If it wasn’t for ISIS, who would have known Turki al-Binali?

We will try to get out of the context of the two previous articles for a while, not completely, as we are still talking about the problematic individuals.

However, our persona today, is a contemporary one who was killed a few days ago in a raid on the city of Raqqa, the base of the illusive caliphate of Ibrahim Awad al-Badri, known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

We will talk about a young Bahraini man from a well-known family: Al-Binali. The man we are discussing today is Turki al-Binali (34 years), who was killed recently.

He is from Muharraq. He pursued his elementary and complimentary education in Bahrain and then continued his studies at the religious schools of Sharjah and Beirut. He was a quick-tempered and problematic young man. Since his childhood, he was an extremist boy who was programmed to be fanatic.

It is clear that Turkey had many high aspirations that were not limited to his capabilities, and this is what led to his demise.

Here is an important issue that has been discussed previously in the history of the Kharijis at the early beginnings of Islam: these rebellious groups slandering all traditions, allow the dangerous ambitious postulants to go through a shortcut to reach leadership, rather than waiting in the usual social, political and scientific rehabilitation queue.

The deadly temptation

It seems that ISIS and before it, al-Qaeda, had these means of temptation, otherwise, without ISIS and al-Qaeda, who would have known an Iraqi mullah called Ibrahim Awad al-Badri, a Jordanian preacher called Issam Barqawi (Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi), an ordinary Saudi young man like Saleh al-Awfi, or a Bahraini teacher like Turki al-Binali?

Turki has become an important leader for ISIS; he was a legitimate preacher in Syria and Libya; he deployed all efforts and energy to support Baghdadi. He advocated his legitimacy in his famous letter “extending hands for allegiance to Baghdadi”. And for Baghdadi’s sake, he accused Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, who was the teacher of all these extremists, of non-belief.

However, every extremist will find someone who is more radical than him, even if it takes him time. Imagine that there is a group within ISIS that believes that Baghdadi is tolerant and accuse him of being apostate from Islam!

In February 2015, the Bahraini Ministry of Interior revoked his nationality after joining ISIS. The justification was that they did so to maintain security and stability in the country and combat terrorist threats.

Turki’s story shows a greater tragedy: the demand for the Gulf members in terrorist groups, especially from the Arabian Peninsula, the land of the Sahaba, in order to add to their symbolic tools of legitimacy, as we have seen in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

A character like Turki al-Binali deserves to be analyzed and studied so that we can stop the emergence of similar extremists.

The article was first published in Asharq Al-Awsat.
___________________
Saudi journalist Mshari Al Thaydi @MAlthaydy presents Al Arabiya News Channel’s “views on the news” daily show “Maraya.” He has previously held the position of a managing senior editor for Saudi Arabia & Gulf region at pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. Al Thaydi has published several papers on political Islam and social history of Saudi Arabia. He appears as a guest on several radio and television programs to discuss the ideologies of extremist groups and terrorists.