Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj

Muhammad Abd al -Salam Faraj (also: 'Abd al- Salam Faraj, Abdessalam Faraj, Arabic محمد عبد السلام فرج, Muḥammad ʿ Abd as- DMG Salām Faraǧ; * 1954 in Dolongat, † April 15, 1982 in Cairo ) was a Egyptian revolutionary and radical Islamic theorists. He led the Cairo cell of the Egyptian terrorist organization Al- Jihad and contributed with his paper The neglected duty (Al- farida al - gha'iba, 1981) significantly to the formulation and spread of a militant jihadist ideology at. He was executed in 1982 because of his involvement in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Life

Muhammad Abd al -Salam Faraj was born around Dolongat in the northern Egyptian governorate of Al - Buhaira. Faraj studied electrical engineering and worked in the administration of the University of Cairo. With the formation of the Sunni terrorist group, which was known as Al- Jihad later, Faraj began in 1979. Among the speakers Faradsch gathered many followers in mosques around. With the support of his closest followers, it developed within two years the leader of a loose grouping of about fifty revolutionary cells in Egypt. These terrorist cells to their leaders Ayman Al -Zawahiri was one among others, although developed a common strategy, but did retain a high degree of operational autonomy.

In September 1981 Faraj held a meeting with other Al- Jihad leaders in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat was planned. Faraj looked Sadat as illegitimate ruler because he did not rule solely on the basis of Sharia. Faradschs followers saw Sadat's assassination as a necessary and appropriate means of establishing the they sought to form an Islamic state. The proposal to assassinate the president went from Khalid Islambouli, a lieutenant in the Egyptian army from the Faraj had six months earlier advertised during its deployment in Cairo for Al - Jihad. Islambouli was invited to a celebratory military parade, attended by the President should attend, and saw it as an opportunity to assassinate the secular state leader. On October 6, 1981, Sadat was assassinated by an attack of four members of Cairo's Al- Jihad cell. Faraj was arrested shortly thereafter and executed on April 15, 1982 together with Islambouli and three other jihadists.

Positions and effect

The Salafist flow of Islam believes that it was the duty of Muslims to imitate the actions of the Prophet and his followers, and that lack of zeal is causally responsible for the ills of the Muslim world in this area. Faraj pointed to this position, arguing that Muslims have particular religious obligation to jihad neglected as a military struggle against the enemies of Islam. Faraj considered jihad (Arabic جهاد, effort, struggle, effort ' ) immediately after the five pillars as the main teaching of Islam. After the English religious scholar Karen Armstrong believes it was at the jihadist narrowing of Islam propagated by Faraj, but a " break with centuries of Islamic tradition. "

Faraj argued for an individualistic and military interpretation of jihad. Just as the powerful fundamentalist theorist Sayyid Qutb, he argued that the jihad "individual duty " ( fard al - ayn ) is the incumbent on every Muslim. He reached nonmilitary interpretations of jihad, which indicated an inner spiritual effort as " greater jihad ", as a falsification of the Islamic tradition. For priority target of the jihad declared Faradsch local governments. He grabbed Qutb's position that modern Islamic societies of " jahiliyyah " penetrated and they had fallen into a state of ignorance as in pre-Islamic times. Going back to the Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyah Faradsch made ​​modern Islamic rulers who are in apostasy, responsible for the jahiliyyah.

Great influence gained Faradschs font The neglected duty (Al- farida al - gha'iba, 1981), which was originally circulated among Faradschs followers. The developed therein jihadist ideas shaped the program of the Islamic extremist groups in Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s. The future leader of the terrorist network al - Qaeda, Ayman Al -Zawahiri, was a friend Faradschs and followed for many years the slogan of struggle against the "near enemy". Faradschs theses were sharply criticized. Jad al -Haq of the Al -Azhar University Faradschs rejected Sadat's labeling as apostate - " no Muslim should another practicing Muslim as an apostate call " - and held Faradsch misinterpretations of the Koran before, especially the sword verse. Other writers attracted Faradschs religious expertise in doubt, because he was a trained electrical engineer and not an Islamic law expert.