Thread by @hxhassan

Wow! For the first time, a video showing the ISIS leader defending his PhD thesis at the university of Mosul in 2007. This is the first time he’s seen in live footage, and the discussion in the video is quite astonishing in multiple levels. (H/t @NihadJariri)

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https://twitter.com/7alpress/status/1383540154241929219

As detailed here, at that point he was part of al-Qaeda in Iraq (Islamic State of Iraq) and was just appointed the general sharii (judge) of the group. He would be jailed by the Americans at Camp Bucca a short while later.

https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/1382650829447004161

So according to @newlinesmag reporting, he became the group’s top cleric at the same time he defended his PhD at the University of Mosul.

His PhD dedication was brought up in the video here. “Dedicated to those whose nature is to work behind the scenes & in the dark.” Al-Qaeda?

ISIS leader clearly is thrown off when asked why he suspiciously dedicated his PhD to those who work in the dark. He kept mumbling or changing his answer & then said he meant his teachers. When they asked him why he didn’t mention his teachers if so, he didn’t want to go long..

ISIS leader’s PhD was about an 8th-century manuscript of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence (Iraq’s official Sunni school, and the earliest & the most progressive of Sunni schools, generally). Astonishing because ISIS subscribes to (a twisted/extreme version of) Hanbalism.

He says he didn’t want to do his PhD on anything contemporary & wanted to revive traditions, again astonishingly referring favorably to Sufi master Abdulqader al-Jilani (of one of the 2 dominant Sufi orders in Iraq & Syria). The academics even thought his dedication meant Sufism.

Separately, I’ve found he was also awarded ikazat (traditional licenses, through religious learning lineage) from multiple clerics, including a religious teacher at the Mosul university. One was in 2003 in aqli/naqli knowledge (revelation/scripture & human/scholastic knowledge).

In any case, the current ISIS leader was clearly putting an act when he was defending his PhD at the University of Mosul in 2007. Pretending to be mainstream accepting things his group stands against, to attain mainstream credentials. He was already a top cleric in al-Qaeda then.

Actually you can find plenty on the internet about his credentials since early 2000s. Here it mentions one of the clerics who gave him an ijazah in 2003. That cleric preached at the Furqan Mosque, where Qardash's father preached for 18 years.

When ISIS first announced the new leader, the release mentioned he was a longstanding jihadist and a cleric with proper credentials. Judging from the details here, and how he speaks, he seems he went through traditional religious training, *sounding* more so than Baghdadi was.

Note the video was of him defending his PhD, unclear if he was actually awarded one. From the existing information about Mosul university records, no proof he received PhD. Which is funny, because the video is all about the academics destroying him. They point out basic errors.

OK there may be an interesting/useful story behind his PhD idea: given the college's inclinations and Qardash's ideology years before that discussion, it's quite possible even that PhD thesis wasn't... his. During the chaos of war, who knows, he could've "stumbled" on it.

Nothing in his ideology (he'd been involved in jihadism many years before) indicated he'd go a PhD on that kind of topic. From the discussion, the content seemed characteristically Sufi. The committee even accused him of sounding like a Hallaj follower.

https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/1383772565676593152?s=20