SUMMARY

Takfir wa’l Hirja, meaning Exile and Redemption, was an extremist Islamic group established between 1974 and 1975 in Algeria. It sought to overthrow the Government of Algeria before merging with AIS in September 1992.

Takfir wa’l Hirja was a very secretive organisation that shared the same popular name used by the media for the radical Islamist Egyptian group, Jamaat al-Muslimin, which also existed during the seventies. Although no links between the two groups were ever confirmed, Takfir wa’l Hirja shared a similar ideology to the Egyptian group and was suspected to have been inspired by Jamaat al-Muslimin. Therefore, it promulgated a strict and narrow interpretation of Islam based upon the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, one of the main intellectual thinkers behind jihadist philosophies. It considered all non-members of the group infidels including followers of other forms of Islam and wider society. As its name indicated, Takfir wa’l Hirja believed it was necessary to spiritually and physically withdraw from the world to protect itself from corruption and strengthen itself.

The group was sometimes described as a sect and reportedly had followers across the Islamic world. However, its number of followers was estimated to be very low.

Aissa Messaoudi and Abderrahmane Dahane emerged as the leaders of the Takfir wa’l Hirja in 1990. They were commonly known as Tayeb El-Afghani and Dahane El-Afghani respectively because of their ample experiences fighting as part of the Mujahideen groups in Afghanistan previously. Dahane El-Afghani was killed during a clash in December 1991 while Tayeb El-Afghani was also reportedly one of the early leaders of GIA and a known smuggler in the Sahel region before he was arrested in November 1992 and executed.

Following the loss of its leaders, Takfir wa’l Hirja seemed to disappear. Although many later groups were reported to be Takfir wa’l Hirja or to connected to it, these links were not verified.