Analysis Abdelmajeed al-Zindani: The Demise of Political Islam’s Leading Figure in Yemen

With a long flaming red beard, distinctive square face, unconventional white turban, and a voice that was immediately recognizable – Abdelmajeed al-Zindani was perhaps the most famous political-religious figure in Yemen of the past 50 years, a controversial persona who stirred endless debate, even after his death on April 22 in Istanbul at the age of 82.

Al-Zindani was born in the Al-Sha’ar district of Ibb governorate in 1942 and learned to read and write in its traditional kuttab school. He moved to Aden to continue his education and subsequently to Cairo, where he started the enigmatic journey of his political life between Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and, finally, Turkey.

In the 1950s, Al-Zindani was affiliated with the pan-Arab Arab Nationalist Movement in Cairo, but he soon left it after failing to Islamize its orientation or its members’ conduct. In the late 1950s, he formed what came to be known as the “Neutrality Cell” in 1961 with Abdou Mohammed al-Mekhlafi, another Yemeni living in Egypt. The Neutrality Cell constituted the nucleus of the first Islamist organization for Yemenis in Egypt, where it would forge links with an Egyptian Islamist group, the Young Men’s Muslim Association, through an Azhari scholar, Sheikh Kamal Aoun. It would evolve into the organizational entity for the Yemeni branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, led by Al-Zindani, Al-Mekhlafi, and Mohammed al-Zubayri, a prominent figure in the September 26, 1962 revolution that overthrew the Yemeni Imamate. At Al-Zubayri’s request, Al-Zindani kept quiet about Al-Zubayri’s critical role in the organization’s leadership, which only became public knowledge much later.

After meeting in Egypt, the two men were constant companions. It was also Al-Zubayri who introduced Al-Zindani to other revolutionaries after the two men returned to Yemen. These connections eventually led to Al-Zindani first appearing on Sana’a Radio during a “Religion and Revolution” program. From that point forward, Al-Zindani never stopped insisting on linking religion to every aspect of believers’ private and public lives.

Mystery still surrounds Al-Zindani’s time in Egypt. For example, it’s unclear why he dropped out of Ain Shams University, where he studied pharmacy. This later inspired him to set up the Commission for Scientific Miracles in the Quran and the Sunnah, which caused controversy with its claims of having invented medicines to treat the AIDS virus and leukemia based on Islamic, or prophetic, medicine. Following the assassination of Al-Zubayri in 1965, Al-Zindani fled to Aden, where he took over the management of Al-Nour Scientific Institute – a religious institute established by Muhammad Salem al-Bayhani, a key figure in the city’s Islamic movement. After the November 1967 coup in North Yemen and the declaration of an independent South Yemen, Al-Zindani returned to Sana’a, where he launched a plan to influence education in Yemen. During this time he wrote an influential book, Al-Tawhid (Divine Unicity), which remained on school curricula for over three decades.

Al-Zindani rode every religious wave, disguising political notions under the veil of religion in his speeches. He went to Afghanistan and met jihadi leaders Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden, as mentioned in the latter’s memoirs, “The Abbottabad Papers.”^[1] Subsequently, Al-Zindani would commonly be referred to as a “one-time mentor” of the future Al-Qaeda chief. It is true that Al-Zindani was a leading voice in favor of jihad against communism, and was commonly considered a godfather of the Afghan Arabs (aka the Arab Mujahideen). After his death, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) described Al-Zindani in a statement as “one of the pioneers of jihad with his self, money, and word.”

His relationship with the Afghan Arabs continued to evolve after he encouraged many to come to Yemen once the war against the Soviets was over. He later mobilized them as an Islamist army to fight against the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) during the 1994 civil war. A major advocate for the war, Al-Zindani propagated it as a religious conflict against “Yemeni communists,” rather than a national war for the sake of unity, as it was characterized by then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Al-Zindani’s influence during that period partly owed to his position as a founder and head of the Shura Council of Islah (formally known as the Yemeni Congregation for Reform). The Islamist political party, formed in 1990 with backing from Saleh as a counterweight to the socialists, drew support primarily from northern tribes and the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood. Following the 1993 parliamentary elections, in which Islah garnered the second largest number of seats after Saleh’s General People’s Congress, Al-Zindani was appointed as a member of the Presidential Council representing Islah. There he continued to wage a frantic war against the recently passed constitution, eventually succeeding in pressuring for the amendment of several contentious articles after the 1994 war. Among other amendments, the constitution’s stipulation that Islamic law (Sharia) is the source of all legislation was largely the work of Al-Zindani.

At the height of his alliance with the former president, Saleh granted Al-Zindani a large plot of land to establish Al-Iman University. Saleh later defended Al-Zindani after the US Treasury Department designated him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2004, consistently refusing to extradite him to the United States. Al-Iman University would become an incubator for thousands of extremists from various countries. It was also at the university that Al-Zindani furthered his controversial ideas about the treatment of incurable diseases, though he refused to reveal details of his alternative medicines, citing fears they would be stolen. This opened him up to criticism from many Yemenis outside the Islamist orbit that he was peddling quackery.

Al-Zindani attracted further controversy due to his involvement in establishing the Yemen Company for Fisheries and Marine Life. At the height of his influence, he could mobilize people and their money at the drop of a hat. In 1993, I witnessed two men carrying huge bags stuffed with Yemeni rials on their backs, which they gave as Islamic alms (zakat) to a charitable organization linked to Al-Zindani, rather than using official state channels. In the case of the Yemen Company for Fisheries and Marine Life, many Yemenis rushed to buy shares in the company in the mid-1990s, putting their faith in Al-Zindani. However, almost three decades later, investors have not received any profit or even their initial investment back.

Later, during Yemen’s revolutionary period, Al-Zindani would break with Saleh in favor of supporting the youth-led protests. In a 2011 speech, he told a crowd of demonstrators that their actions had “embarrassed” the older generation of opposition leaders by proving more effective in holding the government to account. However, Al-Zidani would later emerge as perhaps the most vocal opponent of a civil Yemeni state. He denounced the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) in 2013, labeling it as anti-religious, and advocated for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and the principle of divine governance, or what Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb had called hakimiyya. He would also issue a fatwa during the NDC declaring that one-fifth of wealth acquired by Muslims should be paid to descendants of Prophet Mohammed, by which he meant Yemen’s Hashemite class.

These two positions would provoke widespread ire, even among some of his own followers, due to their alignment with principles espoused by the Houthi movement. According to the Houthi theory of Wilaya, the Al-Houthi family are the sole representatives of Ahl al-Bayt, the bloodline of the Prophet Mohammed, and the heirs of both religious and worldly authority from him. Once in power, the Houthi authorities also amended zakat regulations to predominantly benefit those today considered to be descendants of Ahl al-Bayt.

When the Houthis seized Sana’a in 2014, Al-Zindani didn’t take any chances, fleeing first to Taiz and then to Saudi Arabia. The fatwa he had issued in favor of the Houthis’ position on zakat failed to warm relations between them. Al-Iman University was one of the Houthis’ first targets after entering the capital and remains under their control to this day. Still, as was his wont, Al-Zindani characterized his escape as an exceptional, even miraculous journey, claiming to have passed through 31 Houthi checkpoints before arriving at a government checkpoint near Marib.

Al-Zindani did not stay in Saudi Arabia for long, as Riyadh restricted his space for expression. Then he found his last refuge: Turkey, which, to Al-Zindani and his supporters, was the new caliphate. He spent the last four years of his life there, declaring his support for Palestine and calling for a new jihad in support of the cause. It was Al-Zindani’s last stand before his death.