Al-Ahbash (, , ), also known as the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects (, , AICP) is a neo-traditionalist Sufi religious movement and, in Lebanon, political party, which was founded in the mid-1980s. The group follow the teachings of Ethiopian scholar Abdullah al-Harari. Due to the group's origins and activity in Lebanon, the Ahbash have been described as the "activist expression of Lebanese Sufism." The Ahbash have been noted for their ardent criticism of conservative strains of Islam, including the Salafi movement and Wahhabism. The movement has been described as one of the "most controversial Muslim associations" among modern Islamic groups and, within Sunni Islam, opponents of the Ahbash have frequently referred to the movement as unorthodox and deviant. History The AICP was founded in the 1930s by Ahmad al-Ajuz and arrived in Lebanon in the 1950s, where "they blended Sunni and Shi'a theology with Sufi spiritualism into a doctrinal eclecticism that preached nonviolence and political quietism." The AICP remained without a leader until the 1980s when Abdullah al-Harari became the nominal head of the organization and was taken over by Al-Ahbash in 1983. Al-Ahbash was founded in the suburb of Bourj Abu Haidar, in West Beirut, as a small philanthropic and spiritualist movement among the Sunni lower classes. From there they spread throughout Lebanon to Tripoli, Akkar and Iqlim al-Kharrub in the Chouf, where they founded educational and religious institutions. Beginning in the 1990s, Ahbash propelled from a minority group to the largest Sunni religious organization in Lebanon, mainly due to Syrian government backing—having close links to Syrian intelligence. The Syrians supported and promoted the Ahbash in order to limit the influence of radical and fundamentalist Sunni movements in Lebanon. Their growth was also aided by the forcible seizure and control of many prominent mosques in West Beirut in the early 1980s, despite the protests of Dar al-Fatwa (the official body for Lebanon's Sunni Muslims). At the end of the 1990s there were close to 250,000 Ahbash members worldwide, according to a high-ranking Ahbash activist. Several public figures became Ahbash members when it emerged in France beginning in 1991, such as rapper Kery James or Abd Samad Moussaoui. On 31 August 1995, members of a Salafi jihadi group called "Osbat al-Ansar" killed the leader of Al-Ahbash, Sheikh Nizar Halabi, who was reportedly being groomed by the Syrians to become Lebanon's Grand Mufti. His murder led to a heavy-handed Syrian