Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif

In Pakistan Sharif worked with Ayman al-Zawahri to rebuild Egyptian Islamic Jihad in exile. In the mid-eighties, Sharif is thought to have become Egyptian Islamic Jihad’s emir, or chief. Al-Sharif denies this, saying that his role was merely one of offering "Sharia guidance." Zawahiri, "whose reputation had been stained by his prison confessions", handled "tactical operations." Al-Sharif impressed other jihadis with his encyclopedic knowledge of the Koran and the Hadith. According to one source, al-Sharif stayed in the background, “Ayman was the one in front, but the real leader was [al-Sharif, aka] Dr. Fadl."

Despite Al-Sharif's complaints about the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya bombing campaign, his book defined Islam narrowly and takfir very broadly. Among those who were not only sinners but apostates of Islam and deserving of death, according to Fadl, are the rulers of Egypt and other Arab countries, those who obey them, and those who participate in elections. “The infidel's rule, his prayers, and the prayers of those who pray behind him are invalid," Fadl decrees. His blood may be shed legally by true Muslims. "I say to Muslims in all candor that secular, nationalist democracy opposes your religion and your doctrine, and in submitting to it you leave God’s book behind." Other Muslims who are actually infidels include anyone employed by the government, the police, and the courts, and anyone who works for peaceful change instead of violent jihad. In addition, those who disagree with these ideas are also heretics and deserve to be killed.

The followers of bin Laden entered the United States with his knowledge, and on his orders double-crossed its population, killing and destroying. The Prophet — God's prayer and peace be upon him – said, ‘On the Day of Judgment, every double-crosser will have a banner up-proportionate to his treachery.'

In the interview, Fadl labels 9/11 "a catastrophe for Muslims," because Al Qaeda's actions "caused the death of tens of thousands of Muslims—Arabs, Afghans, Pakistanis and others."

According to Fadl, Zawahiri was delighted with the result, saying, “this book is a victory from Almighty God." But Zawahiri also edited the book before publishing it, removing "a barbed critique of the jihadi movement" and specific organizations and individuals – including al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group) with whom Zawahiri was attempting to engineer a merger – and changing the title to Guide to the Path of Righteousness for Jihad and Belief. Al-Sharif became furious with Zawahiri when he found this out, refusing to accept his apology and telling Al Hayat, "I do not know anyone in the history of Islam prior to Ayman al-Zawahiri who engaged in such lying, cheating, forgery, and betrayal of trust by transgressing against someone else's book."

In November–December 2007 this book/initiative attacking al-Qaeda and calling for a stop to jihad activities both in the West and in Muslim countries, was published in serial form in two Arab dailies, the Kuwaiti Al-Jarida and the Egyptian Al-Masri Al-Yawm. Al-Sharif claims that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions – including a majority of Islamic Jihad members – had endorsed his position. Lawrence Wright has described it as "undermin[ing] the entire intellectual framework of jihadist warfare."

Even if a person has met these requirements and is fit and capable, jihad may not be required of him. Isolation from, rather than jihad against, unbelievers is praiseworthy. Also "God permitted peace treaties and cease-fires with the infidels, either in exchange for money or without it – all of this in order to protect the Muslims, in contrast with those who push them into peril," if the enemy is much more powerful than Muslims.

I say it is not honorable to reside with people – even if they were nonbelievers and not part of a treaty, if they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum with a decent life and other acts of kindness – and then betray them, through killing and destruction. This was not in the manners and practices of the Prophet.

Al-Zawahiri himself replied to al-Sharif in a nearly two hundred pages long "letter," which appeared on the Internet in March 2008. According to Diaa Rashwan, an analyst for the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, in Cairo, it was "the first time in history" that al-Qaeda leadership "have responded in this way to internal dissent."

On 28 February 2004 Al-Sharif was transferred to Egypt. He was eventually transferred to the Scorpion Prison, a facility inside Tora Prison where major political figures were held. There, Al-Sharif/Fadl was serving a life sentence, although according to his son his "cell" was a private room with a bath and a small kitchen, refrigerator, and a television.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Al-Sharif was questioned by Yemen’s Political Security Organization, the Yemeni "secret police", while at work as a surgeon at the al-Shiffa Hospital in Ibb Governorate, south of Sana'a, on October 28, 2001. Shortly after he turned himself in. He was held for three years in detention in Sana'a, "without charge, without trial, and without access to an attorney."

In countering Al-Sharif, Al-Zawahiri contends that "we have the right to do to the infidels what they have done to us. We bomb them as they bomb us, even if we kill someone who is not permitted to be killed." He compares the 9/11 attack to the 1998 American bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan: "I see no difference between the two operations, except that the money used to build the factory was Muslim money and the workers who died in the factory's rubble [a single night watchman] were Muslims, while the money that was spent on the buildings that those hijackers destroyed was infidel money and the people who died in the explosion were infidels."

Al-Sharif reportedly severed his ties with the Jihad, and devoted his time to his medical work and theological studies. He took his family to Sana'a following the 1994 Yemeni Civil War, then to the mountain town of Ibb, and began working in a local hospital. His son Isma`il insisted his father had by then severed all links with militant groups. He called himself Dr. Abdul Aziz al-Sharif.

"On September 10, 1993, al-Sharif took his wife and family to Sudan, where he was received on arrival by Ayman al-Zawahri, in Khartoum Airport. The relations between the two men, however, deteriorated further during al-Sharif's time in Sudan."

Sometime in the early 1990, Al-Zawahiri and Al-Sharif fell out over questions of strategy and tactics. Al-Sharif opposed Islamic Jihad's joining another Islamist group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, in its terror campaign against Egyptian government and foreign tourists in Egypt saying, "this is senseless activity that will bring no benefit."

In 1989, bin Laden moved from Afghanistan to Sudan along with Zawahiri and most members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Imam Al-Sharif, who was finishing "what he considered his masterwork, The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge", agreed to go at the urging of Al-Zawahiri.

In Peshawar, Imam Al-Sharif (aka Fadl) wrote a text for jihadis to "school them in the proper way to fight battles" and preached that the "real objective was not victory over the Soviets but martyrdom and eternal salvation". This work, "The Essential Guide for Preparation," appeared in 1988 and became "one of the most important texts in the jihadis' training".

Following the 1981 assassination of the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat – who had signed a peace treaty with Israel two years earlier – thousands of Egyptian Islamists were rounded up. These included Zawahiri, who was charged with smuggling weapons, but not Al-Sharif who fled the country, was tried in absentia, and convicted. Al-Sharif left Egypt for the UAE in 1982, where he worked as a doctor. He then resided in Pakistan for few weeks before leaving for Saudi Arabia, and then went back to Pakistan again, where he worked for a Kuwaiti Red Crescent hospital in Peshawar.

It was while studying medicine at Cairo University in the 1970s that al-Sharif met Ayman Al-Zawahiri. In 1977, Zawahiri asked al-Sharif to join his group. According to al-Sharif, Zawahiri misrepresenting himself as a delegate from a group that was advised by Islamic scholars, when in fact Zawahiri was the group's emir and was not guided or advised by clerical authorities. Al-Sharif did not join Zawahiri's group.

Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, (Arabic: سيد إمام الشريف ‎, Sayyid ‘Imām ash-Sharīf) (born 8 August 1950), aka "Dr. Fadl" and Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz, has been described as a "major" figure "in the global jihad movement." He is said to be "one of Ayman Al-Zawahiri's oldest associates, and his book al-'Umda fi I'dad al-'Udda ("The Essentials of Making Ready [for Jihad]"), was used as a jihad manual in Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Fadl is reported to be one of the first members of Al Qaeda’s top council.

According to Human Rights Watch, Sharif was born in 1950, in the southern Egyptian province of Beni Suef seventy-five miles south of Cairo. His father was a headmaster in Beni Suef. Sharif studied the Quran, and was a hafez (i.e. he had memorized the Quran) by time he finished sixth grade. At fifteen, the Egyptian government enrolled him in a boarding school in Cairo for exceptional students. At 18 he entered medical school, and began preparing for a career as a plastic surgeon, specializing in burn injuries. He has been described as being "pious and high-minded, prideful, and rigid" at that time.