Nizamuddin Shamzai

Nizamuddin Shamzai (also Nizam al-Din Shamzai, 12 July 1952 – 30 May 2004) was a pro-Taliban Pakistani Deobandi Sunni Islamic scholar and the senior professor of hadith at the Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia. He was considered "one of the most important Deobandi figures in Pakistan" and "one" of the "most revered Sunni clerics" in Pakistan. He was the mentor of Mullah Mohammed Omar, and his madrassa (known as Banuri Town), "taught many students who later became important members of the Taliban regime in Kabul". He issued religious edicts and travelled to elicit support for the Taliban, including a called for a “jihad” against the US after the Al-Qaeda September 11 attacks and US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Biography
Shamzai received his early education from his native town in Swat District. In the 1960s he migrated to Karachi to study at Jamia Darul Khair then he enrolled in Jamia Farooqia, Karachi. In the early 1990s, he got his Ph.D. degree from University of Sindh on Imam Bukhari's teachers.

Shamzai spent about 20 years teaching in Jamia Farooqia and joined Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia where he succeeded to become Shaykh al-Hadith in 1997. He had close relations with Bin Laden and Mullah Umar and was member of the clerical delegation which went to Afghanistan for a discussion about handing over of Bin Laden in September 2001. He was however, a spiritual advisor of Mullah Umar and had travelled globally to elicit Islamic support for Taliban. He was Chief Mufti of Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia and wrote books on jihad and issued fatwa's in favor of the Taliban.

Shamzai was shot dead by assassins on 31 March 2004 in Karachi. His killing instigated the ransacked of the Jamshed Quarters police station, burning of about "20 vehicles, two bank branches and a petrol station", and shooting and injuring of six people. Some "15,000 paramilitary soldiers and police were deployed" in Karachi to prevent further violence, and specifically to protect Shia Muslims.

His funeral prayer was led by Abdur Razzaq Iskander, and was attended by Akram Khan Durrani, former Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Fazal-ur-Rehman, President of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F). A September 2015 report from The Express Tribune says that alleged killer of Shamzai was arrested by Karachi police.

Views and legacy
According to Farhan Zahid, Shamzai's ideological influence over jihadi organisations in Pakistan and Afghanistan is "unremitting". His ideology and thoughts" It "produced a number of terrorist and extremist organisations. Until his death he "issued fatwas, held messianic and anti-Semitic views, glorified Al-Qaeda and the Taliban".

9/11, US, and jihad
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in the United States, Shamzai was quoted in an interview by the New York Times stating, "It is wrong to kill innocent people and it is also wrong to praise those who kill innocent people."

However, by October, Pakistan under President Musharraf, had allied itself with the American "War on terror". His government banned Pakistan paramilitary groups Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Muhammad, widely believed to be involved in sectarian killings. Shortly after, Shamzai issued a fatwa calling for Jihad against the US and Pakistani States.

"All those governments of the Muslim countries who side with America in this crusade, and putting on their disposal the land and resources, or sharing intelligence with them, are no more legitimate. It is a duty of every Muslim to bring these governments down, by any means possible'''." According to scholar Farhan Zahid, the fatwa meant "that violent jihad" was "obligatory for all Muslims", and "young able-bodied Muslim men" were required "to wage violent jihad against the US on behalf of Afghanistan and this required the killing of Americans, Jews, as well as attacking businesses and military installations." (Pakistan, of course, was one of the" governments of the Muslim countries who side with America".) Shamzai and his fatwa were, according to Zahid, "instrumental in galvanising anti-American protest movements in Pakistan after the 9/11" against the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 and in the thousands of Pakistanis who later "joined the Afghan Taliban". In one lecture he preached that "violent jihad was the only solution for numerous problems confronting the Muslim world."

Islam and Kul-eBandigi
In preaching theKul-eBandigi (devout following of Islam) concept, Shamzai emphasises Kasur, i.e. the mistake committed by too many in the Muslim community (ummah) of not participating in violent jihad in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Burma and elsewhere. Practicing the five pillars of Islam by praying salat, fasting during Ramadan, paying zakat and going on hajj pilgrimage was insufficient. Having "failed to fulfil its responsibilities", the Ummah was as a consequence "weak, defeated, humiliated, and enslaved".

Taliban and other Jihadi groups
Shamzai is thought to have convinced Mullah Umar to wage war against the United States of America. He "promoted the Afghan Taliban regime, their religious practices, enforcement of Sharia laws, treatment of women and minorities and legtimised their actions through his fatwas".

Shamzai was "the chief patron" of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar was Shamzai's "favorite student at Binori Town madrassa". Shamzai also "issued Fatwas in support of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM)", and leaders of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) "were his students". Shamzai "used his relations with the Grand Mufti Abd al-Aziz Ibn Baz of Saudi Arabia to get funding from the Saudi religious affairs ministry".

Bin Laden
Shamzai is described as having had "close relations" with Al Qaeda's founder, Osama Bin Laden, and is thought to have convinced Mullah Umar to reject the Americans’ demand for the handing over of Osama bin Laden. Representative of his feelings was a fatwa issued in 1998 (at the forum of Majlis-eTaawun Islami Pakistan i.e. Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, of which he was Emir and founder) "“If Sheikh Osama is Captured or Harmed, Jihad will Become Obligatory Against all Governments Involved in the Operation”"

Anti-Semitism
Shamzai "preached systematic anti-Semitism ... weaved within conspiracy theories" and is credited with being  a major contributor to the  growth of anti-Semitism in Pakistan by Zahid. In addition to hating Jews he also despised the anti-jihadi media as expressed in one statement: “Dawn the newspaper from Karachi, and others like The Frontier Post, The News International and other newspapers published in the country, are all part of Jewish media's conspiracy against Islam, jihad and madrassas.”

Books
Apart from contributing a weekly religious column to a daily, he wrote in several Islamic journal as well many books, including Zahoor-i-Imam Mehdi and exegeses of Sahih Bukhari and Jami` at-Tirmidhi.