ABSTRACT
I was a member of the Egyptian Islamic group Al-Gamaa Al-Islamia for six years from 1986. I joined them when I was 14 years old, and with them I spent my whole adolescence. The overwhelming majority of my ‘brothers’ in the group were of a similar age. This group was responsible for killing former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and the former Speaker of Parliament Rifaat Almahgoub in the early 1990s. A dissident faction of the group was responsible for the Luxor massacre in which 57 people – mainly foreign tourists – were killed in 1997. I have written about my experiences with the group in a book entitled Life is More Beautiful than Paradise (Al-Berry 2009). Drawing on these experiences, I write here from the perspective of the body in conflict – not to use weapons, but as a weapon itself, and according to what a young militant Islamist understood.
