Ali
Al-Tamimi (also Ali Al-Timimi; born December 14, 1963, in Washington, DC, US) is an American former
biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
and Islamic teacher from
Fairfax County, Virginia, who was convicted of
soliciting
Solicitation is the act of offering, or attempting to purchase, goods and/or services. Legal status may be specific to the time or place where it occurs. The crime of "solicitation to commit a crime" occurs when a person encourages, "solicits, r ...
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
and attempting to contribute services to the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
based on comments he is alleged to have made to a group of followers at a private dinner shortly after
9/11.
He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison in 2005. His direct appeal has not yet completed and has been pending for more than fifteen years. After being held in solitary confinement for more than a decade at the
administrative maximum security United States Penitentiary ADX Florence,
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
, the district court in 2020 ordered his
conditional release into
home confinement
In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allo ...
pending appeal after concluding that his case raised substantial legal issues.
Early life and education
Al-Timimi was born in 1963 and grew up in the
Palisades neighborhood of
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
, where he attended
Georgetown Day School
Georgetown Day School (GDS) is an independent coeducational PK-12 school located in Washington, D.C. The school educates 1,075 elementary, middle, and high school students in northwestern Washington, D.C. Russell Shaw is the current Head of Sc ...
until age fifteen.
[Milton Viorst]
"The Education of Ali Al-Timimi"
''The Atlantic'', June 2006; retrieved June 9, 2019. His father was an attorney who worked at the embassy of the then
Kingdom of Iraq, and his mother was a mental health specialist with a doctorate in psychology.
One of Al-Timimi's teenage friends was the son of journalist
Milton Viorst, who later wrote in
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
that the family was "not particularly ethnic or religious," and that Al-Timimi celebrated holidays such as Halloween and Christmas with his brother and other friends at school.
Viorst writes that Al-Timimi's parents were both practicing Muslims, but spoke English rather than Arabic at home and "did not push religious observance on the children."
At age fifteen, in 1978, Al-Timimi's parents moved the family to
Riyadh
Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of th ...
,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
for two years to expose them to their Islamic heritage. Al-Timimi attended
Manarat High School, where he learned
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and studied
Islam under the Imam
Bilal Phillips.
Al-Timimi became influenced by
Salafism
The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generat ...
, a reform branch of
Sunni Islam that advocates strict adherence to the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
and
Sunna (the teachings of the Prophet).
In 1981, Al-Timimi returned to the United States and enrolled in a
premed
Pre-medical (often referred to as pre-med) is an educational track that undergraduate students in the United States pursue prior to becoming medical students. It involves activities that prepare a student for medical school, such as pre-med cours ...
program at
The George Washington University
, mottoeng = "God is Our Trust"
, established =
, type = Private federally chartered research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.8 billion (2022)
, presid ...
, while spending much of his time networking with different groups in the local Muslim community. Al-Timimi was quoted as saying that he "flirted with each group, only quickly to become disinterested in their rhetoric and what I perceived as their being out of touch with the questions being raised in America—about Islam and the Muslims."
Stating that he was "hungry for answers to the larger philosophical questions," Al-Timimi returned to Saudi Arabia in 1987, where he studied Salafiya for a year at the
Islamic University of Madinah
The Islamic University of Madinah ( ar, الجامعة الإسلامية بالمدينة المنورة) was founded by the government of Saudi Arabia by a royal decree in 1961 in the Islamic holy city of Medina. Many have associated the uni ...
and became a student of
Abdul-Aziz bin Baz.
[Michael Sells, ''War as Worship, Worship as War'', December 2006, pp. 11-12]
Link
/ref> He also became influenced by Islamist thinkers like Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid 'Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Quṭb ( or ; , ; ar, سيد قطب إبراهيم حسين ''Sayyid Quṭb''; 9 October 1906 – 29 August 1966), known popularly as Sayyid Qutb ( ar, سيد قطب), was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamic ...
, Safar Al-Hawali and Muhammad Surur
Muhammad Surur bin Nayif Zayn al-'Abidin ( ar, محمد سرور بن نايف زين العابدين; 1938 – 11 November 2016) was a former Syrian Muslim Brotherhood member. He is credited with developing the Salafi Islamist trend that later ...
.[Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, ''Salafism in America: History, Evolution, Radicalization'', October 2018, p. 67. Report for the George Washington University Program on Extremism]
Link
At his parents' urging, Al-Timimi returned to the United States after a year and earned a second undergraduate degree in computer science from the University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...
. He later earned a Ph.D. in computational biology from George Mason University in 2004, after defending his doctoral thesis
A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
titled "Chaos and Complexity in Cancer." His doctoral thesis reflected, in large part, the influence of the ideas of Harold Morowitz, one of his professors, on his thinking.
Scientific Publications
Domeniconi, C, Barbará, D, Chaudhary, H, Al-Timimi, A., and Jamison, D.C “Data Mining Techniques for Microarray Data Analysis,” in New Generation of Data Mining Applications, eds. Kantardzic, M. and Zurada, J. (March 2005)
Grant GM et al. (April 2004) “Microarrays in Cancer Research,” Anticancer Research, Mar-Apr;24(2A):441-8.
Al-Timimi, A., and Jamison, D.C (April 2004) “Knowledge Discovery in a Microarray Data Warehouse,” International Conference on Information Technology, IEEE, Las Vegas, NV.
Work and Islamic activities
After returning from Medina
Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...
, Al-Timimi began to deliver lectures on Salafiya at Islamic conferences throughout the 1990s, and gradually developed an audience. Dozens of his lectures have been published on the internet. Viorst writes that Al-Timimi avoided contemporaneous political issues, but instead reflected on "the Islamic vision of Judgment Day, prophecy, the nature of the divine
Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.[divine< ...](_blank)
, and ''fiqh
''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh.
The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and ...
'' (Islamic jurisprudence)—subjects with which he grappled in Medina and in his private reading."
Al-Timimi has been described as "arguably the first American born activist Salafi preacher." In the late 1990s, he cofounded an Islamic center in Falls Church, Virginia with his mentor, the Sudanese Sheikh Jaafar Idris, which they named Dar al-Arqam. Al-Timimi became its primary lecturer, and delivered weekly lessons on Salafiya to approximately a hundred attendees a week. According to Umar Lee
Umar Lee (born Brett Darren Lee; September 18, 1974 in St Louis, Missouri) is an American writer, media personality and political activist.
Religion
Coming from a white Protestant background, Lee converted to Sunni Islam in the 1990s and quickl ...
, Al-Timimi's lectures "became 'the place to be' for the youth of the masjids osquesthroughout the D.C. area," who were attracted to the fact that "this was a man who was born and raised in America, spoke in clear English, and not only had a great knowledge of the ''dīn
Dīn ( ar, دين, Dīn, also anglicized as Deen) is an Arabic word with three general senses: judgment, custom, and religion. It is used by both Muslims and Arab Christians.
In Islamic terminology, the word refers to the way of life Muslims ...
'' (religion) but was college educated, a cancer researcher, and a very serious intellectual. This was a man who could take the knowledge of the Salaf
Salaf ( ar, سلف, "ancestors" or "predecessors"), also often referred to with the honorific expression of "al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ" (, "the pious predecessors") are often taken to be the first three generations of Muslims. This comprises Muhamm ...
and make it applicable to your everyday life and could speak in a language we all understood."
In the early 1990s, Al-Timimi led a five-person delegation from the Islamic Assembly of North America to the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
4th World Conference on Women
Fourth or the fourth may refer to:
* the ordinal form of the number 4
* ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971
* Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision
* Fourth (music), a musical interval
* ''The Fourth'' (1972 film), a Sovie ...
, held in Beijing, China. Al-Timimi also translated into English a book about women in Islam
The experiences of Muslim women ( ''Muslimāt'', singular مسلمة ''Muslimah'') vary widely between and within different societies. At the same time, their adherence to Islam is a shared factor that affects their lives to a varying degree ...
that was written by Shaikh
Sheikh (pronounced or ; ar, شيخ ' , mostly pronounced , plural ' )—also transliterated sheekh, sheyikh, shaykh, shayk, shekh, shaik and Shaikh, shak—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates a chief of a ...
Abdel Rahaman Abdel Khaliq.
As an IT specialist, Al-Timimi worked at an IT company named Xpedior, Inc. Clients he provided service to included America Online (AOL). He reportedly worked for two months for Andrew Card
Andrew Hill Card Jr. (born May 10, 1947) is an American politician and academic administrator who was White House Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006, as well as head of Bush's White House Iraq Group. Card served as ...
, while he was Secretary of Transportation under George H. Bush (1992–93).
Awlaki Visit
In October 2002, the former Dar al-Hijrah imam Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar Nasser al-Awlaki (also spelled al-Aulaqi, al-Awlaqi; ar, أنور العولقي, Anwar al-‘Awlaqī; April 21 or 22, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was an American imam who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strik ...
visited Al-Timimi and inquired about recruiting men for "violent jihad.".[Schmidt, Susan]
Imam From Va. Mosque Now Thought to Have Aided Al-Qaeda
''The Washington Post'', February 27, 2008. pg. 3. Retrieved November 20, 2009. But Al-Timimi became suspicious of al-Awlaki's motives, believing it to be an entrapment attempt and asked al-Awlaki to leave. In a Tweet on August 18, 2020, National Security correspondent, Catherine Herridge argued that the entire case was motivated by the Awlaki visit to Timimi's home.
Trial and sentencing
Prior to Al-Timimi's prosecution, a group of young Muslim men that prosecutors described as a "Virginia Jihad Network The Virginia jihad network was a group of young men centered in Northern Virginia that were accused of conspiring to train and participate in violence overseas. The men, Muhammed Aatique, Hammad Abdur-Raheem, Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Hamdi, Seifullah Chapm ...
" were convicted on charges related to their travels to a militant training camp in Pakistan called Lashkar-e-Taiba
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT; ur, ; literally ''Army of the Good'', translated as ''Army of the Righteous'', or ''Army of the Pure'' and alternatively spelled as ''Lashkar-e-Tayyiba'', ''Lashkar-e-Toiba'', ''Lashkar-i-Taiba'', ''Lashkar-i-Tayyeba'') ...
, a group that the United States would later designate as a Foreign Terrorist Organization
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) is a designation for non-United States-based organizations deemed by the United States Secretary of State, in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (INA), to be involved ...
on December 26, 2001. Al-Timimi was named as an unindicted co-conspirator
In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance o ...
in that case. According to prosecutors, Al-Timimi told his followers at a private gathering on September 16, 2001, that he believed that the 9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
had been an omen that foreshadowed a looming end-of-times battle between Muslims and the West, and that "the time had come for them to go abroad and join the mujaheddin
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term t ...
engaged in violent jihad in Afghanistan." Another attendee at the gathering, Randall Royer, advised the men that they could receive military training from Lashkar-e-Taiba, and put the men in contact with the group. Several of the attendees went on to travel to Lashkar-e-Taiba and participate in military training exercises, though none ultimately did any fighting. FBI Special Agent Tim Ervin described the Virginia Jihad prosecution before the 9/11 Commission as follows: "The Lackawanna 6 was a good case. The other prosecutions for terrorism are B.S. They would never have investigated the Virginia jihad group before 9/11".
After the conclusion of the Virginia Jihad Network trials, prosecutors tried Al-Timimi for helping to inspire their travel to Lashkar-e-Taiba. The case was tried before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia, and charged Al-Timimi with 10 criminal counts, including solicitation of treason and attempting to aid the Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
. Al-Timimi's defense lawyers argued his case was an attack on the freedom of speech and religious freedom
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...
, arguing that their client only told young Muslims that it might be better to emigrate from the United States to better practice their faith.
After a week of deliberation, the jury found Al-Timimi guilty of all 10 counts in April 2005. At a sentencing hearing on July 14, 2005, he received a mandatory lifetime prison sentence. Judge Brinkema described the sentence as "very draconian," but said "I don't think any well-read person can doubt the truth that terrorist camps are a crucial part of the new terrorism that is perpetrated in the world today. People of good will need to do whatever they can to stop that."
At sentencing, Al-Timimi "made an eloquent statement to the court, quoting from the Constitution and Socrates. epointed out that he had 'never owned or used a gun, never traveled to a military camp, never set foot in a country in which a war was taking place, never raised money for any violent organization.' For his conviction to stand, he said: ' o hundred and thirty years of America's tradition of protecting the individual from the tyrannies and whims of the sovereign will have come to an end. And that which is exploited today to persecute a single member of a minority will most assuredly come back to haunt the majority tomorrow.'"
Royer was released from prison in December 2016, and now works for a nonprofit group that seeks to undermine religious extremism. Since his release, Royer has maintained that "Timimi did not specifically say join the Taliban or help al-Qaeda though he seemed to imply it." However, Royer has also said that Al-Timimi's statement that Muslim men should "go be with the mujahideen" was "colossally bad advice."
Appeals
Although Al-Timimi was convicted in 2005, his direct appeal is still ongoing.
In late 2005, Al-Timimi's appellate attorneys sought discovery on whether Al-Timimi had been subjected to illegal wiretaps in light of the then-recently disclosed NSA warrantless surveillance program. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit responded by remanding the case back to the district court, giving broad latitude to the trial judge. The Justice Department did not confirm or deny the use of NSA wiretaps against Al-Timimi.
In 2006, Al-Timimi's attorneys also challenged his treatment by the Federal Bureau of Prisons
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...
, claiming that it had repeatedly moved him to new facilities to block him from meeting with his legal counsel. Attorney Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley is an American attorney, legal scholar, writer, commentator, and legal analyst in broadcast and print journalism. A professor at George Washington University Law School, he has testified in United States Congressional proceedin ...
told NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
that Al-Timimi "was transferred to at least six different prisons in four states in less than six months. It became a version of Where's Waldo. We could not find him." After an internal investigation, BOP found that a prison official had "verbally harassed" Al-Timimi, but concluded that it had insufficient evidence to substantiate Al-Timimi's other claims.
In September 2015, the Fourth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
* District of Maryland
...
again remanded the case, this time on the grounds that "the FBI withheld evidence of its 2002 investigation into the first American on the CIA's kill or capture list, Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar Nasser al-Awlaki (also spelled al-Aulaqi, al-Awlaqi; ar, أنور العولقي, Anwar al-‘Awlaqī; April 21 or 22, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was an American imam who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strik ...
".
Between 2016 and 2019, Al-Timimi's attorneys further argued that several of his convictions have been rendered invalid by the Supreme Court's intervening decisions in '' Johnson v. United States'' and '' United States v. Davis''.
On April 27, 2020, Al-Timimi's attorneys filed a motion for his conditional release from prison pending the remainder of his appeal, arguing that intervening Supreme Court authority had cast doubt on the charges that continued to subject him to imprisonment, and that the COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
pandemic additionally presented an exceptional reason justifying his release. On August 18, 2020, Judge Brinkema granted the motion and ordered Al-Timimi's conditional release from ADX and into home confinement
In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allo ...
while he pursues his appeal. On September 1, 2020, Al-Timimi was released from ADX Florence and placed into home confinement.
Legal Commentary
The Al-Timimi case has generated some legal commentary, including:
Goldberger, D. (2005). Protecting Speech We Hate. Litigation, 32(2), 40–44.
McCormack, W. (2005). Inchoate Terrorism: Liberalism Clashes with Fundamentalism. Georgetown Journal of International Law, 37(1), 1–60.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tamimi, Ali Al-
American imams
American Salafis
Islamic University of Madinah alumni
American people of Iraqi descent
Inmates of ADX Florence
1963 births
Living people
Anwar al-Awlaki
People from Washington, D.C.
People from Fairfax County, Virginia
21st-century American biologists
Scientists from Virginia