Ahmad al-Sharaa’s recent visit to Washington, where he met with President Trump, constitutes the first visit by a Syrian leader to the White House. Coinciding with the build-up to the visit, which was focused in part on counter-terrorism cooperation against the Islamic State, Syria’s internal security forces launched a widespread security campaign targeting suspected Islamic State cells in territory under central government control.
I myself observed this mobilisation on the roads and how security measures appear to have been tightened at the checkpoint entrance to the north Aleppo Twelver Shia village of Nubl, for example. Although I received an invitation via a contact to cover part of this security campaign, the logistics did not work out.
The editorial compares him to numerous historical figures deemed traitors to the cause of Islam/monotheism.
Unsurprisingly, the Islamic State has made Sharaa’s visit to Washington the subject of its editorial this week in the al-Naba’ newspaper. The editorial brands him as among the foremost examples of treachery against Islam, eager to make sacrifices and concessions to the U.S. and Israel for the sake of power. The editorial compares him to numerous historical figures deemed traitors to the cause of Islam/monotheism: namely, Samari (who reputedly made the golden calf that the Israelites worshipped), Belaam (who reputedly misused God’s signs), Abu Righal (who purportedly acted as a guide for the Abyssinians in a failed assault on Mecca prior to Prophet Muhammad’s birth), Ibn al-Alqami (a Shia advisor to the last Abbasid caliph who reputedly helped the Mongols capture Baghdad) and Ataturk (the founder of the modern Turkish republic). In fact, the editorial argues, Sharaa surpasses all these figures in his betrayal of Islam.
The editorial also makes reference to Sharaa playing basketball with U.S. military officials but argues that he has not yet achieved his full goal of legitimacy, and will probably have to make even more concessions to the U.S. and Israel. Finally, as is typical, the Islamic State uses the occasion to affirm the supposed correctness of its worldview and doctrine, calling on fighters in Syria who have sided with Sharaa to repent and realise the truth and urging Muslims more generally to learn the lesson from how Sharaa transformed from being a wanted terrorist into a member of the ‘Crusader alliance’ (i.e. the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State).
Below is the editorial fully translated by me with my annotations.
Ataturk in Washington!
On the anniversary of the death of Ataturk (the servant of the Jews and Christians), Jowlani met with the American Taghut[i] in an official visit to Washington, the capital of evil, for the purpose of coordinating in the war on terrorism and protecting American-Jewish interests. These are the same goals Ataturk wasted his life achieving. How much today resembles yesterday!
Throughout history, Abu Righal has been a symbol of betrayal among the Arabs, such that they stoned his grave after he volunteered to be a guide for Abraha’s Abyssinian army, leading them to Mecca so that they could destroy the noble Kaaba! His descendants today are just like him, the Crusader Alliance army’s lowly guides towards the Muslim’s sacrosanct rights.[ii]
On the anniversary of the death of Ataturk (the servant of the Jews and Christians), Jowlani met with the American Taghut in an official visit to Washington, the capital of evil.
It is as though Jowlani was not content with rearing the Franks’ pigs,[iii] such that he led their foolhardy elephants to the Muslims’ abodes, just like Abu Righal! He has done his utmost to destroy their caliphate, following in Ataturk’s footsteps! Like Ibn al-Alqami, he has handed over Damascus to the Crusaders and the Jews. It is as though the deposits of betrayal have been gathered in him such that he has surpassed its symbols in the past and present, and has brought their course of action together in one go. Truly he is a traitor in the language of the Arabs and the non-Arabs: in fact, the Muhit dictionary[iv] of betrayal.
Jowlani’s visit to Washington came ‘after intense preparations that lasted for months’, and at the end of a busy year in which he offered a number of sacrifices to the international system, culminating in this ‘historic visit.’
Even before he met Trump, Jowlani met with a number of American officials, as though in every side meeting he was offering more sacrifices to achieve the greatest favour in Trump’s eyes. It is as though we are before a live scene of worship of the Taghut and idols. The jurists of our age were making examples of this practice to bring them closer to people’s minds, but Jowlani has spared them of the need for doing so and embodied it for them in its entirety. He has also shown them that Samiri, Belaam, Abu Righal and Ibn al-Alqami and even Ataturk have all returned again, as though their evil spirits have filled his accursed body, as believed by his ‘Batini[v] partners’ in the new Syria.
One should note that before each new betrayal he commits against Islam, the Taghut Jowlani appears in a loathsome propaganda clip where he is playing some sport in order to show how he is scoring more goals in his political career. The most recent of these displays was with the ‘US Central Command.’ So consider, in the net of which adversary will they score goals? And for the interest of which team will they play?!
The Jewish aircraft brought down the Iranian regime in Syria, and Turkey offered Jowlani as an alternative to it with an American green light, so that the new Syria could be incorporated into the Western camp in opposition and the Iranian camp could be contained. This was explicitly stated by the U.S. Foreign Minister, who said: ‘Syria’s transformation from affiliation with Iran to a state cooperating in counter-terrorism is considered a huge development.’
This huge development would not have come to fruition had it not been for the efforts of Turkey: ‘the West’s arm in the region’ as described by Jowlani in one of his old traditional speeches, before he himself literally ended up becoming the West’s arm.
For the man has been an international spy for the Crusader coalition for years, during which he has proved his earnestness and shown his loyalty to his masters through shedding the blood of the best of the mujahidin.
In a prudent political reading of the scene, America has ‘lifted’ the sanctions on Jowlani himself while sticking to ‘suspending them’ for the Syrian economy. It permitted him to visit its ‘White House’ but it made him enter from the back door, far removed from the main lights and atmosphere. It imposed an official muzzle regarding what happened, while it allowed some of its directed outlets to carefully burn what it wants. All this means that the ‘legitimacy’ that Jowlani pants for is still ‘deficient’, requiring more sacrifices at the American altars, and even more at the Jewish altars.
In reality, the shy announcement of the Jowlani regime’s joining of the Crusader coalition so that it can become ‘partner no. 90’ is merely a public declaration of a step that he began secretly. For the man has been an international spy for the Crusader coalition for years, during which he has proved his earnestness and shown his loyalty to his masters through shedding the blood of the best of the mujahidin.
The Taghut Jowlani’s visit to Washington was also accompanied by a propaganda security campaign conducted by his apostate forces on the ground, which arrested all suspected of links to the mujahidin. This coincided with other campaigns launched by the Jewish army in southern Syria, without the forces of ‘The Conqueror’ lifting a finger, because their rifles are pointed in one direction only!
People have seen with their eyes what the Islamic State told them about regarding Jowlani’s fight against the mujahidin under the protection of the Crusader coalition, in the latest expressions of the deep ‘American-British’ experiment to assimilate the jihadists. This is the first time that apostate ‘jihadists’ have been fighting directly under the orders of ‘US Central Command’! So behold the truth in where it has placed them, and you will recognise their true position.
In this context, we remind you of the speeches and pieces of advice given by the Islamic State’s leaders, who died on this path and did not alter or change anything, and bore the banner of jihad as it should have been borne, and made clear to everyone the truth of these commissions and groups that conspire against it while taking cover behind their names.
This advice and this call cost them their lives, which they expended to support the truth and out of compassion for the Ummah and its generations that are being successively burned in failed national projects. They advised the Ummah with their blood and called it to salvation through their corpses, and they were truly messengers who conveyed the message and lamps of guidance in this pitch darkness. We reckon them as such and God is their reckoner.
The Taghut Jowlani’s visit to Washington was also accompanied by a propaganda security campaign conducted by his apostate forces on the ground, which arrested all suspected of links to the mujahidin.
In order to complete their efforts and revive their call, we again address the fighters in al-Sham who separated from the group in order to please Jowlani, and have opposed the Islamic State’s project for the sake of his Jahili project. We say to them: the banner of jihad that the Islamic State raised is still pure and clean just as it was born. It has not been contaminated with what these blind and Jahili banners around you have been contaminated with. Seek refuge in it and make its strength grow, and rally around it before it’s too late and you repeat the mistake twice!
In conclusion, this is a reminder to the Muslim masses in every place: ask God to grant you steadfastness and loyalty to the faith. For the lesson always lies in the outcomes. Then consider and ponder at length Jowlani’s story: how he changed his religion and altered his aspect, such that he moved from the ‘terrorism blacklists’ to becoming a soldier in the Crusader campaign against Islam! It is as though Imam Ibn al-Qayyim[vi] is looking at Jowlani and his gang from a window of insight that penetrates the veil of time, describing them as follows: ‘They started out in the wilderness while riding faith, but when they saw how long the path was and how hard it would be, they gave up and turned back...so what will they be like when they meet the Lord? They have known the path and then rejected it, and they have become blind after they saw the truth and understood: ‘For they believed and then they disbelieved, and so a seal was set on their hearts, so they do not understand.’[vii]‘
[i] An idolatrous tyrant.
[ii] In the sense of allowing the non-Muslims to violate Muslims’ inviolable rights to life, honour and property.
[iii] cf. This prior editorial from Islamic State.
[iv] An Arabic dictionary.
[v] Referring to minority sects in Syria that espouse belief in transmigration of souls, such as Druze and Alawites.
[vi] A Syrian Islamic medieval scholar and student of Ibn Taymiyyah.
[vii] A quote from the Qur’an.
