Background on the writer of “Verily I Am The Naked Warner” an open letter Abu Bakr az- Zaylai.
Born 1960 in a village near Hargeisa, Ibrāhīm Hāji Jāma‘ Mī‘ād was raised in a righteous and upright household. He hailed from the Isaaq tribe and was from its Habar Awal clan. This post is the second half of yesterdays al-Haqaiqa post:
His father was from the well-known du‘āt and shuyūkh of Hargeisa during that time period. His mother was a righteous woman who reared him up upon Islamic teachings, etiquettes, poetry, and history.
He was one among seven children having a brother and five sisters.
He was enrolled into Muka Durduro Elementary School, then into Ahmed Gurey Middle School and then into Farah Omar High School. He was known for not falling short of scoring the highest grades.
As a youth he was known to dislike idleness and frivolous matters, thus he would not spend time with his peers who often wasted their time. He was known to have never entered a cinema (which were rampant at the time) or to have sat at a tea shop (which was and still is a common place for Somalis to socialize).
In his later years whenever he saw du‘āt and mujahidīn wasting their time at tea shops he would reprimand them.
In 1975 he joined the group known as Wahdat ash-Shabāb al-Islāmī, which at the time was a well-known group in northern Somalia calling people towards Allāh. While part of the group he began delivering reminders and speeches to others. He encouraged the group's youth to gather for halaqāt (Islamic lessons).
Sometime after graduating high school, he desired to perform Hajj, so he went along with some of the group's youth to Mogadishu where they attained their visas before departing.
In 1981, upon returning from Hajj, he received a scholarship to attend a university in the United States located in Virginia, where he studied economics. While a student in the US he continued his da‘wah (proselytization and preaching), activities and developed a strong bond with the Muslim community present.
He mentioned that at one point whilst in Virginia he saw the Messenger of Allah ! in a dream. He said: “I saw myself in a masjid where the Prophet ! was delivering a lesson, in front of him were some papers. It so happened that one of the papers was blown away. So me and another man competed to bring it back to the Prophet ! and the other man beat me to it.”
Years later when he narrated this dream to others they asked him of the dream's interpretation to which he responded: “The dream already fulfilled itself, the man I saw in the dream preceded me to jihād and I met him in Pakistan”.
He attended one of ‘Abdullah ‘Azzām's lectures in Virginia which inspired him participate in jihād, thus he told him about his desire to go to Afghanistan and he accompanied him back to Afghanistan, leaving everything behind in 1987. The fact that Abdullah Azzam was allowed to lecture and raise money in the US in the 80’s is very telling, by now astute readers know that Abdullah Azzam went on to form al Qaeda with Osama bin Laden. A known terrorist was allowed into the US to preach and raise money for jihad, by the same intelligence service in America which are purportedly tasked with preventing just such activities.
The exact same scenario repeated itself with the Blind Sheikh and so many others throughout the years. The mere fact that the American Intelligence services are the facilitators of terrorism on a global scale is borne out by their nurturing and tolerance of terrorist’s in their own country.
Upon arriving in Afghanistan he trained in the camps and participated in the battles against the communists. It was during that time period that he became known as Abu Muslim al-Somali (one of the many names he was known by including Abu Bakr az-Zayla‘ī, Mu‘allim ‘Alī and Ibrāhīm al-Afghānī).
He developed good ties with the likes of ‘Abdullah ‘Azzām, Tamīm al-‘Adnanī, Abu Rawdha as-Sūrī, Abul Walīd al-Filastīnī, Abū Mus‘ab as-Sūrī, Ayman adh-Dhawāhirī, Usāmah bin Lādin (with whom he was with during the well-known battles at Tora Bora) as well as many others who he met during the fight against the Communists and the reign of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
He was vouched for by Abū ‘Ubaydah al-Banshīrī and Abū Hafs al-Masrī and sent to Somalia along with two others shortly after the fall of Siad Barre's government.
He thus helped form the Al-Ittihad Movement in 1991 and established several training camps; however after some complications with the movement he left Somalia for Kashmir in 1992. In Kashmir he worked with Hāfiz Muhammad Sa‘īd, one of the founders of Lashkar al-Taiba.
He would travel back and forth from Kashmir to Somalia until 1996 when he helped found the Al-‘I‘tisām group in Las ‘Anod, northern Somalia; during that four year period of travel, whenever he would be in Somalia he would provide support to mujahidīn in Eritrea.
He remained part of the group and was part of its administrative council until 1997 when the group distanced itself from armed struggle. Thereafter he returned to Hargeisa where he would alternate between participating in fighting against the Ethiopians in western Somalia and tending to his ill parents until they passed away.
In the beginning of 2000, he arrived in Afghanistan for the second time accompanied by Ādam ‘Ayrow, Mukhtār Robow, Abu Jabal as-Somālī, ‘Umar Dheere and Abū Usāmah as-Somālī. He participated in the al-Faruq, Jihadwal and Khalden training camps, as well as taking intensive security and shar‘īah courses throughout his stay.
After the 9/11 attacks he, his companions (except for Abu Usamah who was killed in an airstrike) and others retreated with Usāmah bin Lādīn to Tora Bora and eventually after their dispersal he ended up reaching the Afghanistan/Pakistan border where he was assisted by Hāfiz Muhammad Sa‘īd into Pakistan and from there he returned to Somalia.
In 2003 he performed his second Hajj, despite the chance of capture and captivity being high, he returned unharmed.
In 2006 a confederation of Islamic Judicial organizations, judges, students of knowledge, preachers
During the ICU period, Ibrāhīm was one if its most influential members being involved primarily in the teaching and da‘wah departments. It was during this time that he started printing and publishing the al-Jihād paper in Mogadishu.
After the Ethiopian invasion and the dispersing of the ICU he was amongst those who retreated to Somalia's deep wilderness; however, after a while, he returned to Mogadishu along with others to carry out operations against the Ethiopian occupation in the capital.
After the rise of the ash-Shabāb movement, which he helped found, he participated (and sometimes led) the well-known and fierce battles, with a special focus on the Jubba region.
He was the head of ash-Shabāb's shūrā council (until it was disbanded by Abū Zubayr Godane) and was also the head of the joint Islamic administration in Kismayo and Jubba, which several groups and movements came under (until ash-Shabāb betrayed them all).
It was in Kismayo where he began publishing and printing the al-Hisbah newspaper and helped Abu Talha Samatar as-Somālī (who is currently imprisoned by ash-Shabāb) in establishing Radio al- Andalus.
He continued to hold various positions in the ash-Shabāb movement until he came at odds with them due to their deviance and tyranny, his attempts for reformation eventually cost him his life.
On the 20th of June 2013, not long after he penned his open letter Verily, I'm the Naked Warner, he was assassinated after the Maghrib prayers while en route to a masjid to deliver a speech. Ash-Shabāb gunmen gunned him down that night along with Mu'allim Burhān (‘AbdulHamīd Hāshī ‘Olhaye).
We intend to provide further details surrounding their assassination in an upcoming translation of a letter penned by Abū Yūsuf al-Gharīb entitled: Do You Kill a Man Because He Says: ‘My Lord is Allah’?
.png)
Comments