Al Qaeda chief Zawahiri asks Muslims to unite over hijab controversy in India

Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri, in a video released on Tuesday, spoke on the hijab controversy in India and asked Muslims.

In the subcontinent to fight the perceived assault on Islam “intellectually, using the media and with weapons on the battlefield”.

Zawahiri’s reference to a contemporary issue has also confirmed that he is alive, contrary to suggestions that he had died of natural causes in 2020. Although, even after the unconfirmed reports of his death.

Al Qaeda had issued many videos of Zawahiri, in all of them he only spoke about historical conflicts and ideological issues casting a doubt on whether the videos were shot in the present time.

In an almost nine-minute video released by Al Qaeda mouthpiece As-Sahab media on Tuesday, Zawahiri showered praise on Muskan Khan, the Karnataka student who raised slogans of Allah-hu-Akbar after being heckled by a right-wing Hindu mob shouting slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” this February. Zawahiri said that her “defiant slogan of takbeer” as she challenged “a mob of Hindu polytheists” had “emboldened the spirit of Jihad” and had reawakened the Muslim community.

The video, in fact, starts with a clip of Khan taking on the mob, followed by Zawahiri’s address which for the entire duration of the video talks about just this issue. “She has unveiled the reality and unmasked the nature of the conflict between the chaste and pure Muslim Ummah and the degenerate and depraved polytheist and atheist enemies it confronts… May Allah reward her greatly for imparting a practical lesson to Muslim sisters plagued by an inferiority complex vis a vis the decadent Western World. May Allah reward her for exposing the reality of Hindu India and the deception of its pagan democracy,” Zawahiri said.

He said Khan’s video had inspired him to write a poem that he recited at the end of the video. “Her takbeer inspired me to write a few lines of poetry, in spite of the fact that I am not a poet. I hope that our honourable sister accepts this gift of words from me,” Zawahiri said.

The Indian security establishment has taken the development with a measure of concern. “While media outlets affiliated with these groups keep talking about Indian issues, Zawahiri devoting so much time on a single issue is a development that cannot be ignored. It shows Al Qaeda views India as a serious ground for recruitment and may channelize its resources with greater vigour for the same. A message of this kind from Zawahiri is likely to energise cadres and inspire those harbouring perception of persecution,” a senior security establishment officer said.

In a message to the Muslims in the subcontinent, Zawahiri said, “We must stop being deceived by the mirage of Hindu democracy of India, which to begin with, was never more than a tool to oppress Islam. We must realise that in this real world there is no such thing as ‘human rights’ or ‘respect for the constitution’ or law or other such nonsensical conjectural ideas.”

According to Zawahiri, it was exactly the same scheme of deception that the West had employed against Muslims, “the true nature of which was exposed by France, Holland, and Switzerland when they banned the Hijab while allowing public nudity”. “The enemies of Islam are one and the same, those fighting the hijab of Muslims in Egypt and Maghreb are the same opportunist thugs… writers, journalists, even hired turbans who vilify the hijab and the Islamic shariah. It’s a war on Islam, its core doctrines, its laws, ethics and etiquettes,” he said.

“Our Muslim Ummah in the Indian subcontinent, our battle today is a battle of awareness, a battle of discerning illusion from reality. We must understand that the way out is by holding on to our Shariah, uniting as a single Ummah, from China to Islamic Maghreb, and from the Caucasus to Somalia, a united Ummah waging a concerted war across several fronts. We must gather around sincere scholars and fight our war ideologically. Intellectually… using the media… and with weapons on the battlefield against the enemies of Islam,” he added.

He said the first step in this direction was raising awareness and revealing the facts. “We must realise that the governments imposed on us, specifically in Pakistan and Bangladesh, do not defend us, rather they defend the very enemies they have empowered them to fight against us,” he said.

Zawahiri also praised the “free media” for circulating the video of Muskan. “I call upon them to lay bare the injustice that is taking place, confront this oppression and spread the facts concerning the situation on the ground,” he said.

The hijab row has prominently figured in propaganda literature of some global terror groups. Last month, the propaganda outlets of both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda had the issue on their covers. IS-associated magazine Voice of Hind had carried a cover titled “The Daughters of the Companions” on the issue. Previously, AQIS had already talked about it in its latest issue of Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind, an Urdu magazine brought out by it.

In his earlier videos, Zawahiri has largely focused on Islam’s war against western powers and India has found only passing mentions. He has off and on spoken about Kashmir but never in detail or broached any particular issue referenced any incident.

Zawahiri’s last India-centric video was released in 2014 when he announced the formation of “Base of Jihad in the Indian Subcontinent” and said that it was a message that Al Qaeda had not forgotten its Muslim brothers in India. He said jihadists would break the borders of British India and asked for Muslims in the subcontinent to unite.

After the 9/11 attacks too Zawahiri had made mentions of Kashmir, asking Muslims to fight and once warned Muslims in Pakistan that then president Pervez Musharraf was going to hand them over to Hindus and flee the country.