At-takfir wa l-hijrah

At-Takfir wa-l-Hijra ( Arabic: التكفير والهجرهج , at-Takfīr wa-l-Hiǧra ) is a radical Takfir organization founded by Egyptian Ali Abduh Ismail, and then headed by Shukri Mustafa .

Initially, the peaceful organization “Society of Muslims” (“Jamaat al-muslimin”), which later became known as “at-Takfir wa-l-Hijra,” arose in Egypt in the 1970s ^[1] . The founder is a young Egyptian Ali Abduh Ismail, a graduate of Al-Azhar University . A member of the Muslim Brotherhood , Shukri Mustafa (1942-1978), whom Ali met while serving his sentence in Abu Zaabal Prison, left the Brothers and joined the new organization. After the radical views of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) were condemned by Muslim theologians (both Ali Ismail and Shukri Mustafa were read by Kutba's book Milestones on the Way ), the founder left the Muslim Society and Shukri Mustafa became the new leader of the organization ^{[2 ]} .

The name given to this group by the special services of Egypt and the media, translated from Arabic means “Accusation of unbelief ( takfir ) and resettlement ( hijra )” , which reflects the basic principles of the organization - rejection of the modern “ wrong ” society and repetition of the outcome of Muslims under the leadership of Muhammad from the pagan Mecca to Medina ^[3] .

Shukri Mustafa wrote the book “Kitab al-Khilafa” (“The Book of the Caliphate ”), in which the strong influence of the ideas of Sayyid Kutba ^[2] is noticeable (see English Qutbism ). Shukri’s teaching, based on a superficial interpretation of the sacred texts, said that the whole world fell into jahiliya (primitive ignorance), because there were no “true” Muslims , of course, with the exception of its followers. All representatives of the Muslim world were declared "infidels", and for those who became infidels, Sharia implies only one punishment - death. Following the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who left the pagan Mecca and moved to Medina, Mustafa Shukri placed his followers in the caves of Upper Egypt and communal apartments. The leader of the takfirists planned to increase the number of like-minded people and capture Egypt with their help in order to remove “jahiliya” and establish “true” Islam ^[4] .

By 1976, the number of members of the "Society", which the police considered harmless eccentrics and marginals , reached 2 thousand men and women ^[5] . In the same year, the Egyptian authorities began to receive complaints from people whose relatives joined the ranks of the organization and cut off all ties with their families. Some members of the “Society” who left the organization were declared by Shukri Mustafa “ apostates ” and “infidels.” He sent his supporters to raid the “apostates” and bring them back. The police intervened in the situation and arrested 40 members of the "Society" ^[2] .

As a response to repressive measures by the Egyptian police, in the mid-1970s, members of at-Takfir wa-l-Hijra began to resort to violence ^[1] . In 1977, members of at-Takfir wa-l-Hijra attacked Cairo nightclubs ^[6] . In the same year, supporters of Shukri Mustafa took former Egyptian Minister of Religious Affairs, as a hostage and killed him after refusing to release his supporters from prison (according to some members of the group, the police killed the ad-Dahabi to justify the harsh measures against them, which does not sound entirely plausible, given previous statements on behalf of the group with threats to execute the former minister ^[7] ). About 400 takfirists were arrested after clashes with intelligence agencies. Five leaders of the organization, including Mustafa Shukri, were executed in March 1978 ^[8] . After that, the organization broke up, some of the former members joined the Egyptian Islamic Jihad ^[9] .

The ideas of Shukri Mustafa were adopted by the founder of the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram , Mohammed Yusuf ^[10] .