Release of New Book by Ayman Al-Zawahiri

On March 2, 2008, jihad websites, including Al-Ikhlas, posted a new 188-page book by Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri. The book, titled A Treatise Exonerating the Nation of the Pen and the Sword from the Blemish of the Accusation of Weakness and Fatigue, is a polemical defense of Al-Qaeda against its most prominent Islamist critic, the imprisoned jihadist Sheikh Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif.
Sayyed Imam is one of Al-Zawahiri's oldest associates in the jihad movement and is considered one of jihadism's most influential scholars. He is the author of a shari'a guide to jihad that was used in training camps in Afghanistan. The central argument of his recently published Document of Right Guidance for Jihad Activity in Egypt and the World is that jihad should only be undertaken when there is ability to do so, and that Islamist groups today cannot be considered to be in a state of ability. It is to this argument that the title of Al-Zawahiri's book refers.
The Treatise Exonerating the Nation is of great importance for two reasons. First, it is, in effect, an official statement of Al-Qaeda's positions and of the Islamic legal justifications it provides for its activities.
Second, Al-Qaeda's decision to publish such a work is strong evidence that it is deeply worried that radical Islamists could be influenced by Sayyed Imam and abandon the jihad. More...