Al-Qaeda Leader Resurfaces with Video on Indian Burqa Controversy

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a video released online on Tuesday in which he praised an Indian Muslim woman for defiantly shouting, “allahu akbar,” to a group of Hindu nationalists in southern India’s Karnataka state in February, the Indian Express reported on Thursday.

Al-Zawahri addressed the February 8 Karnataka incident during a roughly nine-minute video posted online on April 5 by As-Sahab, which is the official media wing of al-Qaeda, an international jihadist terror organization.

“Zawahiri’s reference to a contemporary issue has also confirmed that he is alive, contrary to suggestions that he had died of natural causes in 2020,” the Indian Express noted on April 7. “Although, even after the unconfirmed reports of his death, Al Qaeda had issued many videos of Zawahiri, in all of them he only spoke about historical conflicts and ideological issues casting a doubt on whether the videos were shot in the present time.”

The April 5 As-Sahab video shows no clear indication of Al-Zawahri’s location. The al-Qaeda chief is shown sitting down beside a poster praising “the noblewoman of India,” a college student named Muskan Khan.

Al-Zawahri took over leadership of al-Qaeda in 2011 following the death of its former chief, Osama bin Laden. A special unit of the U.S. military killed bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011, a decade after the jihadist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Muskan Khan was the subject of international headlines in February after Indian media outlets filmed her attempting to enter a university campus in Karnataka while a group of Hindu nationalist men approached her. Khan wore a hijab (headscarf) at the time coupled with a sanitary mask that made it seem as if she was wearing a niqab, or an Islamic veil covering a woman’s entire body save for her eyes. She shouted, “allahu akbar,” at the crowd of Hindu men as they counter-shouted, “jai shri Ram,” or “Glory to Lord Ram” in Hindi, at her.

Allahu Akbar, meaning “Allah is superior,” is a common Muslim expression and one that jihadists have adopted to use during attacks. Jai Shri Ram, referring to one of many Hindu gods, has been adopted by Hindu nationalists for a similar use.

#HijabRow #saffronshawls
When a lone girl student arrives to college in #Mandya wearing Hijab, she gets heckled by students wearing Saffron Shawls who chanted #JaiSriRam.In reply she raises hand to say #AllahuAkbar@XpressBengaluru @santwana99 @NewIndianXpress @KannadaPrabha pic.twitter.com/gRt4hEseZI

— Karthik K K (@Karthiknayaka) February 8, 2022

The encounter went viral across social media and became an iconic symbol of a so-called “hijab row” then taking place across Karnataka state. The right-wing Indian news site OpIndia described the controversy on February 8 writing, “Muslim students in Karnataka have been demanding to be allowed to wear burqa inside colleges while colleges say that the burqas or hijabs are not part of uniform and hence should not be allowed.”

A burqa is an Islamic garment that covers a woman’s entire body, including her eyes.

Pro-veiling activists in Karnataka took the issue to the state’s High Court, which on March 16 upheld a previously established ban on hijabs inside Karnataka public schools and universities.

As-Sahab’s April 5 video begins by showing footage of Muskan Khan’s February 8 incident, “followed by Zawahiri’s address which for the entire duration of the video talks about just this issue,” the Indian Express revealed on Thursday.

“She [Khan] has unveiled the reality and unmasked the nature of the conflict between the chaste and pure Muslim Ummah [community] and the degenerate and depraved polytheist and atheist enemies it confronts,” Al-Zawahiri says at one point in the video.

“May Allah reward her greatly for imparting a practical lesson to Muslim sisters plagued by an inferiority complex vis a vis the decadent Western World. May Allah reward her for exposing the reality of Hindu India and the deception of its pagan democracy,” the al-Qaeda leader states.

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