Ayman El-Zawahiri: From Maadi to Kabul

Maybe ten years ago, I would be more enthusiastic to write a longer post about Ayman El-Zawahiri but now it seems that he is less interesting compared to what the world is really facing.

Anyhow here I am writing a post about Ayman El-Zawahiri who was reportedly killed last night in some fancy villa in Kabul, Afghanistan by US drones while standing on a balcony. “It is too Egyptian, old generation’s habit to stand in balconies to get early morning’s summer breeze”

Ayman El-Zawahiri (1951-2022)

It is not every day that we have an Egyptian man on the top of the FBI's most wanted list. There was a USD 25-Million-reward on his head.

Born in July 1951, Ayman El-Zawahiri would have been living a comfortable life in Egypt and would have died as a loving grandfather among his big successful family of doctors in Cairo’s Maadi if he has chosen a different path of life.

Ironically, I read for some leftist Egyptian writer on Monday following the news that it was one of life’s strange ironies that Ayman El-Zawahiri was the grandson of the famous Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Ahmadi El-Zawahiri.

Old Sheikh El-Zawahiri, who is being overshadowed by his grandson’s infamous reputation was a reformist who did a lot to modernize Al-Azhar and its institution in Egypt and the world.

Politically, he won a war to keep Al-Azhar independent as much as he could, and he believed that it was not the time to restore the Islamic Caliphate when King Ahmed Fouad had some dreams about it.

“What if” has been playing a lot in my mind last night. 

As a Muslim, I know “if” opens a door for the devil, but I can’t keep myself asking “What if” Ayman El-Zawahiri chose a different path in his life? What if he was not influenced by Sayed Qutub’s books and was influenced by his own grandfather’s thoughts!?

What if he were not arrested as a teenager and were not subjected to inhuman torture in the jails of hells of Salah Nasr during the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser!? Sayed Qutub’s anti-society Takfiri books plus torture in the early years of Young El-Zawahiri would not have yielded a normal person.

Ayman El-Zawahiri speaking to foreign media in English during the Sadat
Assassination trial in Cairo in the early 1980s. "AP" 

What if he received some needed psychological help? I keep thinking that after coming back from prison, for sure there were many things broken and there were signs that something is wrong for sure. Maybe he was good at hiding it. After all, his family was waiting for him to become a surgeon and a doctor like them.

Needless to say, being subjected to torture does not justify being a terrorist. On the contrary, he turned from a victim to a victimizer who decided to punish not only Egyptian society but the whole world.

Anyhow he chose that path of life and took his brother with him yet, for instance, his younger sister is now one of Egypt’s top oncologists working to this day and highly respected. I can't imagine the pressure she has lived through to prove herself away from those two and their own bloody drama for decades “Many ignore that her brother was the FBI’s most wanted thanks to her success in her career”.

I know Dr Heba will be stalked by journalists from all over the world to get that scoop but I think the world should respect her choices and how she only speaks in the media as an Oncology professor and not as the sister of the infamous Ayman El-Zawahiri. "FYI, his family from both sides are full of famous successful people that is like who is who book mashallah for real" 

Life is a choice without a doubt.

By the way, the world must thank God that El-Zawahiri was that type of old-fashion boring cult less charismatic talkative cult leader. Hopefully, we won’t hear about Al-Qaeda again.

Scary enough, this is the second time, I hear about Al-Qaeda in a month after their threat to Egyptian writer Ibrahim Eissa.

Anyhow, the elimination of El-Zawahiri comes in line with that American system that whenever the US president and his administration face trouble whether economically or politically inside the States, let’s divert attention and kill some bad guy far away aka “Wag the dog”.

Ironically, this comes at the time more Americans, especially Trump’s supporters who are mostly Republicans believe in the conspiracy theory that “9/11 is an inside job” by the US deep state!! It is like Neocons are tasting their own poison.

9/11 and what happened afterwards seem to be a faraway memory for the younger generations. They got a new class of terrorists from Daesh, incels, neo-Nazis, and nationalists of all sorts. They have their own challenges and I believe they should not be prisoners of that dark 9/11 moment as the older generations had.

In the Arab Muslim World, we paid a huge price because of bin Laden and El-Zawahiri. It is like the end of some dark page in our lives while still living in the same circumstances that gave birth to that breed of terrorists and even worse.