Abdul Majeed al-Zindani (also: Abdelmajid al-Zendani, Abdul Majeed Zendani, Abd Al Majid Zandani; Arabic: عبد المجيد الزنداني ʿAbd al-Majīd az-Zindānī; born in 1942 in Ibb, Yemen)[1] has been described by Daniel Golden of the Wall Street Journal as "a charismatic Yemeni academic and politician."[2] and by CNN as "a provocative cleric with a flaming red beard".[3] A leading militant Islamist, he is the founder and head of the Iman University in Yemen, head of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood political movement and founder of the Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah, based in Saudi Arabia.[4]
Al-Zindani is one of the most politically powerful religious and political leaders in Yemen. He is revered by many one of the most prominent educators is the Islamic world. In the struggle against the Western powers, he has called for armed jihad agaisnt Israel, and to oppose any US troops who may be sent to Yemen to fight al-Qaeda. In 2004, he has been identified by the US Treasury Department as "Specially Designated Global Terrorist". He has close ties not only to Osama bin Laden as one of his spiritual leaders, but also with Anwar al-Awlaki who was vice president of Zindani's Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW). Awlaki later was found to have unexplained associations with the 9/11 attackers and the Fort Hood shootings, eventually being targeted and killed because of his threats and connections to attacks against the US. Zindani's name is also on the UN 1267 Committee's list of individuals belonging to or associated with al-Qaeda. His Al Iman University reportedly cultivates militant Islamists.
Nevertheless, he continues to receive support and protection from the government of Yemen. Sultan al-Barakani stated in 2007 "we don't have any evidence that Sheikh al-Zindani was involved with al-Qaeda" as the US government did not yet provide the Yemeni government with solid information proving any association with terrorism. In 2011, Zindani's became the first major radical Islamist voice to be added to the many in Yemen calling for democracy and the resignation of the president Saleh whose cooperation with the US in opposing al-Qaeda has made him unpopular with Islamist elements.
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Al-Zindani spent his early college years in Egypt, studied at Ain Shams University (first studying biology and chemistry, but then switching to Islamic studies) where he failed to get a degree, returned to Aden in 1966, went to Saudi Arabia in 1967 where he was a senior official in the Islamic Call Organization, and returned home in 1970 where he formed the Yemini Muslim Brotherhood and devoted his life to politics.[1]
Al-Zindani is the founder and president of the Iman University in Sanaa, Yemen. The institution was founded in 1995 with Yemeni government support. It also received foreign donations from the conservative Wahhabist heritage nations of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, receiving about 400 students annually.[4][5]
The US Treasury[6] statement that Zindani is loyal to bin Laden states that some students at Iman University have been arrested for political and religious murders. Some believe that the school's curriculum deals mostly, if not exclusively, with radical Islamic studies, and that it is an incubator of radicalism.[7][8] Students are suspected of having assassinated three American missionaries, and "the number two leader for the Yemeni Socialist Party", Jarallah Omar.[6] John Walker Lindh, now serving a 20-year prison sentence in connection with his participation in Afghanistan's Taliban army, is a former student of the university.[7][9]
Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who has taken classes and lectured at Iman University, has also been linked to al-Qaeda.[10]
The Sunday Times has established that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 suspected bomber who was arrested on Christmas Day 2009, attended lectures by al-Awlaki at the university in 2005.[11]
Al-Zindani is "a leading member" of Yemen's al-Islah Party, (the Yemeni Congregation for Reform), of whichTawakel Karman, who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, is also a member.
He approached the Saudi government's largest charity, the Muslim World League, in 1984 to establish a Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah, based in Saudi Arabia. He headed the Commission as secretary general until stepping down in 1995. Although he no longer has any official role with the Muslim World League, he is still invited to its events.
A criticism made of the commission is that in its enthusiasm to prove that evidence in favor of Qur'anic scientific miracles “is clear and obvious" and that "a group of eminent non-Muslim scholars in several fields” has testified to this,[12] the commission has spread misleading, out-of-context statements by several of these non-Muslim scholars.[13]
In 1984, a member of the commission, Mustafa Abdul Basit Ahmed, moved to the United States to recruit non-Muslim Western scientists to verify the miraculous signs of the Quran. However, in a 2002 story[13] in the American newspaper Wall Street Journal, several non-Muslim scientists spoke of questionable practices used by the commission to coax statements from them, such as hard-sell interviews by Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, and false promises to be “completely neutral.”
The commission drew the scientists to its conferences with first-class plane tickets for them and their wives, rooms at the best hotels, $1,000 honoraria, and banquets with Muslim leaders — such as a palace dinner in Islamabad with Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq shortly before he was killed in a plane crash. Ahmed also gave at least one scientist a crystal clock.[13]
Marine scientist William Hay complained of having fallen into a "trap" in interviews, while embryologist Gerald Goeringer claimed "mutual manipulation" between the scientists and conference organizers. Retired Geologist Professor Alfred Kröner of the Universität Mainz has a standard e-mail reply clarifying his "out of context" remarks during one of the conferences and has described the proceedings which resulted in his remarks being used by Muslim apologists. In a video-taped interview he clarified his situation and that he did not feel he was represented realistically and was quote-mined in the religion based video made by Muslim apologists.[14]
A further interview has been obtained with William W. Hay where he describes the events and explains how he was asked to answer purely hypothetical questions and it was from these answers that he was subsequently quote-mined and misrepresented.[15]
Al-Zindani gave a speech praising the quality of scientific and medical research carried out at the Iman University, claiming that they had successfully treated many cases of AIDS[16]. In 20 cases, al-Zandani said that the virus had vanished completely without any side effects, and he called on the UN, which "spends enormous amounts of money to fight the disease," to send "its senior scientists to review [the university's] findings.”
Dr. Jamil al-Mughales, the head of the Clinical Immunology Services of King Abdulaziz University, has disputed al-Zindani's results, saying he personally inspected blood tests, and contradicting al-Zindani's claims.[17] Al-Mughales said that if he were the Minister of Health, he would put al-Zindani in jail. “I hope that the mass media does not give him more press, because I think he has some hidden motives, because he is on the list of the terrorist lists,” he said.[18]
In July 2008, al-Zindani joined a panel of Islamic clerics and prominent tribal chiefs to announce the creation of a new morality authority. The Meeting for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice declared its intention to alert Yemen's police force to infringements of Islamic law. The declaration followed reports of vigilante activity by self-appointed 'morality guardians' in Hodeidah, Aden, and Sana'a.[19]
In 2006, Zindani pressed charges against 21 newspapers and their editors in Yemen for reprinting the controversial Muhammad cartoons, originally printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. On November 25, 2006, al-Zidani won the first case—against the newspaper Al-Rai Al-A'm--and the newspaper was ordered to cease printing for six months, and its editor was sentenced to one year of prison.
On February 24, 2004, the US Treasury Department identified Zindani as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist". The Department said it had credible evidence al-Zindani had a "long history of working with bin Laden, notably serving as one of his spiritual leaders", that he "served as a contact for Ansar al-Islam (Al), a Kurdish-based terrorist organization linked to al-Qaeda". Students of his Al Iman University were suspected of assassinating three American missionaries, and "the number two leader for the Yemeni Socialist Party, Jarallah Omar".[6] Zindani founded the Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW). Anwar al-Awlaki, who was at one time contacted by Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Malik Hasan, served as Vice President. During a 2004 terrorism trial in New York, FBI agent Brian Murphy testified that CSSW was a “front organization to funnel money to terrorists.”[20] Al Awlaki also took classes and lectured at Iman University, headed by Zindani. US intelligence agencies intercepted innocuous emails between Awlaki and the Fort Hood shootings suspect in 2008 and 2009, and Awlaki is currently sought by Yemen authorities for possible involvement in al-Quaida.[21] John Walker Lindh is also a former student of Iman University linked to terrorist groups.
Zindani's name subsequently appeared on the UN 1267 Committee's list[22] of individuals belonging to or associated with al-Qaeda. Among the factors offered to Guantanamo detainee Abdul Rahman Mohamed Saleh Naser's Administrative Review Board, justifying his continued extrajudicial detention, were:[23]
In mid-January 2010, Zindani said he would call for jihad in the event that US troops were sent to Yemen for the purpose of fighting al-Qaeda.[24]