Geydar Dzhemal

Geydar Dzhahidovich Dzhemal (, , sometimes transliterated as Heydar Jamal; 6 November 1947 – 5 December 2016) was a Russian-Azerbaijani Islamic philosopher and political activist. He founded and lead the Islamic Committee of Russia, in which he promoted Marxism and non-sectarian pan-Islamism, though formally identifying as a Twelver Shia Muslim. He wrote extensive apologetics in support of Wahhabism and the Salafi movement, participating in the First Chechen War and Tajik Civil War.

He was also founded the Islamic Renaissance Party, was Co-chairman and Presidium member of the Movement "Russian Islamic Heritage," a permanent member of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, as well as one of the founders and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Left Front and The Other Russia, taking part in the Dissenters' March.

Early life and education Dzhemal was born on 6 November 1947 in Moscow. His father was the Azerbaijani artist Dzakhid Dzemal, who is believed to be a descendant of Hulagu Khan, through the branch of Jafar khan Javanshir of Panah Ali Khan's Javanshir tribe. His mother was Irina Shapovalova, a well-known equestrian and horse trainer descended from the noble Shepelev family. His parents divorced when he was very young and he was raised by his maternal grandparents. Dzhemal's maternal grandfather, Igor Shapovalov, was a professor of German philosophy, as well as the director of the Maly Theatre and First Deputy Minister of Culture of the Soviet Union.

In 1965, after graduation from school, Dzhemal entered the Institute of Oriental Languages at Moscow State University, but a year later was expelled for "bourgeois nationalism". He later took a job as an editor at the "Medicine" Publishing House, where he met a Moscow State University graduate, Ilya Moskvin.

Activist history In the 1960s and 1970s, Dzhemal joined a number of loosely-affiliated bohemian underground organisations (tusovka) associated with Yuri Mamleev. Some members of these groups had access to secret collections of the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature and brought works by a number of mystics and philosophers (including well-known esoterists Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist) to these discussions. Through Mameleev, these works became popular among an intellectual strain of Russian neo-Nazism.

Foray into Islam From 1980, he was a member of the Islamic movement of Tajikistan, and in 1990, joined members of the underground organizations of the Caucasus and Volga regions of Russia in the formation of an umbrella Islamic Revival Party that was active throughout the Soviet Union and whose leadership came from various Islamic traditions. The party alleged that only Soviet Muslims (Turks, Caucasians and Islamised Slavs) would allow the Soviet Union to meaningfully oppose the West. During the Civil War in Tajikistan, Dzhemal worked as an advisor to Davlat Usmon, one of the founders of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan. He was also among the 34 first signatories of an online anti-Vladimir Putin manifesto, "Putin Must Go", published on 10 March 2010.

Djemal died on 5 December 2016 in Almaty.

On 30 July 2018, his son, journalist , was killed along with film director and cameraman while filming a documentary about the activities of a Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group in the Central African Republic.

Religious views

Shi'ism The Islamic scholar Roman Silantyev and the journalist Yulia Latynina said that Jamal professed Shia Islam and that he was a Jafari in Fiqh. He also expressed positive views about Khomeinism and Wilayat al-Faqih during his exchanges with Ahmad Khomeini.

The Internet portal "Voice of Islam" said:

"In the last years of his life Heydar, by the grace of Allah, made a sharp and difficult turn for him in moral and intellectual respect - to his umma, what it is and what it was throughout its history. Being for many years not just a Shia, but the most striking and convincing Russian-speaking Shia, he realized in the midst of Jihad in Sham that Shia and Shi'ism had become a force against Islam and umma, made a decisive choice in favor of the latter. This choice was especially valuable, given what was being done at a time when Heydar already knew that he was seriously ill and perhaps realized that his earthly path was running out."

Statement on Theology Regarding responses to a lecture he gave in Almaty in 2008, he made a statement saying: Recently, many people have asked me about my belonging to one direction or another within Islam. Some people say, “We agree with you in many ways, but you are Shia. Oh, if you weren’t Shia!” To once and for all remove any questions that arise in the brothers [i.e about religious views], I officially declare the following:

I follow myself [only] and support all who follow the Quran and the authentic Sunnah of the Prophet. I stand for the complete and inseparable theological and political unity of all Muslims on the platform of Jihad in the path of Allah until all religion on The Earth belongs to Him Alone. I do not follow any of the living Shi'ite Maraji'. I categorically reject pantheism and the Sufi Aqidah based on it and the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Arabi, which is also the basis of the Irfan of the Qom Seminary. I do not curse any of the Rashidun, may Allah be pleased with them. I believe in all directions of Islam, created by sincere Muslims making efforts in the way of Allah, except for their misconceptions, in which there is a grain of truth, which will be reprimanded in the 73 Sects, designed to carry out the complete victory of Muslims over Dajjal under the leadership of the expected Mahdi (whose arrival is agreed upon by all sects of the Muslims).

Political analysis and philosophy Dzhemal's political analyses have been characterized in various ways. Some have seen it as an Islamic style of Marxism, whereas others have linked his views to fundamentalist Islam, or a combination of both. The names of his informational outlets (Tawḥīd and Al-Waḥdat, meaning "monotheism" and "unity") are key aspects of Salafism. He has attempted to bridge differences between Shiism and Sunnism: in 1999, Dzhemal emphasized the "inner spirit" of Shia Islam and the "outer" geopolitical dimension preserved in Sunnism, presenting them as parts of a greater whole, while also claiming that these differences were "already being washed away".

List of works Year Title Publisher ISBN Language 1981 Ultra.Kultura 2003 The Revolution of the Prophets Ultra.Kultura 2004 Exemption of Islam UMMA 2004 Ekaterinburg: Ultra.Kultura 2005 Islamic Intellectual Initiative in the 20th Century (under the general editorship of Mr. Dzhemal) UMMAH 2010 Social and Political Thought 2010 Social and Political Thought 2010 Social and Political Thought