As noted previously, the Islamic State itself has yet to release any official biographies of its caliphs since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. However, whereas there is a fairly clear idea of who his first successor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was, the group’s subsequent caliphs are shrouded in obscurity, largely leaving the gap in information to be supplied in an unofficial capacity by supporters. Just as a brief biography of Abu Ibrahim was published by supporters, so an unofficial biography has recently been published of Abu Ibrahim’s immediate successor Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, who was killed in fighting with local miltiamen backed by Syrian government forces in the area of the town of Jasim in north Deraa countryside in southern Syria in October 2022. The biography is part of a much larger series of unofficial biographies of prominent Iraqi figures in the Islamic State. I will translate some of those subsequently.
Below is the biography translated. I have also placed some notes at the end for context. The most notable aspect of his biography is that he appears to have been a long-established veteran of the Islamic State and its predecessors, going back to the very earliest days of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and his Jama ‘at al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad. Also, according to this biography, it would appear that he was not necessarily in southern Syria during the whole period of his tenure as caliph, but actually seems to have moved between Iraq and Syria.
The hidden important figures of Iraq: 74
The caliph the Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Husayni [sic] al-Hashimi
The jurist shaykh- the Sword of Baghdad Nour bin ‘Abd al-Karim al-'Ubaydi al-Rifa’i- was born in the town of Rawa [1] and grew up there. He studied computer engineering at the University of Baghdad but he abandoned these studies just before the occupation.
Read the full English translation at Substack.
