Shukri Mustafa

Shukri Mustafa ( _ar. شكري مصطفى) was an agricultural engineer who would rise to lead the extremist Islamist group 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 various radical thinkers. After being released in 1971 he became involved in increasing the power of the new radical group Takfir wal-Hijra. Elements of the group's history are uncertain so he has at times stated to have just been their founder.

While imprisoned at Tura Liman in the late 1960s, during the Egyptian state's brutal campaign of torture against the Muslim Brothers, Mustafa's reading of the recently executed Qutb's works led him to believe that most Egyptians were no longer truly Muslims, but had become apostates by their failure to struggle against the state. A number of important Muslim Brothers have accused Mustafa of pioneering this ideology--which is known as Takfir, and is rejected by most thinkers since it often leads to extreme violence. ['Ashur, Mustafa, Shihadat Ahmad Abd al-Majid min Tanthim 65: Sayyid Qutb, Takfir wa al-'Unf (The Testimony of Ahmad Abd al Majid of the 1965 Organization: Sayyid Qutb, Takfir and Violence), Islam Online, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=ArticleA_C&cid=1173695082221&pagename=Zone-Arabic-Shariah%2FSRALayout] The new ideology initially made the group which coalesced around Mustafa separatist but not violent. They settled in Upper Egyptian caves or communes to wait for the final battle with the forces of evil. The controversy at this point revolved around his members cutting off contact with their families. This caused several lawsuits from family members of women who joined. They felt Shukri was in essence seducing their daughters, or in some cases wives, from them and thus negating Egyptian views of family. This idea of him as seductive or aberrant was heightened by the fact that he declared the power to reshuffle marriages of those in the group and deemed himself to be like a mahdi. Also some deemed his thinking to be like that of Kharijism.

The situation changed in 1977 as the group became horrified by hints of Anwar Sadat making initial overtures at peace with Israel. Soon after that Mustafa abandoned the idea of postponing "the battle" until an undetermined future. By the fall of that year the group had kidnapped and murdered a mainstream Muslim cleric. They had also become increasingly threatening in their rhetoric. The authorities responded and by 1978 Shukri had been captured and executed.

ources

*Kepel, Giles. pages 83-85.

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