Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif

Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, (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.

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.

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.

In Pakistan Sharif worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri 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."

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".

The "Guide" begins with the premise that jihad is the natural state of Islam.

Muslims must always be in conflict with nonbelievers, Fadl asserts, resorting to peace only in moments of abject weakness.

Because jihad is, above all, a religious exercise, there are divine rewards to be gained.

He who gives money for jihad will be compensated in Heaven, but not as much as the person who acts.

The greatest prize goes to the martyr.

Every able-bodied believer is obligated to engage in jihad, since most Muslim countries are ruled by infidels who must be forcibly removed, in order to bring about an Islamic state.

"The way to bring an end to the rulers' unbelief is armed rebellion," the "Guide" states.

Some Arab governments regarded the book as so dangerous that anyone caught with a copy was subject to arrest.

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.

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."

"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."

He has, as of 2007, recently attacked al-Qaeda and called for a stop to violent jihad activities both in Western and Muslim countries.

He is reported to have two wives, with four sons and two daughters between them.