Abdullah Yusuf Azzam was a Palestinian jihadist and theologian. Belonging to the Salafi movement within Sunni Islam, he and his family fled from what had been the Jordanian-annexed West Bank after the 1967 Arab–Israeli War and pursued higher education in Jordan and Egypt before relocating to Saudi Arabia. In 1979, Azzam issued a fatwa advocating for "defensive jihad" in light of the outbreak of the Soviet–Afghan War, and subsequently moved to Pakistan to support the Afghan mujahideen.
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
Salafi jihadism, also known as revolutionary Salafism or jihadist Salafism, is a religious-political Sunni Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy of "physical" (military) jihadist attacks on non-Muslim targets. The Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts is "in their most literal, traditional sense", which adherents claim will bring about the return to "true Islam".
Osama bin Laden, founder of the Salafi jihadist organization al-Qaeda
The revolutionary ideals advocated by Islamist scholar Sayyid Qutb through his prison-writings constitute the ideological basis of the Salafi-Jihadi movement
Islamic cleric Abu Qatada al-Falastini
Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, Emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq and prominent Islamist leader who was killed during the anti-American insurgency in Iraq, is widely regarded as an influential figure by Salafi Jihadists
