Product Code Database
Shukri Mustafa (, ; 1 June 1942 – 19 March 1978) was an Egyptian agricultural engineer who led the extremist Islamist group Jama'at al-Muslimin, popularly known as Takfir wal-Hijra. He began his path toward Islamist thought by joining the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s. After being arrested for activities related to the group he became interested in the works of Sayyid Qutb and other radical thinkers. After being released in 1971, he gathered followers and withdrew from contemporary society. He was executed on March 19, 1978, after kidnapping and killing an Egyptian government minister and mainstream Muslim cleric, Muhammad al-Dhahabi. He was sentenced to death after a swiftly arranged military tribunal, alongside four other leaders.
Shukri spent six years in prison, initially in Tura and then, from 1967, in Abu Zaabal. While imprisoned, he read the recently executed Qutb's declarations that Egypt was in jahiliyyah (a state of pre-Islamic ignorance). Shukri and some of his fellow prisoners built on these ideas; they believed that most Egyptians were no longer truly Muslims, but had become apostates by their failure to struggle against the state.Marc Sageman, Understanding terror networks, p. 14 Shukri's faction, known as Jama'at al-Muslimin (Society of Muslims), additionally believed that Qutb had also called for total separation from jahiliyyah society.The Prophet and the Pharaoh, p75
Jama'at al-Muslimin fell apart following the Muslim Brotherhood's official rejection of Qutb's theories. The group's first leader, Sheikh Ali Abduh Ismail, renounced Takfir in 1969. Shukri was soon the leader by default: he was the only remaining member.The Prophet and the Pharaoh, p. 76 He was released from prison in 1971 as part of the new president Anwar Sadat's rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The members were forced to cut off contact with their families, bringing about several lawsuits from family members of women who joined. They felt Shukri was in essence seducing their daughters, or in some cases wives, and thus negating Egyptian views of family.Sageman, p15
Shukri rejected everything that he considered tainted by jahiliyyah society, including mosques—he instructed his followers not to attend Friday prayer in them. He claimed that, while some unaffiliated mosques were acceptable, the most appropriate place to pray was at home. The Prophet and the Pharaoh, pp. 81-83 He was indifferent to Egypt's "Anti-Zionist" struggle. When asked what he would do if Israel invaded Egypt, he responded that his group would flee rather than fight back. He considered the Egyptian Army his enemy just as much as Israel. The Prophet and the Pharaoh, pp. 83-84 He also believed that learning to write was useless for most Egyptians, and opposed it. The Prophet and the Pharaoh, pp. 84-85
Unlike most similar groups, Jama'at al-Muslimin encouraged women to join. Shukri personally arranged marriages with male members and the group provided accommodation in shared lodgings. Often several couples would share a room, separated only by hanging curtains. If a married woman joined the group and her husband did not, then Shukri considered the "jahilliyah" marriage valueless and allowed her to wed again. This approach to marriage brought the group to public attention, with several media stories of family members claiming that their daughters had been stolen from them. The Prophet and the Pharaoh, pp. 86-89
According to authors Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, based on the "testimony of those who knew him", and what Shuqri "intimated" during his trial, "it is clear Shuqri Mustafa thought he was the Mahdi", (the prophesied messiah of Islam who will return to Earth before the Day of Judgment and, (alongside Jesus), rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny). The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, pp. 90-1
According to Abdullah el-Faisal, Shukri Mustafa made takfir on those who drank water from the taps because they were controlled by the government and was one of the Khawarij.
|
|
