a growing number of Salafist jihadists living in Europe." Described as a movement that began in Egypt in 1971, by the 1990s it has been described as a "decentralised network" of "cells", and as a "radical ideology" and "web of Islamic militants around the world connected only by their beliefs" (rather than "an organization per se"). The networks are said to be specializing in "logistical support to terrorist groups" operating across Europe that loosely follow a number of "core precepts", mainly that "man-made laws" are "illegitimate", that "theft, kidnapping, forced marriages and even the assassination of anyone who [is] not part of the group" are justified. Groups that have been described as Takfir wal-Hijra may have had little or no connection to each other. The group has been said to form "the most extreme and violent strand in the Salafist jihadist movement." The takfir of the Takfiris refers to the belief (of at least some of the movement such as Ali Ismael, the sheikh of Egypt's Al-Azhar Mosque at the time) that not only were Egyptian President at the time Gamal Abdel Nasser and his government officials apostates, but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims". According to Mamoun Fandy, an Egyptian-born professor of politics and senior fellow at the Baker Institute of Public Policy, followers are allowed to shave their beards, drink alcohol, visit topless bars and commit crimes against Westerners — all under the cloak of subterfuge. "They are the mothers and fathers of sleeping cells." They believe that the ends justify any means and, that killing other Muslims can be justified in their cause and that Western society is heathen and it is their duty to destroy it. History and activities The Jama'at al-Muslimin group, was founded by Shukri Mustafa in 1971. Originally a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mustafa had been imprisoned with other members including Sayyid Qutb, and he eventually became one of Qutb's most radical disciples. Mustafa's group gained nationwide attention in Egypt when they kidnapped and eventually executed Islamic scholar and former government minister Husayn al-Dhahabi, a vocal critic of the group, in July 1977. In the crackdown that followed, 620 alleged members of the group were arrested and 465 tried before military courts. Shukri Mustafa was himself executed the next year, in March 1978. An apocalyptic group,