The Party of Jurisprudence vs. The Party of Action: Sayyed Imam, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and the Split in the Jihad Movement

Following is the text of a presentation delivered by Daniel Lav, Director of MEMRI's Middle East and North Africa Reform Project, at the inaugural conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) in Washington, D.C. on April 25, 2008. The presentation explains the meaning and the significance of the polemic between the prominent jihadist scholar Sayyed Imam, who has called for a stop to the jihad against Muslim regimes, and Ayman Al-Zawahiri; in addition, it clarifies the important differences between Sayyed Imam's initiative and that of the Egyptian Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya group, which has made a clearer break with jihadism. ...