Shukhri Mustafa شكري مصطفى

Shukri Mustafa (1942-1987) was an agricultural engineer who became the leader and ideologue for a radical Islamic splinter group: Al Takfir wa Al Hijra التكفير و الهجرة.The name literally means "Declaring Apostacy and Immigration", and was not the official name, but rather a derogatory name derived from them attributing apostacy to all other Muslims, and them urging members to immigrate out of non-Islamic lands. The group adopted the name "Jama'at Al Muslimin جماعة المسلمين"  meaning "[The] Group of Muslims", emphasising that they are the only true Muslims. Although it started close to mainstream groups with an Islamic agenda, like the Muslim Brotherhood, they tried to take over a military academy in what is known as the Technical Military College Incident الفنية العسكرية.After being imprisoned, Shukri was radicalized, and adopted a extreme literal view of Sayyed Qutb's Milestones book. This lead them to the belief that they are the only Muslims, and that the rest of the Islamic world has been apostates for centuries because they refuse, are complicit in the failure to establish, or have simple apathy towards, enact a theocratic government.As a result, the group did not pray in mosques, but in their own homes, declared all marriages not done by them as invalid, banned any work in government, and had other extreme ideas and policies. The group kidnapped and killed Sheikh Al Dhahabi الذهبي , a respected mainstream Islamic scholar in 1977. Shortly afterwards, Shukri was captured, and executed. Remnants of this ideology persisted into the 1980s in Egypt, but waned off afterwards. It seems that a similar ideology, but no direct leadership influence or continuity, emerged in Algeria after the early 1990s elections, were Islamic parties were set to win, were cancelled by the military. A variant of this ideology that was present in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was al Tawaquf wa Al Tabayun التوقف و التبين which declared that other Muslims are neither Muslims nor apostates, but of unknown status.

• Detailed Biography of Shukri Mustafa.
• Wikipedia biography of Shukri Mustafa.
• Wikipedia article on Takfir wal Hijra.
• Background on the Takfir wa Al Hijara and Shukri Mustafa from a the Israeli Institute for Terrorism and Counter Terrorism.
• An article at Tufts University on the National Security Implications of Al Takfir wa Al Hijra (PDF).