Sayed Imam El-Sherif wrote a letter to his many friends last month, telling them that they really should find a better way of working out their differences than throwing punches. Doesn’t sound like the stuff national news is made of, does it?

It is when you remember that El-Sherif is better known by his nom de guerre: Dr. Fadl, the infamous founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al-Jihad, EIJ). His letter, written from his prison cell southwest of Cairo, called on Islamist and jihadi groups around the world to cease violent operations, bluntly declaring, “We are prohibited [by God] from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do so.”

It was a radical departure for a hardline ideologue who wrote immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that, “As long as America is an infidel nation, terrorizing it is a duty.”

Arrested in Yemen in 2001, El-Sherif was transferred to Egypt in 2004 and is serving a life sentence for his role in multiple terror attacks here and abroad.

The letter has grabbed the attention of Islamists around the world. El-Sherif, 57 and a physician by training, is the most important thinker in the modern history of the violent Islamist movement. The founder of Al-Jihad, he was a combatant in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the best friend of Ayman Al-Zawahiri (now second in command of Al-Qaeda). Hardliners from EIJ led by Al-Zawahiri and El-Sherif merged the organization with Al-Qaeda some time between 1999 and 2000.

El-Sherif was the primary influence on Al-Qaeda’s jihadist ideology: His book book Al-Omda fi Edad El-Edda (Basic Principles of Preparation for Jihad) is nothing less than the manifesto of jihadist Islam.

Khaled Habib Former EIJ member Kamal Habib: “I believe these [Jihad] reviews will eat away at Al-Qaeda’s intellectual ground and will open intellectual debate within it.”

Combatants and anti-terror operatives alike are looking forward to his next piece of writing. Expected to be released some time in the next month, the document will formally renounce violence and is expected to be signed by hundreds of imprisoned and detained jihadis.

Last month’s news was the outcome of a process called “the reviews” in which El-Sherif — a longtime opponent of moderation —led the jihadis through a re-examination of the theological underpinnings of their commitment to violence.

The process threatens what hard-line conservatives see as the theological legitimacy of violent jihad.

The Jihad reviews trace their lineage back to a handful of imprisoned militants from one-time rival group Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyya. The precursors of Al-Qaeda, Al-Jama’a and Al-Jihad were responsible for the terrible insurgency in Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s. Al-Jama’a operatives assassinated President Anwar Sadat and fighters from the two groups battled security forces, attacked politicians and killed thousands of Egyptians and foreigners throughout the 1990s. The violent insurrection culminated in the 1997 Luxor massacre that claimed the lives of 62 people, 58 of them foreign tourists. In the crackdown that ensued, State Security broke the back of the insurgency, rolling up Al-Jama’a first, then Al-Jihad. Minister of Interior Habib El-Adly won his current post for his high-profile role in ending the insurgency.

After the Luxor attacks, imprisoned members of Al-Jama’a agreed to sit with their former pursuers to discuss their organization’s tactics. Carefully managed by Egypt’s intelligence apparatus, discussions turned into a theological review that resulted in the group declaring in 1997-98 that it had abandoned violence as a means of regime change.

Nabil al-Jurani Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al-Jama'a Al-Islamiyya are considered the precursors of Al-Qaeda, which is fostering the militant movement in Iraq and Afghanistan and serving as inspiration to violent Islamists around the world.

Despite the significance of El-Sherif’s May declaration — or the “non-violence initiative,” as local media has taken to calling it —skeptics allege that the jihadis are repenting only to buy their way out of prison.

Those skeptics misunderstand the core of jihadi Islam: A mujahid is willing to give his life for his principles, as he believes that Paradise awaits him the moment he dies in this life. Nothing short of a change in core beliefs would influence a jihadi to renounce violence, say indsiders.

According to former EIJ member Kamal Habib, now a prominent writer on Islamist movements, the Islamic Jihad review marks a mammoth change in the very core of Al-Jihad’s beliefs. Habib was imprisoned in the 1980s and embraced nonviolence in the early 1990s, several years before his release after nearly a decade behind bars.

Diaa Rashwan, an analyst with Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and one of the world’s top experts on jihad and political Islam, could not agree more. Like Habib, he cites Al-Jama’a’s reviews, which led to tens of thousands of former Al-Jama’a members and supporters embracing peaceful political participation.

“Today, you can see members of Al-Jama’a arguing with Salafiyyin [Wahhabis] in mosques about making it easier for people to pray,” Rashwan says. The reviews, Rashwan believes, have protected Egypt from infiltration by groups such as Al-Qaeda, and he points out that Al-Jihad’s declarations need to be taken at face value. They could, he says, change the very core of jihadist Islam around the world.

Ashraf Talaat Al-Ahram Center analyst Diaa Rashwan: “Society[should] accept the reviews in the spirit they were offered.”

Senior Writer Manal el-Jesri spoke with Habib and Rashwan about El-Sherif’s letter just days after it was released. Edited excerpts:

When Dr. Sayyed Imam El-Sherif became involved in the reviews, it was a surprise to many. It gave the initiative a lot of credibility, because he is a great intellectual symbol, and the reviews, in essence, are intellectual and fiqhi [an adjective meaning “regarding Islamic jurisprudence”]. The intellectual-fiqhi dialogue needs an intellectual figure to guide it; El-Sherif has lent weight to the reviews and has unified the different Al-Jihad groups.

These reviews are both similar to and different from the reviews of Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyya. Al-Jama’a’s very public and very courageous reviews opened the door for Al-Jihad to start reviewing their own stance, but they are different, primarily because the make-up of Al-Jama’a and Al-Jihad are different. Al-Jihad groups are closed, while Al-Jama’a is an open organization — it started out as a student group.

Al-Jihad is a secret group made up of compartmentalized cells. People in one Jihad cell did not know those in others. It had diversity in its thought and inclinations. Al-Jama’a was a hierarchical group with one leader and a patrilineal, spiritual cast where all people were channeled toward one aim. In Al-Jihad, most members belong to the same age group and there was no clear leader.

Even Aboud El-Zumor [the man who organized the assassination of Sadat] moved from Al-Jihad to Al-Jama’a and was undecided between them.

Of course the reviews are similar in their most basic lines, such as the condemnation of the murder of civilians and tourists, the idea of not condemning the population [of so-called infidel states] and possibly, the stance regarding non-Muslims.

El-Sherif was a member of the Al-Jihad group, which also included Ayman El-Zawahiri, Essam El-Qamari and Nabil El-Borai, among others. He went through a kind of intellectual dilemma, especially in his book Al-Jame’ fi Talab Al-Elm Al-Sharif. In his first book, Al-Omda, he embraced traditional fiqh. True, it was fiqh in a state of jihad, but it kept to the mainstream fiqh. In Talab Al-Elm, he started diverging from this fiqh, which meant he was going through a crisis. He declared the leaders of the sects apostates, he was very severe with his own organization —Al-Jihad — especially when it re-printed his book, but left out some ideas. It was obvious that he was trying to find himself a way out of his intellectual crisis. This shows that there has always been a possibility for intellectual reviews.

El-Sherif started out with the mainstream, deviated, and now he is going back to his original stance. Faqihs like Al-Shafei, Abu Hanbal — thinkers in the different schools of thought regarding Islamic jurisprudence — and others did not condemn their own people, but tried to bring true Islam back to life.

Shariah accepts such reviews, so long as the ijtihad [quest for knowledge or interpretation] does not touch the basic core of Shariah. The door of review must always be open because this is fiqh with real-life impacts — people can be killed because of it. A group may launch a jihadi operation that could lead to the death of innocents, and this is a very sensitive issue for them. Intellectually, they believe it is not acceptable to harm or kill a Muslim — or even judge them as being apostates. I am talking to you about the psychological processes that take place.

When Parliamentary Speaker Rifaat El-Mahgoub was assassinated in 1990, the photos of murdered guards, the bloodiness, were published in Al-Ahram. You are looking at a group that manipulated people’s destinies — they did more than just talk in closed rooms.

In the 1990s, the violent operations on both sides escalated, blood was spilt on both sides and more than 1,000 people were killed. This is a huge figure for Egypt, which had experienced very little violence. In 1964, only five people were killed and in 1965 only five people were killed. In addition to the killings of the 1990s, over 100 Islamists were sentenced to death. This extremely violent scene seemed pointless. Since 1994, Al-Jihad proclaimed it would cease operations inside Egypt. The attempted assassination operations of former Interior Minister Hassan El-Alfi and ex-Prime Minister Atef Sidqi were very violent and brutal.

The Islamic groups are trying to stop fitna [strife between Muslims] in reviewing the issue of violence against regimes that do not abide by Shariah. They do not have the means to conclude this conflict. The unity of the ummah [the Islamic world] becomes of the utmost importance. For the members of these groups, the idea is that God does not ask you to do anything which you are not capable of. Since they cannot enforce Shariah, then, they are no longer asked to try to do so.

The original ideas were too idealistic and, as a result, not practical.

We are looking at a completely new phenomenon. Old questions no longer apply or will just seem wrong. In the past, aqeeda [belief] was the most important element of these groups’ thought— even more important than fiqh. Today, they have discovered that the basic principle, that of going against a ruler, is an issue of fiqh rather than one of belief. Different thinkers saw it differently. Some thinkers in the past had pointed out that all cases of conflict between Muslims have failed.

Al-Jihad and Jama’a thinkers have started to see that a mujahid is not a perfect human being. You must take human weakness into account. Of course, they have spent years in prison in which they have been open to different books and schools of thought. In the past, all their books were Salafi or reactionary.

I believe these reviews will eat away at Al-Qaeda’s intellectual ground and will open intellectual debate within it. This is a major and primary development, one that requires time and an epistemological approach to work through its ramifications.

There are currently thousands of Al-Jihad members in the nation’s prisons. Some estimate there are 3,000, but I believe there are no less than 6,000, in addition to 3,000 Salafiyyin [Wahhabis]. This means there are 7,000 to 9,000 in jails. Over 95 percent of them are detainees, they have not been to trial. They have been there for years. They must be released, and their release must not be seen as a barter deal. Their new intellectual reviews must be respected.

They have reached this stance on their own, despite the pressures. The moral thing to do is to endorse these reviews without coercion. State Security must not push them too hard, but rather wait for them to be ready to join the initiative. It is a matter of national security, in view of the widespread influence of Al-Qaeda all over the world. State Security is trying to get all the answers and resolve all the issues before the people are released.

Once they are out, I believe they will fall out with the group. As I said before, there is a lot of diversity in the make-up of Al-Jihad. There will be a wide gap between El-Sherif and the younger generations. If things change [in the country], some people may want to become active in public life. But as I see it, Al-Jihad will cease to exist as a unified entity.

As this magazine went to press, the Interior Ministry quietly confirmed that it had released 135 members of Al-Jihad and Al-Jama’a — some of whom had been in prison for nearly a decade — citing their positive participation in the review process.

It is vital to truly understand the definition of — and distinction between — the different Islamist movements. I have adopted a slightly different break-down for the past 15 years.

I believe Islamist movements can be divided into two really big groups: The first are those I term “Religious Islamist Movements” with an aqeeda inclination. The second are those I call “Socio-Political Movements” with a Tashri’i [pertaining to divine law] inclination.

The first group sees that the most basic problem in people’s lives is their aqeeda. They think this problem stems from the rulers and, in more extreme groups, to everyone in society. As a result, they believe they need to bring people back to aqeeda. But all these aqeedi movements believe that the responsibility ends at the ruler.

Jihadi and Takfiri [those that declare all society to be in a state of apostasy] groups that fall under this first distinction are different as well. The jihadi groups believe we live in a time that is similar to the time of Al-Madina [the city to which the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) migrated to]. They believe that Muslims are not weak. Jihad has been approved, and they believe it to be a Divine order. More extreme groups, the Takfiri groups, believe we live in a time that is closer to the time of Mecca [at the dawn of Islam], so Muslims need to live in seclusion and abandon society either physically or spiritually.

Some believe these Takfiri groups are violent, but they are not. They do not adopt jihad, and they were two or three times more numerous than jihadi groups.

Socio-political groups on the other hand see nothing wrong in aqeeda and they seek to reorganize society, searching for the better Islamic society. They do not declare the ruler or society apostates, but move politically and socially. For them, aqeeda is not something to spend too much time pondering.

What concerns us here are the reviews of the jihadi groups, which mark a total transformation from the [violent] aqeedi camp into a [non-violent] socio-political one. It is not just a review of one or two points, but a complete transformation from one camp into the other. This is completely in accordance with Islamic history, in which aqeedi movements have appeared and disappeared. They have always been short-lived. When Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyya first came out with their initiative in ‘97, I saw it as a huge metamorphosis, especially that they spoke about a complete halt on violent operations both locally and then internationally.

Skeptics and scholars who did not see the importance of the ‘97 initiative do not understand the psyche of the jihadi. The mujahid does not compromise where his religion is concerned. Never. So how about these jihadis who have been tortured, whose friends have been killed and who have been in jail for 16 years? Nothing but a fundamental change in belief would make them budge. The determining factor for me was when Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman [currently imprisoned in the US for conspiring to bomb the World Trade Center] approved the initiative. He is sick, old, and a true prisoner of a true apostate, yet he approved. That makes it real.

Al-Jihad had some earlier initiatives, too. In 1992, Dr. Kamal Habib decided that because the group lacked the ability to make change, he would halt his participation in violent operations. Some figures from Al-Jihad joined the Jama’a’s initiative in ‘97.

I have always wondered at those who doubt the reviews. If this is not a profound change, how will these leaders face their own people, thousands of whom are jailed with them?

Moderation —wasatiyya —is the norm in Islam. If it were not, Islam would have never left the Arabian Peninsula. It spread because it changed to fit the societies that embraced it. The Egyptian Jihadi Islam, which we have seen since 1973-74, is unprecedented in the history of Islam. The colonialism grafted onto the Islamic world from the nineteenth century was not met with the salafi extremism that the Americans have met with in Iraq.

Jihadi Islam has spread to many Islamic countries, but none have witnessed the reviews we are witnessing today. I see the young men from Al-Jama’a coming out of prisons completely consumed by the new thought.

It is strange that the Western media is not trying to report this. I receive tens of foreign journalists, and since ‘97, only 1 percent of them have asked me about the reviews. When Sayyed Imam El-Sherif released his statement, most of the Egyptian papers did not know how to write his name. Then again, before 9/11 very few people knew Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

Al-Jihad’s turn away from violence is most important. They are the source of violent thought. Al-Jama’a used El-Sherif’s books during its formation. Al-Jihad’s operations have all been big operations, including the first suicide mission in Egypt [against El-Alfi]. They issued the suicidal attack fatwas. The concept of jihad was born in Egypt and then spread to the world. El-Sherif was the first faqih of the jihadi movement. He is why most of the members of Al-Jihad who are not in prisons are wanted by the United States.

The implications of El-Sherif’s letter will be more apparent once Al-Zawahiri responds. He is bound to respond — they built Al-Jihad together, and El-Sherif’s reviews, endorsed by hundreds of high-profile members, will shake Al-Qaeda and the jihadis outside Egypt. This is the most important transformation since the beginning of international jihad: The extremists belonging to the school of thought have gone back and criticized their own ideas.

And it is coming out of Egypt— the Egyptians who helped build Al-Qaeda are now criticizing it. They made a mistake, which they are now trying to put right. The important thing is for society to accept the reviews in the same spirit that they were offered. It must realize that at a time in which Al-Qaeda is trying to infiltrate the whole world, this group [the reviewers] has helped protect Egypt.

The question now is how to deal with these prisoners once they are released. We are talking about human rights here. Most of them have not been sentenced and are innocent in the eyes of the law. They have wasted their lives in prisons, have lost most of their belongings, and it is our duty to help them rejoin society. The government, civil society and the business community need to help them. They have either received degrees or have been trained to do manual jobs in prison. The least we can do is offer them jobs — to protect them, sure, but to protect us, too.

I have no fear that they will turn back to jihad, but a person with no means of support and no hope can turn into a criminal. They must be made to feel that they are part of us.

Since el-Jesri’s interviews with Habib and Rashwan, Al-Qaeda has responded. On Thursday, May 24, as this magazine went to press, Al-Jazeera aired a video of Egyptian Mustafa Abul Yazid presenting himself as the new leader of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Abul Yazid, a former member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, said Al-Qaeda fighters were planning to carry out attacks soon. He also pointed out that the group’s Arab fighters are fighting side-by-side with its non-Arab fighters.

He also pledged allegiance to the two “emirs” — Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri — praying that they may remain thorns in the side of George Bush. et