Editing Takfir wal-Hijra (section)

==Overview==
{{Salafi}}
Takfir wal-Hijra has been described as "a matrix of terrorist cells - allied to [[Osama bin Laden|bin Laden]] but often more extreme than him,"<ref name=guardian>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/30/terrorism.afghanistan6 "The secret war,"] ''The Guardian'' (30 September 2001).</ref> and as a group which inspired "some of the tactics and methods used by Al Qaeda and whose ideology is being embraced by a growing number of [[Salafist jihadism|Salafist jihadist]]s living in Europe."<ref name=pbs/> Described as a movement that began in Egypt in 1971, by the 1990s it has been described as a "decentralised network" of "cells",<ref name=wilkinson/> and as a "radical ideology" and "web of Islamic militants around the world connected only by their beliefs" (rather than "an organization per se").<ref name=Gleis>{{cite journal|last1=Gleis|first1=Joshua L.|title=National Security Implications of Al-Takfir Wal-Hijra|journal=Al Nakhlah: The Fletcher School Online Journal for Issues Related to Southwest Asia and Islamic Civilization|date=Spring 2005|page=1}}</ref> The networks are said to be specializing in "logistical support to terrorist groups" operating across Europe that loosely follow a number of "core precepts", mainly that "man-made laws" are "illegitimate", that "theft, kidnapping, forced marriages and even the assassination of anyone who [is] not part of the group" are justified.<ref name=Mili-29-6-2006/> Groups that have been described as Takfir wal-Hijra may have had little or no connection to each other.<ref name=JanesWIT>Jane's World Insurgency and Terrorism{{full citation needed|date=September 2018}}</ref>

The group has been said to form "the most extreme and violent strand in the Salafist jihadist movement."<ref name=pbs/> The ''takfir'' of the Takfiris refers to the belief (of at least some of the movement such as Ali Ismael, the sheikh of Egypt's [[Al-Azhar Mosque]] at the time) that not only were Egyptian President at the time [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] and his government officials [[Apostasy in Islam|apostate]]s, but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims".<ref name=Mili-29-6-2006/>
 
According to [[Mamoun Fandy]], an Egyptian-born professor of politics and senior fellow at the [[James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy|Baker Institute]] of Public Policy, followers are allowed to shave their beards, drink alcohol, visit topless bars and commit crimes against Westerners &mdash; all under the cloak of subterfuge. "They are the mothers and fathers of sleeping cells."<ref name=pbs/> They believe that the ends justify any means and, that killing other Muslims can be justified in their cause and that Western society is heathen and it is their duty to destroy it.<ref name=pbs>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/script.html "Al Qaeda's New Front" ''Frontline'' PBS News, 25 January 2005]</ref>