Ahmad Musa Jibril (alt. Jebril,Detroit's Islamist 'Cheerleader' Manages to Keep Quiet About His Money
Vice News, 6 April 2015 born 1972), also known as Abu Khaled, is a

Palestinian-American Palestinian Americans () are Americans who are of full or partial Palestinian descent. There are around 160,000 Palestinian American refugees according to the 2023 American Community Survey, making up around 0.05% of the U.S. population. Th ...

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

radical Radical (from Latin: ', root) may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Classical radicalism, the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and Latin America in the 19th century *Radical politics ...

preacher, cleric,

sheikh Sheikh ( , , , , ''shuyūkh'' ) is an honorific title in the Arabic language, literally meaning "elder (administrative title), elder". It commonly designates a tribal chief or a Muslim ulama, scholar. Though this title generally refers to me ...

,London terror suspect was influenced by Dearborn cleric, says friend
, Detroit Free Press, 5 June 2017YouTube: Videos of controversial Dearborn cleric don't violate our guidelines
, Detroit Free Press, 7 June 2017 and

imam Imam (; , '; : , ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Salah, Islamic prayers, serve as community leaders, ...

. In 2004 he was convicted on 42 charges including

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

. Ideologically influenced by the

Sahwa movement Sahwa movement () or ''al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya'' (Islamic awakening) was a movement in Saudi Arabia from 1960–1980 which advocated for an increased reliance on Wahhabi principles in Saudi society by adopting Qutbism. The most noticeable effect ...

, which combines the Islamist revolutionary ideology of

Sayyid Qutb Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb (9 October 190629 August 1966) was an Egyptian political theorist and revolutionary who was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood. As the author of 24 books, with around 30 books unpublished for differe ...

mixed with Saudi

Wahabbism Wahhabism is an exonym for a Salafi revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to other p ...

, he promotes Salafist militant

Islamism Islamism is a range of religious and political ideological movements that believe that Islam should influence political systems. Its proponents believe Islam is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to communism ...

, and has extensively preached about the Syrian Civil War in highly emotive pro-

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

terms. While not known to be affiliated directly to any particular group, it has been claimed that he has been an inspirational source for many English speaking pro-Sunni

jihadist Jihadism is a neologism for modern, armed militant Political aspects of Islam, Islamic movements that seek to Islamic state, establish states based on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief that armed confrontation ...

fighters in Syria, in both

al-Nusra Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra or Jabhat Nusrat Ahl al-Sham, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, and also later known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was a Salafi-jihadist organization that fought against Ba'athist Syria, Ba'athist ...

and

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signi ...

, and elsewhere.LONDON ATTACKER FOLLOWED ISIS RECRUITER AND RADICAL U.S. PREACHER AHMAD MUSA JIBRIL
Newsweek, 5 June 2017
, 27 May 2016NIA chargesheet refers to 14 globally known Islamic preachers
, India Times, August 2016

Early life and education

Born in

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring Metro Detroit, suburb of Detroit, Dearborn borders Detroit to the south and west, roughly west of downtown Detroit. In the 2020 United States ...

in 1972, as a child Jibril lived for some time in

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

where his father was enrolled in the

Islamic University of Madinah The Islamic University of Madinah () is a public Islamic university in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Established by King Saud bin Abdulaziz in 1961, Sayy’id Abul Ala Maududi had played a significant role of establishing and running of Islamic Univers ...

. Jibril then returned to the U.S. to complete his high school education, which he completed in 1989. He later returned to Medina to study at the

, receiving a degree in

sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...

.Expanding the Wahhabi mission: Saudi Arabia, the Islamic University of Medina and the transnational religious economy
Farquhar, Michael (2013), PhD thesis, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), pages 253-254 He subsequently received from a law school in Michigan a JD and LLM. In the mid to late 1990s, Jibril created the website AlSalafyoon.com which contained videos of Islamic preachers described by US prosecutors as "a library of fanatically anti-American sermons""U.S. preacher who inspires Syrian rebels faces Internet monitoring"
9 Jun 2014 in which he "encouraged his students to spread Islam by the sword, to wage a holy war ndto hate and kill non-Muslims". The website ceased operations following his arrest and incarceration in 2003 to 2004.Maryland imam’s advocacy of ISIS lands him at center of terrorism probe
, Washington Post, October 2016Facebook removes page of preacher using social media to back jihadists
, Guardian, April 2014ISIS Supporters In America: The Jihadis Next Door?
, Vocativ, October 2014 The day after a November 13, 1995 bomb attack that killed six people, including four Americans, in Riyadh, Jibril, using a phone line subscribed under the alias Thomas Saad, sent a fax to CNN saying that its purpose was to "kick the Jews and Christians out of the Arabian Peninsula" as commanded by

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

. It closed, "There will be a series of bombings that will follow no matter how many lives of ours are taken or how many bodies are in prison. This is the precise reason why we chose the building we chose." However, the government found no evidence that Jibril was connected to the actual bombing beyond sending a fax, and did not prosecute him, though it later made reference to the fax in a 2005 supplemental sentencing memorandum for the 2003-5 criminal trial. This reference cites the supplemental sentencing report, but incorrectly identifies the Riyadh bombing as the

Khobar Towers bombing The Khobar Towers bombing was an attack on part of a housing complex in the city of Khobar, Saudi Arabia, near the national oil company (Saudi Aramco) headquarters of Dhahran and nearby King Abdulaziz Air Base on 25 June 1996. At that time, Khob ...

.Reports: Dearborn cleric radicalized London attacker
, The Detroit News, 5 June 2017

Conviction and imprisonment

In 2004, Jibril and his father were together tried in Detroit for a total of 42 criminal charges, of the crimes; conspiracy, bank fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, failure to file income tax returns and felon-in-possession of firearms and ammunition. Jibril was convicted and sentenced for these crimes, to six and one half years in a high-security prison, and was subsequently imprisoned at Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex, from where he was released sometime during 2012. Jibril's Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator number was 31943–039. Just prior to his sentencing, the prosecution provided a memorandum to refute the Jibrils' claims which were aimed at lowering the punishment. In it, they documented how at one point the postman had realized that he was delivering mail addressed to more than 80 different aliases, and how investigators had discovered at his sister's house

voter registration In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise Suffrage, eligible to Voting, vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted ...

cards under alias known to be employed by Jibril. Jibril supported himself and his family members by "systematically destroying... rental properties for the insurance proceeds, and bullying and threatening tenants in the process."

Recent influence

Within days following his 2012 release from prison, he began posting his views online, producing

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

videos and operating on social media.Revealed: the radical clerics using social media to back British jihadists in Syria
, Guardian, April 2014 He is reportedly on the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

's watch list.Feds keep eye on radical Islamic cleric
CBS News, February 2015 In June 2014 he had his Internet access restricted for a probation violation. These restrictions expired in March 2015. Between June 2014 and June 2017, Jibril is not known to have accessed his primary

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

account.counterextremism.com: Ahmad Musa Jibril
accessed 5 June 2017 Scholars at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

describe him as a non-conventional proselytiser, who "does not openly incite his followers to violence" and "adopts the role of a cheerleader: supporting the principles of armed opposition to Assad, often in highly emotive terms, while employing extremely charged religious or sectarian idioms. The general demeanour of his posturing towards the West is confrontational and distrusting, fuelling the perception of a Western conspiracy against both Islam and Muslims." A survey conducted by The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence indicated that approximately 60% of 150 foreign fighters in the Syrian Civil War followed Jibril on their Twitter accounts. His Twitter account has more than 33,000 followers and his Facebook account had over 145,000 likes. Jibril was reported to be an influence for terrorists in the United States as early as fall 2014, in which there was a sharia-inspired beheading at an Oklahoma meatpacking plant, and indictment on charges of attempted murder and trying to fund

ISIS Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

i immigrant pizza-shop manager Mufid Elfgeeh. Elfgeeh later earned 22 years in prison for his troubles, which included efforts to recruit jihadists on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

WhatsApp WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...

and on 23 distinct

accounts. In May 2016, the Australian Attorney-General disclosed as part of a terrorist conspiracy trial that a "self-styled Facebook preacher" used that medium to spread an "order to hate all non-Muslims", and that on his FB page were interspersed video calls to jihad by Ahmad Musa Jibril. The Attorney-General for India listed in August 2016 Jibril as one of 14 individual disseminators of ISIS propaganda in the trial of Mohammad Farhan. It was written in the charge sheet that: One of the June 2017 London attackers was said to have been radicalised by Jibril's

videos.

YouTube policy and criticism

After conducting a review in June 2017 following the London Bridge massacre,

refused to remove Jibril's videos, which had been viewed more than 1.5 million times as of that date, as they did not violate YouTube's guidelines on the advocacy of violence.Something must be done...but what?
, Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC, June 2017YouTube, Twitter and Facebook reject claims they don't do enough to fight terrorism online
Mic, June 2017 YouTube has stated that most of Jibril's videos are religious sermons on varied subjects such as interpretation of the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

, Islamic behavior, fasting, and western medicine. YouTube's response has faced criticism and calls for more robust action. Conservative columnist

Michelle Malkin Michelle Malkin (; Maglalang; born October 20, 1970) is an American conservative political commentator. She was a Fox News contributor and in May 2020 joined Newsmax TV. Malkin has written seven books and founded the conservative commentary ...

said "One of the many maddening takeaways from the London Bridge jihad attack is this: If you post videos on YouTube radicalizing Muslim viewers to kill innocent people, YouTube will leave you alone. But if you post a video on YouTube honoring innocent people murdered by barbaric jihadists, your video will get banned." and that "The enlightened peace-and-love progressives of Silicon Valley don't just have egg on their faces. They have blood on their hands." Advertisers on YouTube have objected to having their ads alongside alleged hate videos, including Jibril. On 18 June 2017, responding to criticism, YouTube announced a new policy under which extremist videos, such as Jibril's, while not removed from the site would be difficult to find, with warning labels, and without user endorsements, comments, nor advertising.Extremist videos on YouTube will now carry warnings
, USA Today, 19 June 2017

References

External links

Ahmad Musa Jibril's official website

Ahmad Musa Jibril's YouTube channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jibril, Ahmad Musa 1972 births Living people American Muslim activists American people convicted of fraud Islam-related controversies American imams American Salafis American Islamists American people of Palestinian descent Palestinian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam Palestinian imams People from Dearborn, Michigan American people convicted of tax crimes People convicted of money laundering Critics of Shia Islam