beyond, it‘s legitimacy for Muslim‘s the world overlay in the fact that, it was fully authorized by numerous Islamic clerics in Saudi Arabia and beyond, their support was rooted in Islamic jurisprudence by way of several fatwa‘s (a binding edict sanctioned by senior clerics, derived directly from and sanctioned in Quranic tenets). 

Dr. Abdullah Azzam, being an Islamic cleric himself, issued several fatwa‘s in support of the Afghan jihad, one of which I will quote here to strengthen the points made herein.

―There is no Khilafah After 1300 years of Islamic rule. A glorious empire the world once feared. A people entrusted with the final revelation of God. The religion destined for the whole of humanity. Where is it today? The Najasun (Najashun means impure), have duped the dull masses of Muslims by installing their wooden-headed puppets as false figureheads of states that remain under their control. Colonialism has taken a new face. They have come from every horizon to share us amongst them like callers to a feast. There is no greater humiliation for the people expected to lead humanity to redemption. How will they recognize the gravity of the situation? Their house is crumbling and their neighbors are laughing. Again, what will make them realize the gravity of the situation? Abdullah Ibn Mubarak (may Allah have mercy on him) sent a letter to Al Fuzail ibn Ayazz in which he says: "Oh you who offer prayer in the sacred mosque, had you participated with us in the fields of battle, you would have known that, compared to our jihad, your worship is the trifling of children. For every tear you have shed upon your cheek, we have shed in its place blood, on our chests. You are jesting with your worship, while you worshippers offer your worship; mujahideen offer their blood and person‖.

All Praise is for Allah. We praise him and seek his assistance. We ask for his forgiveness and take refuge in him from the evil within ourselves and from the evil of our deeds. He whom Allah guides will never be diverted yet whomever he sends astray will never find his way, and I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, alone, he has no partners, and I bear witness that Mohammed is his servant and messenger. O Lord, nothing is easy except for what you make easy. And you lighten distress if you wish I wrote this Fatwa and it was originally larger than its present size. I showed it to our Great Respected Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Bazz. I read it to him, he improved upon it and he said "it is good" and agreed with it. But, he suggested to me to shorten it and write an introduction for it with which it should be published. But the sheik was busy, it being Hajj season, so he had not the time to review it again.

Then the Sheikh (may Allah protect him) declared in the mosque of Ibn Laden in Jeddah and in the large Mosque of Riyadh that jihad with your person today is Fard Ayn (Fard Ayn, a compulsory duty upon all). Then I showed this Fatwa, without the six questions at the end, to the peers of Sheikh Abdullah al Waan,

 Saeed Hawa, Mohammed Najeeb al Mutyey, Dr. Hassin Hamid Hissan and Umar Sayaf.

I read it to them, they agreed with it and most of them signed it. Likewise, I read it to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Salah Bin Uthaimin and he too signed it. I decided in the presence of the Amir of the Mujahideen (Sayyaf) and by my time of three years spent in the Afghani jihad that, the jihad in Afghanistan needs men. So whoever has an objection from you O Ulama then let him raise it". And there was not one objection. On the contrary, Dr. Sheikh Idriss said "Oh my brother! There is no difference of opinion in this matter". So finally, I published this Fatwa. Maybe Allah will cause it to be useful for us in this world and the next, and for all Muslims.

Sanctioned by the most respected theologians in the Muslim world, jihad in contemporary times was preached globally by Dr. Azzam. Azzam‘s protégé and the leader of the vanguard he prophesied, was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda today is that Vanguard.