The Saudi Academic figure, Dr. Mussa al Qarni gives an important testimony on the "years of Jihad in Afghanistan", and the Arab-Afghan phenomena, as an active player throughout the era, from beginning to end. He entertained close ties with the different parties involved, whether through religious incitement or field military participation. He kept contact and was informed of the Afghani situation after the internal strife broke out in the country. Throughout the five years he spent in the Mujahideen's training camps, he was considered the legal ideologue of the Arab-Afghans and of some of the Afghani factions' leaders as well. Today, he ascertains that Bin Laden viewed him as his personal Mufti in matters of Fiqh (jurisprudence) and Sharia (Islamic Law).
In the testimony published by Al-Hayat, over three episodes, Dr. Al Qarni describes the majority of "Arab Mujahideen" against the Soviet occupation as being chaotic. He adds that they hated Ahmad Shah Massoud for many a reason, including his military discipline. He also observed that many of them were "extremely deviant" prior to their following of the Jihad path, while some "were even ignorant of the prayer and the ablution Fiqh". Al Qarni believes that Ahmad Shah Massoud was "the only one among all Mujahideen leaders to head a well-organized army, and have a clear strategy". Despite all this, Ussama bin Laden took part in his in absentia trial on charges of "servitude to the West and being an infidel". He did not eliminate the possibility of Bin Laden's participation in the plot to assassinate Massoud prior to the September 11 attacks. Given his deep knowledge of Bin Laden's character, he says that the latter "will never surrender, for he seeks death and runs to it". Al Qarni confirms that several attempts have been made to persuade Bin Laden of leaving Sudan and returning to Saudi Arabia, where he would settle down and resume his normal life, but all efforts were fruitless.
He believes that "the Egyptian Jihad" may have been responsible for the assassination of one of the most prominent Arab-Afghan leaders, "Sheikh Abdallah Yusuf Azzam", because the movement "perceived him as an obstacle to the execution of its plans in Afghanistan". He also asserts that Bin Laden is now a part of the "Egyptian Islamic Jihad's" thought, lead by Ayman al Zawahiri, and moves according to its plans.
To Al Qarni, Gulbuddine Hikmatyar is "the one who dispersed the most the gains of the Afghani Jihad ", while the Taliban's rise to power was "a calamity that befell the Afghan people, destroying the last memories of the purity of the anti-Soviet Jihad era". Al Qarni stresses that building schools and institutes was the Arab-Afghans' foremost important achievement, a fact that Afghans attest to according to him.
The legal ideologue of Al Qaeda leader recalls the stages of the rise and fall of the Islamic State dream in Afghanistan
Moussa al Qarni: I egged the Arab-Afghans on
Bin Laden took part in Massoud's trial and was unable to convict him!
Many perceive the "Afghani experience with its Mujahideen" as a long-gone period that failed to affect anything in our present era. However, the Saudi academic figure Dr. Moussa al Qarni who played a leading role in instigating Jihad on the Saudi front and went to Afghanistan during the first period of Jihad against the Soviets sees otherwise.
Not only is Al Qarni stimulating through his narration of the events related to Jihad leaders, dead or alive, and his testimonies concerning yesterday's "Mujahideen" and today's "Terrorists", but he is similarly interesting through his calm character that enabled him to live contradictory periods simultaneously, and to remove himself of every experience with rare shrewdness.
A friend to all the parties and a promoter of respect to the Islamic governments among the Takfiriyeen [those who tax others of being infidels], Al Qarni was to the Mujahideen a defender of the "Murtaddin" [apostates] like Ahmad Shah Massoud, an opponent of the Taliban state and a personal friend to Bin Laden. He is a legendary character that blended with both the incitation to Jihad and the stagnating "Tadris".
Al Hayat met with Al Qarni and asked him the following:
Al-Hayat: How did you go to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan to work alongside the Mujahideen during the 1980's?
Al Qarni: Some courses were held in Peshawar, Pakistan. I asked the president of the university while I was a lecturer to go with the Peshawar group. I told him that if I went along, I would also investigate the status of the Mujahideen. I mixed work in the training course with the discovery of the fighting fronts where I got to know the conditions and status of the Mujahideen. It was then that I met Sheikhs Abdallah Azzam and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. At the time, Sheikh Sayyaf owned a university called "Da'wa and Jihad University" in Qaryat al Hijra (the migration village), near Peshawar. Although initially established as a home to the Afghan immigrants, the village attracted the majority of Arabs and their families. Sheikh Sayyaf was elected at the time president of the "Islamic Union among the Mujahideen". When they started their Jihad, the Mujahideen were dispersed in many factions, which made the Muslim Ulemas [clerics] and Preachers call on them to unite in one body: thus was born the Islamic Union, over which Sayyaf was elected president. His election was instigated by his studies in Al Azhar and his good knowledge of the Arabic language. This is why Arabs who went there were naturally attracted to Sayyaf's whereabouts, for he was firstly the head of the Islamic Union, which, to them, conferred legitimacy upon the Mujahideen, and secondly he was well versed in Arabic. Therefore, he had a guesthouse in this village, where I stayed for a long time. This was the beginning. Afterwards, I wished to elongate my stay with the Mujahideen and there were discussions and consultations as to how I could do so. Since Sheikh Sayyaf had the Da'wa and Jihad University, he told me: 'I could request your presence as a teacher there'. He sent a request to the Saudi State asking that professors be sent to his University. The request was referred to the Islamic University of Medina, which sent five professors, myself included, to the Da'wa and Jihad University. We stayed there for two years, but my role in there was different from that of the other brothers' who had been sent with me. They only gave classes in the University.
Al-Hayat: Who were your colleagues in the Da'wa and Jihad University?
Al Qarni: Drs. Hamdan Rajeh Al Sharif, now retired, Ibrahim al Murshid, presently a teacher in Al Kassim, Sheikh Rashid al Ruhaili, now retired from the Islamic University and over eighty years of age, Professor Dakhil Allah al Ruhaili, presently a lecturer at the Islamic University, and myself. As I mentioned earlier, the others' role was simply to teach at the university, while mine was a mixture of teaching there and entering the fronts to preach, give legal and religious lessons to the Mujahideen youth and participate in certain operations, given my knowledge of Sheikh Sayyaf and the Mujahideen.
Al-Hayat: What shape did the Da'wa [call] take then?
Al Qarni: Many of the Arab youths who joined the Jihad had not received any Islamic education. Many of them had been living a life of deviance, and some were only directed to the straight path immediately before they went to wage Jihad. I personally know young men who were deviant or even extremely so, who joined Jihad and were killed, and we ask God that they be martyrs. Some of these men were attracted to the path of Jihad. This fact was in truth very beneficial to me in my Da'wa, because I realized that many of these deviant young men are good people who have not found the right environment that can guide and foster them, and they were therefore compelled to follow the wrong path. When these men came along, they were unaware of the prayer or ablution rules. They only came to fight. My personal conditions were therefore more related to the legal aspects: the conditions of purity, prayer, Jihad, invasions, spoils and fighting; When to fight and when to abstain, etc. These courses were given to young men, naturally, and there were other military training courses from military specialists.
Al-Hayat: Were you present during the military training and what was it based on?
Al Qarni: Yes I was. They were chiefly based on endurance. You know that Afghanistan is a mountainous area with no paved roads and cars. This is why you have to be able to handle hardship, to climb a mountain and walk for 10-12 hours straight carrying your food, arms and clothes on your back and this important aspect is endurance. The second basis was training to use personal weapons. You are in a battle and you must carry a weapon (a Kalashnikov), and know how to use all personal weapons, starting with the small gun. Naturally, people vary in roles and preferences: while some only learn how to use the Kalashnikov, others want to fight with their bodies; others still wish to learn the use of the anti-aircraft cannon, or even the fabrication and dismantling of mines. Courses vary with people, but the majority trained to use the personal arms, i.e. guns and Kalashnikovs.
Al-Hayat: Was there any suicide operation training?
Al Qarni: No, there were no such missions in that period. Young men would attack tanks and planes themselves. The battle was an open field, you had the Russian bases with their tanks and planes and you were facing them alone with your weapon.
Al-Hayat: Did the university you worked in with four of your colleagues really become a place to pass intelligence operations? In other words, was the Hijra village an intelligence passage?
Al Qarni: The presence of intelligence is a must and is only natural. In this atmosphere, it would be incomprehensible that those participating in the Jihad in Afghanistan would not have intelligence agents Any country, whether the United States, Pakistan or even the Russian enemy had intelligence officers there, sometimes even in the midst of the Afghan Mujahideen. This is only normal. However, we never saw these things in truth, for the intelligence were not related to the Mujahideen but to the politicians.
Al-Hayat: Did the Mujahideen kill a group of people working with them, or execute them after they discovered that they had been leaking information to other parties?
Al Qarni: This came along in late phases only. During the first phases, Jihad was a completely open operation and as such, it did not offer the possibility of hiding. Let me give you an example, some States- maybe of the pro-communism States- would send in their intelligence sometimes. We know for a fact that some Arab States sympathized with Russia and therefore sent their intelligence. What was the officer to do then? He is first welcomed, then invited to go to battle. He had no choice then but to join the fighters. Otherwise, if he chose to be an intelligence officer that stays behind in the rear rows, among the immigrants and the civilians, he would either try and fail to move along in the front rows, or be exposed and die. He has no wish to die. You are now in a direct confrontation with the enemy, meaning that you are marching towards death.
Al-Hayat: How many stages did the Jihad in Afghanistan go through in the 1980's?
Al Qarni: I personally believe that the first period extends from the beginning of the Jihad to the fall of communism in Kabul and the entry of the Mujahideen to the city. The second stage was marked by the internal strife among the Mujahideen. During this period, we were completely isolated. Personally, after the Mujahideen entered Kabul and began to inter-fight I came back to my country and refused to participate any further.
Al-Hayat: When was the approximate date of your return?
Al Qarni: The problem is that I have a hard time remembering dates.
Al-Hayat: Was it in the beginning of the nineties?
Al Qarni: Approximately
Al-Hayat: Was it prior to the Taliban era?
Al Qarni: Yes, it was. It was when Ahmad Shah Massoud entered Kabul and Nizam Najibullah's regime fell. I believe that this was in the nineties. During that period, many of the brothers who went to Jihad, apart from myself, returned to our countries.
Al-Hayat: Did Ussama Bin Laden return with you?
Al Qarni: Ussama Bin Laden returned afterwards.
Al-Hayat: Can you recall the date?
Al Qarni: I honestly do not memorize dates.
Al-Hayat: I heard that the Mujahideen refused to memorize the Gregorian calendar.
Al Qarni: I do not belong to this kind of people. Most of those who went to Jihad, per example, were identified as "Abu Such and Such" instead of their real names, whereas I moved in all the Pakistani regions using my real name.
Al-Hayat: Bin Laden's nickname, Abu Abdallah, has not changed since, has it?
Al Qarni: That is true. Bin Laden's nickname has always been Abdullah. He is well known, by all.
Al-Hayat: Suleiman Abu Ghaith was also with you during those days. Do you know him?
Al Qarni: No, I don't.
Al-Hayat: How about Abu Suleiman Al Makki Khaled al Harbi?
Al Qarni: Yes, I got to know al Makki during that period. He was one of the first to wage Jihad, before going to Chechnya.
Al-Hayat: Shall we return to your stay?
Al Qarni: I was there during the first two years of teaching, and when they were over, I was entitled to an academic sabbatical. I took this year, because I wanted to renew my stay at the university. The Saudi University only lent us to the Afghani one for two years, but I was entitled to the academic sabbatical and so I asked for it as soon as my two years were over. Hence, I spent three years, before returning to Afghanistan one more, where I spent five years, in the end.
Al-Hayat: Who was taking care of your family during that period?
Al Qarni: I was receiving my salary from the university. Our relatives were around the family, and every six months approximately during the school year, I would take a couple of weeks to come and stay with them. During the summer vacation, I would come and take them back with me. I had built a house in the Hijra village. The first three years were continuous, then I began to visit them during the summer vacations.
Al-Hayat: Does this university still exist?
Al Qarni: No, it has closed its doors.
Al-Hayat: Did it really incite radicalism?
Al Qarni: It was not called radicalism back then. Fighting communists was the common "air du temps". Now, they call it radicalism, while then they called it Jihad. The university's architecture college was established by a Saudi architect; He is a well-known brother who clearly supported Jihad. A professor at the King Saud University, he was also the owner of an architectural bureau in Medina, and was called Ahmad Farid Mustapha.
Al-Hayat: How did the University function?
Al Qarni: Among the programs of the da'wa and Jihad University were teaching and training students to wage Jihad (
); They would enter the Afghani territories, because the distance between the Hijra village and the Afghan borders only took two hours to cross from the direction of Jalal Abad. During the Thursday and Friday weekend, groups of college students entered the front and fought with the Mujahideen.
Al-Hayat: Were intelligence officers training them?
Al Qarni: No, there were special trainers. In the Arab camps, there were Arab trainers; some of them retired military men, with a high training level. As for the Afghan camps, they had their own trainers. In addition, the Pakistani army also offered financial and moral support.
Al-Hayat: In that period, Bin Laden followed Abdallah Azzam?
Al Qarni: Yes, he did.
Al-Hayat: Was he entitled to give his opinion?
Al Qarni: His opinion was doubtless well esteemed, but he did not take decisions on his own. There was some sort of council that discussed the Mujahideen's status.
Al-Hayat: How would you describe the relationship between Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdallah Azzam and Bin Laden?
Al Qarni: To Sheikh Abdallah Azzam, there was no bigger or more esteemed fighter than Massoud. He even called him the Hero of the North. I recall asking him about this once, because Arabs did not like Ahmad Shah Massoud (his right appellation). There were many reasons why they hated him. Most importantly, Hikmatyar influenced the Arabs; he was their host and they trained in his camps. It was a known fact all throughout the Jihad days, and up to the assassination of Massoud that the latter's sworn enemy was Hikmatyar. Arabs were therefore influenced by Hikmatyar's animosity towards Massoud, and they adopted it themselves. Some of them even became more bitter enemies to Massoud that Hikmatyar was.
Al-Hayat: You mean to say that Hikmatyar received the Arabs and egged them on?
Al Qarni: Yes, I do. This fact should be known to all. Massoud lived in northern Afghanistan and not near the border with Pakistan. Should anyone want to reach Massoud, he would need no less than twenty days to cross from the Pakistani borders to the North, where he was staying. Massoud was indeed in an area on the Russian borders, which is why he neither had an office in Peshawar, nor had an information office given his presence on the frontline with the Russians. Hikmatyar and Sayyaf on the other hand had military camps and fronts near Pakistan, in the Pashtun area. The majority of Arabs that came to the country were therefore with them. You can say that over 95% of Arabs who came to join the Jihad were distributed between Hikmatyar and Sayyaf, with a minority that headed in the direction of Sheikh Younes Khalis and Jalal eddine Haqqani. Only a handful of Arabs whom we know well went to Massoud, because of his conflict with Hikmatyar. There was a second factor for the Arabs' animosity towards Massoud, may God rest his soul: The man was organized in his thinking, strategic planning, and fighting, and was never a chaotic person. The majority of Arabs who came to join Jihad did not like military organization and discipline. They were chaotic. Some of them would come in for a week, go on an operation, shoot, fight, invade then return. Some others would come in for a month or two only, and so on. Subsequently, Sayyaf and Hikmatyar's fronts were like open fields.
Al-Hayat: Would that mean that Hikmatyar and Sayyaf's guesthouses were like open cafes?
Al Qarni: Only in the sense that they did not impose on those who joined them a specific program or period that they must abide by. Massoud, on the other hand, would not accept for anyone to come to him, unless he has decided to commit to Jihad, stay with him and obey his orders. No operation can ever be launched without an order from him. On Hikmatyar and Sayyaf's fronts, the Arabs were independent and could wage separate operations and do whatever they wished, without supervision. At the beginning of the Jihad era, a group of Arabs went to join Massoud, bearing the same thought as the one they dealt with on Sayyaf and Hikmatyar's fronts. At Massoud's they arranged for an independent operation, without the man's knowledge, attacking a Muslim convoy instead of a Russian one. When Massoud knew of this, he put them in prison, only liberating them after many a mediation. By the time they returned to Hikmatyar in Peshawar, their animosity of Massoud had reached incredible heights, stimulated by their incarceration and his displeasure with their behavior. Sheikh Abdallah Azzam then visited Massoud, prompted by all the talk- mostly negative- of this person in Peshawar. Some accused him of working for the West since his father had been an army general. The generals' sons would study in Western schools, and since he went to such a school as well, they accused him of being an agent for the West. Some others accused him of having an unethical behavior, which is why there was a big commotion around him in Peshawar, instigated by Arabs; so much so, in fact, that they began to discuss whether he should get financial support or not.
Al-Hayat: It was rumored that Massoud was Shiite
Al Qarni: That is not true, Massoud is Sunni and not Shiite. I remember that when there was a commotion in Peshawar, a court was convened to try him in absentia. Two people were defending him and 21 were against him. One of his defenders was brother Abdallah Anas, Sheikh Abdallah Azzam's son-in-law and a British resident, while the other was an Algerian brother called Qari Abdel Rahim. Both of these men lived with Massoud and knew him intimately. They knew who the real Massoud was. The other 21 people comprised Algerians, Egyptians and Yemenis; there were no Saudis among them at the time. These people believed that Massoud was an infidel. The trial was convened, with Abdallah Azzam, Sheikh Abdel Majid al Zandani and Ussama Bin Laden as members.
Al-Hayat: How long was the trial?
Al Qarni: The trial lasted a whole week. Naturally, they requested my presence but I refused to be part of it. However, I was informed of the events through Sheikhs Abdallah Azzam, Abdel Majid, from Ussama Bin Laden, Abdallah Anas and Qari Abdel Rahim. One peculiar fact was that Qari Abdel Rahim had a brother called Qari Saeed who was a staunch enemy of Massoud's. After Qari Saeed, may God forgive him and rest his soul, returned from Afghanistan he joined the armed factions and was killed in Algeria. In the end, the 21 men could not prove any of the charges that they accused Massoud of. When the committee wanted to reach a decision after the hearings, they found that they could say neither a positive nor a negative word about him.
Al-Hayat: How do you read this result?
Al Qarni: I consider this result unfair: you either prove the charge or refute it. However, given that Ussama Bin Laden and Sheikh Abdel Majid Al Zandani were closer to Hikmatyar than to Massoud, and that the whole congregation did not wish to monopolize the Peshawar Arabs' inclination, this happened. Some said "all Arabs were against Massoud, so how could we praise him?", while Sheikh Abdallah Azzam, may God rest his soul, said "I will praise Massoud, until the last day of my life". Therefore, when he left the meeting, he put down plans in Massoud's praise and wrote a book about him, entitled "Titans of the North". But he could not print it, because the whole of Peshawar was almost Hikmatyar's and Sayyaf's. Massoud had no presence or influence in the land, and Azzam was unable to print the book. I once asked Sheikh Abdallah Azzam, may God rest his soul, "Sheikh Abdallah, do you still believe that Massoud was the Hero of Afghanistan?", he answered me:" He is the Hero of Islam". During this time, brother Abdallah Anas spoke to me of Massoud frequently (
), and this incited me to visit the latter, to get to know him closely. I also saw in his Jihad a different kind of Jihad. The South Afghanistan Mujahideen were waging a gangster war, where you can neither eliminate your enemy nor lose. That war did not follow a clear strategy, and that is why neither Sheikh Sayyaf, nor Hikmatyar, nor Haqani, nor Younes Khalis, and all the Peshawar-based factions were unable to take over a big city. These parties lived in mountains, valleys and small villages, and waged a hit-and-run war, where they would attack a place, and take spoils of war, before communists would attack in turn and kick them out, and so on. However, Massoud followed a different path. He waged an organized war, had an organized army and a clear strategy.
*Biographical note:
Dr. Mussa bin Muhammad bin Yahya al Qarni.
- Born in 1954 (1374 Hijra) in Jazan, Bish city
- Married with twelve children, six girls and six boys
- Obtained a Doctorate in Fiqh from al Qura University in Mecca
- A former co-professor in Usul al Fiqh at the Islamic University
- Former Dean of student affairs at the Islamic University
- Former head of the Usul el fiqh department in the Islamic University
- Former member of the scientific committee in the Islamic University.
- Former director of the Islamic University in Peshawar
- Founding member of the International Islamic Relief
- Former board member of the International Islamic Relief
- Member of the founding committee of the International Islamic
Teaching body
- Currently works in the legal field, and the Islamic legal consultations, after retirement. |
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