Abdullah Yusuf Azzam was a highly influential Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian, who preached in favour of both defensive jihad and offensive jihad by Muslims to help the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet invaders.[3] He raised funds, recruited and organised the international Islamic volunteer effort of Afghan Arabs through the 1980s, and emphasised the political ascension of Islam. He is also known as a teacher and mentor of Osama bin Laden, and persuaded bin Laden to come to Afghanistan and help the jihad,[4] though the two differed as to where the next front in global jihad should be after the withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan.[5][6] He was also a co-founder of Hamas and Lashkar-e-Taiba.[7][8][9] He was killed by a car bomb blast on November 24, 1989Early life in the West Bank
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam was born in 1941 in the Palestinian village of Silat al-Harithiya, about eight kilometres northwest of the city of Jenin in the West Bank, then administered under the British Mandate for Palestine, which covered the two sectors of Palestine and Transjordan.[6][11][12]Azzam is described by most of his biographers as being exceptionally intelligent as a child. He liked to read, excelled in class, and studied topics above his grade level.[11][12]In the mid-1950s, Azzam joined the Muslim Brotherhood after being influenced by Shafiq Asad `Abd al-Hadi, an elderly local teacher who was a member of the Brotherhood. Recognizing Azzam's sharp mind, Shafiq Asad gave Azzam a religious education and introduced him to many of the Brotherhood's leaders in Palestine. Azzam became more interested in Islamic studies and started a study group in his village. Shafiq Asad then introduced Azzam to Muhammad `Abd ar-Rahman Khalifa, the Muraqib `Am (General Supervisor) of the Brotherhood in Jordan.
Khalifa met with and encouraged Azzam during several visits that he made to Silat al-Harithiya. During this part of his life, Azzam began reading the works of Hasan al-Banna and other Brotherhood writings.[11]In the late 1950s, after he had completed his elementary and secondary education, Azzam left Silat al-Harithiya and enrolled in the agricultural Khaduri College in Tulkarm, about 30 kilometres southwest of his village. Though he was a year younger than his classmates, he received good grades.[11][12]After graduation from the college, students were sent out to teach at local schools. Azzam was sent to the village of Adir, near the town of Kerak in central Jordan.[11][12] According to one of his biographers, Azzam had wanted a position closer to home, but was sent to a distant school after an argument with his college's dean.[11]After spending a year in Adir, Azzam returned to the West Bank, where he taught at a school in the village of Burqin, about four kilometers west of Jenin. His colleagues in Burqin remembered him as being noticeably more religious than them. During breaks, while others ate, Azzam would sit and read the Quran.[11]
Religious studies in Damascus
In 1963, Azzam enrolled in the Faculty of Sharia at the University of Damascus in Syria. While in Damascus, he met Islamic scholars and leaders including Shaykh Muhammad Adib Salih, Shaykh Sa`id Hawwa, Shaykh Muhammad Sa`id Ramadan al-Buti, Mullah Ramadan al-Buti, and Shaykh Marwan Hadid.[11]In 1964, Azzam's mentor, Shafiq Asad `Abd al-Hadi, died. This strengthened Azzam's determination in working for the cause of Islam. During the holidays, Azzam would return to his village, where he would teach and preach in the mosque.[11]Azzam graduated with highest honors in 1966, receiving a B.A. in Sharia (Islamic law). Thereafter he returned to the West Bank, where he taught and preached in the region around his village. After the 1967 Six-Day War ended in Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Azzam and his family left the West Bank and followed the Palestinian exodus to Jordan.[11][12]
Life in Jordan and Egypt
In Jordan, Azzam participated in paramilitary operations against the Israeli occupation but became disillusioned with the secular and provincial nature of the Palestinian resistance coalition held together under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and led by Yasser Arafat. Instead of pursuing the PLO’s Marxist-oriented national liberation struggle supported by the Soviet Union, Azzam envisioned a pan-Islamic trans-national movement that would transcend the political map of the Middle East drawn by non-Islamic colonial powers.[13] He is believed to have had a role in founding the Islamist Hamas movement in Palestine.[citation needed]
Azzam then went to Egypt to continue Islamic studies at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University where he earned a Master’s degree in Sharia. He returned to teach at the University of Jordan in Amman. In 1971, Azzam received a scholarship to once again attend Al-Azhar University where he obtained his Ph.D. in the Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence (Usool ul-Fiqh) in 1973. During theological studies in Egypt, Azzam met Omar Abdel-Rahman, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and other followers of Sayyed Qutb, an extremely influential leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, who had been executed by President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966.[citation needed] Azzam adopted elements of Sayyed Qutb’s ideology, including beliefs in an inevitable “clash of civilizations” between the Islamic world and non-Islamic world, and in the necessity of violent revolution against secular governments to establish an Islamic state.[citation needed]
Life in Saudi Arabia
After obtaining his Doctorate in Egypt in 1973, Azzam returned to teach at the University of Jordan, but his radical views were suppressed there.[citation needed] So Azzam then moved to Saudi Arabia. Since the 1960s, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia had welcomed exiled teachers from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan,[citation needed] so that by the early 1970s it was common to find many Saudi high school and university teachers who had become involved with exiled dissident members of the Muslim Brotherhood.[citation needed]Azzam took a position as lecturer at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he remained until 1979. Osama bin Laden had grown up in Jeddah, and was enrolled as a student in the university there between 1976 and 1981 and he probably first made contact with Azzam at that time.[14]
Life in Pakistan and Afghanistan
1979 became a pivotal year for Islamic movement[disambiguation needed], with three huge revolutionary events in the Muslim world. First, on 16 January 1979 the Iranian Revolution succeed in taking over the country and exiling the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which then brought about the world's first modern Muslim theocracy under the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The second major attempt at Islamic revolution that year was the 20 November 1979 Grand Mosque Seizure at Mecca, in western Saudi Arabia, the holiest site in Islam. The two-week siege and bloody ending shocked the Muslim world, as hundreds were killed in the ensuing battles and executions. The event was explained as a fundamentalist dissident revolt against the Saudi regime. The Saudi regime responded with repression, and in 1979, Azzam was expelled from the university at Jeddah. He then moved to Pakistan to be close to the nascent Afghan Jihad.[citation needed]In the third major event of the year, on 25 December 1979 the Soviet Union, attempting to suppress a growing Islamic rebellion, deployed the 40th Army into Afghanistan, in support of advisors it already had in place..[10]
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